By Ashis Ray, IANS
Leeds : Rumblings of discontent have spread in the Indian camp after the morale deflating defeat at the hands of England in the fourth one-day international in Manchester Thursday to trail 1-3 in the best of seven matches. India must now win the remaining three games in order not to lose the series.
On record, captain Rahul Dravid complained of fielding hurting the Indians. Unofficially, the selection of the original squad is being questioned by officials accompanying the team, who claim this is also the view of key members of the playing party.
The finger is being pointed at Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, for his refusal to cull the Dad’s Army in the side, of not picking players who are good fielders and ignoring the importance of an all-rounder.
Interestingly, such lacunae in the composition were not cited after India narrowly beat South Africa two months ago. Now that the limitations have been laid threadbare by a resurgent England side, the blame game has begun.
Vengsarkar is being held responsible for the continued exclusions of Mohammed Kaif, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan – all excellent or good fielders.
In the XI that represented India at Manchester, only two – Yuvraj Singh and Piyush Chawla – could be bracketed as fieldsmen of acceptable standards in a limited overs situation, with Ajit Agarkar, Sachin Tendulkar and Dinesh Karthik falling into the ‘adequate’ category.
Since the five-bowler structure was a success against South Africa – and if this was going to be pursued – the 15 had one batsman too many.
India played seven batsmen in the 1st ODI, but reverted to five bowlers in the second encounter, which fetched victory, albeit narrowly.
But an error in not batting first in the third match and an inability to finish the job in the fourth meeting after pinning England down at 114 for seven – still needing 99 runs to win – have virtually marginalised India in the series.
A five-bowler combination works best if at least one of the leather merchants is a genuine all-rounder. Indeed, England not only have Andrew Flintoff to fit this description, but Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara and Stuart Broad, too, in varying degrees.
At Manchester, the Englishmen had a recognised batsman in the last mentioned at number nine. Such depth inevitably makes a difference – remember India’s World Cup and World Championship winning units of 1983 and 1985!
Powar has undoubtedly performed like an old school off-spinner, but has failed to build on his runs at the domestic level. Agarkar, too, a test centurion at Lord’s in 2002, has demonstrated little application. In contrast, if a good coach can work on Chawla, there appears to be potential here.
On the eve of the critical fifth ODI, pressure mounted on Dravid to play seven batsmen. If Zaheer Khan fails to recover from a twisted ankle, this might open the door for such a switch in policy, for it would be surprising if, after bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad’s criticism, Munaf Patel is included as a replacement.
With three batsmen – Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma – twiddling their thumbs most of the time if not the entire series, one of them could be pencilled in.
This city’s Headingley ground is the only English venue where India have two test wins to their credit. Here, the ball still moves under cloud cover – unless it’s too cold and dry, which it could be – but becomes a batsmen’s haven under strong sunshine. A tricky task lies ahead of India in what’s forecast to be changeable weather conditions.