By Ashis Ray, IANS
Leeds : Cricket is a game of uncertainties and India’s engagements on the current tour have been even more unpredictable. The Indians have caused two upsets by beating South Africa in one-dayers and England in Test matches. Now, when their experience was expected to prevail in ODIs against the Englishmen, they are still awkwardly trailing 2-3 with two to play.
(India won the fifth one-dayer here Sunday, beating England by 38 runs. The remaining two matches will be played at the Kennington Oval on Wednesday and at Lord’s Saturday.)
Sports psychologists think that defeat when victory was a foregone conclusion can be quite damaging to morale. This is precisely what occurred in the fourth encounter at Manchester. Yet, when the tourists crossed the Pennine mountain range from west to east to confront England here (on Sunday), India succeeded in halting the home side’s momentum.
It is, of course, premature to surmise that the momentum has been reversed. Akin to India’s win in the second meeting at Bristol, this was founded on the might of their batting. Once the visitors amassed 324 for six – thanks mainly to the brilliance of Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly – England were virtually batted out of the contest.
Therefore, it’s a harsh reality that India can only subdue England if the batting skyrockets. The bowling is mostly hit and miss; while the catching and fielding continue to be a complete miss!
Tragically, India’s most consistent bowler – off-spinner Ramesh Powar – is otherwise a roller on the field. Zaheer Khan, the team’s second most reliable bowler (who was distinctly unlucky not to earn greater rewards in the fifth ODI), is also, other than this, a slowcoach. Strangely, Ajit Agarkar, among the better fieldsmen, dropped a sitter.
Rahul Dravid attributed Agarkar’s lapse to swirling winds, which also explained why Mahendra Dhoni almost dropped the skier from Jon Lewis. But the captain refrained from defending the overall performance, which included Tendulkar and Ganguly spilling chances.
Dravid, a proponent of the five-bowler combination, was not prepared to concede that the seven-batsman formula had worked for India. His argument was, if India well, then it doesn’t make a difference. He stressed that the seventh batsman was hardly utilised on Sunday.
There was some controversy at the commencement of the match as to why an apparently healthy Rudra Pratap Singh was ignored, when Zaheer’s fitness was in doubt even on the eve of the match. But it was perhaps wise to opt for experience; and the ball that removed the dangerous Kevin Pietersen (who has notably averaged 52 in ODIs, but is experiencing a horrible series against the Indians) was a beauty.
With Gautam Gambhir notching up a half century, albeit after offering two catches, his place may be temporarily secure. He is also a decent fielder. Where India’s main quandary is how to contain the opposition or defend a score – Paul Collingwood was ominously threatening to breach the seeming impregnability of the tourists’ total – any measure to alleviate the fundamental problem should be welcome. The ailment lies in the original selection of the squad.