da poker： When a team has so many factors going against them, it is imperativethat nothing is done to weaken the side further
Partab Ramchand10-Nov-2001The South African victory in the first Test was expected. What wasunexpected was a nine-wicket win with more than a day to spare.
When a team has so many factors going against them, it isimperative that nothing is done to weaken the side further. Thestrongest possible outfit must be played, the batsmen and bowlers mustdo their job in exemplary fashion, and half-chances have to be takenin the field.
There were really too many factors ranged against the Indians on theeve of the game. For one thing, there was the wide disparity in thepast records. Not having won even one of the seven Tests in SouthAfrica over the two previous visits, the Indians were at a seriouspsychological disadvantage. The South Africans, besides being aformidable outfit at home, were also aware that they had bearded theirrivals in their own den, sweeping a two-Test series in India 20 monthsago. Secondly, the visitors were badly affected by the pre-Test tourgame being washed out. The right build up is all-important, and a oneday competition is hardly the right way to prepare for a Test series.Moreover, there was nothing in India’s recent away record in Zimbabweand Sri Lanka to inspire confidence.When a team has so many factors going against them, it is imperativethat nothing is done to weaken the side further. The strongestpossible outfit must be played, the batsmen and bowlers must do theirjob in exemplary fashion, and half-chances have to be taken in thefield. Then, with some luck, maybe the Test can be saved.Unfortunately, things did not quite work out that way. True, eve-ofthe-match injuries to Sameer Dighe and Harbhajan Singh were, as thecliché goes, circumstances beyond anyone’s control. But Dighe couldnot have done any better than Deep Dasgupta, who in fact had a fairlygood match, and Harbhajan’s presence would not have made muchdifference to the final result. So marked was the difference betweenthe two sides in their approach that, at most, the victory marginmight not have been so wide and the match might have gone to the fifthday. For, if anything, the problem lay more with the batting than thebowling.True, the bowling was generally way off the mark. When the bowlersconcede a total of 563, it does put pressure on the batsmen. Certainlythe bowling quartet three of whom conceded over 100 runs each andthe fourth gave away 98 will not remember Bloemfontein with anysense of pride or satisfaction, even though Javagal Srinath emergedwith some credit. But then, what are the other options available tothe team management? The attack has to have two seamers and twospinners, and this would have been the case had Harbhajan been fit.But the seam attack is so weak that Anil Kumble and Harbhajan wouldhave to be at their absolute devastating best to do an adequate coverup job. Kumble would have to rework the Kotla magic of 1999 andHarbhajan the kind of wonders he pulled off against Australia earlierthis year. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, these are once in alifetime achievements.And now to the batting. I wonder whose bright idea it was to ask RahulDravid to open the batting. He is not a guinea pig to be tested in arole in which he has already shown his distaste and in which positionhis record is woeful. In the past, the guinea pigs were players likeNayan Mongia and MSK Prasad and even VVS Laxman before he came goodin the middle order. Since when are highly successful middle-orderbatsmen, established players who are among the top two or threebatsmen in the team, with an average of 50 plus, used for lab tests?Let us stop these foolish experiments pronto. A specialist openingbatsman has been picked for the tour. Does he not deserve a chance?A disturbing point to ponder over is that there are not many optionsfor the team management as regards the composition of the finalplaying eleven. In the absence of an all-rounder, the only two choicesare six batsmen and four bowlers or five batsmen and five bowlers.Both options are fraught with danger given the Indian team’sinconsistency. But having gone in for the first choice and lost badly,perhaps there is no way out but to opt for the second choice, hope forthe five bowlers to dismiss South Africa twice, and hope that the fivebatsmen avoid the mistakes they made in the first Test. Or is thishoping for too much?