The Test case that is `Wankhede'

THREE DAYS to go and three Tests to win! That is the moony mirage unfolding before Steve Waugh and his Australia as they head for the first Test at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium, starting Tuesday. A clean sweep, on dusty Indian wickets, is not going to be such a `handout' as was bending the West Indies to 5-0 Aussie will on their own tracks in their own peculiar home-grounded milieu. Steve Waugh well knows this. I see, in fact, no confusion at all in this indomitable Aussie captain's mindscape, now that the challenge is `live' via Channel 9 (with Doordarshan as our dubious monitor). That Fat Cat of Umpires, David Shepherd, was there at the Wankhede Stadium, this time last year, for the first Test against South Africa. So was S. Venkatraghavan there, earning a Brownie point as an umpire of matching skills. These two men of standing are now on the scene, afresh, in the Test case that is `Wankhede'. A Test- case because, where I find Steve Waugh clear-headed in his aims and objects, Sourav Ganguly I discover to be only as fiercely motivated as the Aussie skipper.

Determination is one thing, discrimination another. Discerning enough Sourav, by now, should have been in divining that there is no way spin is going to be our strong suit in the needle series ahead. In fact, as India's stabilising captain, Sourav was expected to have acquired an insight into Anil Kumble's possibly not being in a physical position to `shoulder' the responsibility of leading the spinning way. Envisioning this prospect of the sword-arm of our spin being so blunted, Sourav should have thought twice before rushing to the press with that piece of chimera about turning tracks for all three Tests. As the boomerang came in the shape of the `nil' part of Anil, the media predictably blew up the issue of homespun wickets for overstatement and counter-statement. The outcome is the kind of confused thinking that could develop into the fatal flaw in our outlook on how to approach a Test series already posing a tough enough face-off.

``Why this abiding `spin fixation'?'' I ask Sourav and all others raising the matter. Is there not, already back, someone called Javagal Srinath - considered by Imran Khan to be the most underrated fastie in world cricket - fit and rarin' to go? Once Sourav knew that Kumble could be an inspirational force only at the nets, was it not the signal for our think tank (now joined by John Wright) to look to, say, `doing a Sunil'? Even established writers have submitted that, each time we won over Australia at home, it was so only with spin.

Arrant nonsense! When Sunil Gavaskar first took charge against Alvin Kallicharran's West Indies, our world-famous spin trio already stood destroyed by Zaheer Abbas (176 and 96; 235 and 34 not out; 42) and Javed Miandad (154 and 6 not out; 35; 100 and 62 not out) during that momentous three-Test series in Pakistan (October-November 1978). That was the rueful rubber in which a certain Kapil Dev had debuted for India, attracting quick-fire notice even while claiming but 7 victims at 60.86 each. And Sunil Gavaskar (as he virtually deposed Bishan Singh Bedi - on vivid Pakistan TV itself - with Test knocks of 89 and 8 not out; 5 and 97; 111 and 137) took mental note of the fact that India at long last had, in greyhound Kapil straining at the leash, a snarling sniffer venturing to superimpose the four letters of pace on the four letters of spin.

Yet Sunil did not hurry or harry Kapil. Not even when Gavaskar became India's captain after Bedi. Sunil let Kapil strike his own rhythm against the Packer-depleted West Indies, as Dev's 17 wickets, in that 6- Test series, came at 33.00 each. That 1978-79 series against Kallicharran's West Indies at home was, in fact, the one in which we first began to feel the pinch of Pakistan's having broken up our super spin combo of Prasanna, Bedi and Chandra. And it was against the same Pakistan, a year later in India (1979-80), that Sunil unleashed Kapil Dev in all his coiled fury for this Haryana harpoon to lance 32 victims at just 17.68 each. A superstar- turn that enabled India to win that `grudge series' 2-0 - as Pakistan had done in their terrain, late in 1978.

Indeed, the process of seasoning Kapil Dev (for the renewing Pakistan fray) had begun even earlier. Here is where Kim Hughes' Australia came in handy for the daring experiment of switching the Haryanvi accent to pace in the Indian armour. The function of spin now, as Sunil saw it, was essentially to complete the Kapil hatchet job. Of course Kapil Dev was already a world-class quick in the making by then. Where Sourav already has a world-class asset in Javagal Srinath. And it is around Srinath, now, that Sourav has imaginatively to re-fashion India's Kumble-less task force. No doubt this Australian team, masterminded by Steve Waugh, is not the style of Packer-smashed outfit that Kim Hughes' side (touring here in 1979-80 just before Pakistan) was. But then Javagal Srinath is no spring chicken either.

Kapil Dev, for his nippy part, certainly cut through Kim Hughes' Australia in that 6-Test series of 1979-80. And that long-drawn encounter against Australia, at home, is vital to drive home my point that Indian spin, now, has largely to be supportive of the pace at Sourav's command. It has, in other words, to be an attack spearheaded by Srinath, for the spinners to follow up - the exact way Kapil Dev then did the innings- prising job, with his pungent pace, for Dilip Doshi to bring up the effective rear, with his pinpoint spin, against Kim Hughes' Australia.

Chennai and Chepauk would still be carrying memories of the first Test (of 1979-80), against Australia, not only for the fact that Hindi cricket commentary came to be launched with that series opener! It was with that Chepauk Test vs Australia (on Tuesday, September 11, 1979) that Sunil won his argument (with our selectors) that the parsimonious left arm of Dilip Doshi alone had, by then, to be the foil to the gnarled spin of S. Venkatraghavan at the other end. Gradually, in that series against Australia, even Venkat came to be eased out for Shivlal Yadav to take over! If Sunil tended to rein in fresher Shivlal Yadav, if he used the wily Dilip Doshi primarily to complete the demolition job begun by Kapil Dev, it is because Gavaskar was working to a plan. Sunil's game plan was no longer to have, in our Test campaign, a spinner who would royally `buy' his wickets - Prasanna-Bedi parabolic style! It was to this end that the sharper and flatter trajectory of Dilip Doshi was favoured. Usurer Sunil no more wanted spinners who bowled like millionaires. Because Gavaskar had concluded that our batsmen never could be trusted to put up the scale of total such aristocratic slowies would need to bowl against.

This was far-seeing, result-oriented thinking by the Indian captain, so that there is, surely, a lesson here, somewhere, for Sourav. When Steve Waugh's Australia is going to bombard us with pace even on our own wickets, slotting Shane Warne and Colin Miller as `finishers' in the ring, Sourav too has to attack with Srinath (plus whoever), harnessing such pace to the calibre of spin we now have. Sunil Gavaskar, as captain, had the savvy to see that our flighty spin trio was habituated to trading runs for wickets. At the psychological moment that mattered, therefore, Sunil strategically switched the focus, in India's line of attack, to pace from spin. It was thus Sunil who gave thoroughbred Kapil Dev his head as our new warhead. Side by side, Sunil devised the spartan spin of Dilip Doshi as the ideal left- handed counterweight to the revving `right' of Kapil Dev.

Against Kim Hughes' Australia, even as Kapil Dev struck tempestuously early, Dilip Doshi never lagged behind. As the acme of accuracy, Dilip Doshi came up, here, with a 6-Test series analysis of 306.2-87-630-27 (each wicket at 23.33) to set off Kapil Dev's 224-51-626-28 (each victim at 22.35). Figures that (with two 5-wicket hauls, in an innings, for each) proved conclusive in helping Sunil's India clinch that rubber 2-0 against Australia - as the tone-setting prelude to a like-margin win over mightier Pakistan.

Sunil thus used Kim Hughes' Australia as the springboard for mounting that memorable 2-0 assault on Asif Iqbal's Pakistan by allying the tighter spin of Dilip Doshi to the effervescent pace of Kapil Dev. Likewise should Sourav now begin looking upon Javagal Srinath as his main `wickety' weapon, while experimenting with the neo-spin at his disposal in an effort to discover a fresh Kapil-Dilip type of combination. L. Sivaramakrishnan is on record as noting how once, while he was fielding, Sunil walked up to him and asked whether he had been thinking of what precisely he would be bowling if he brought him on as next change!

That set Siva's mind furiously working. So is the onus on Sourav now (uncluttered by thoughts of Ek pyaar ka Naghma hai!) to tune with our new line of spinners by having them thinking on their feet, in the field, even as Javagal Srinath demonstrates that it is not Aussie pace alone that has the batsman's edge. The stage to bemoan our lack of quality spin is past. The spot endeavour has to be to make creative use of such spin resources as we have. For this, it is vital that Sourav gets his attacking priorities right by recognising that it is Javagal Srinath who holds the key - as we lock horns with the Ugly Aussie condescendingly tending to look upon `Wankhede' as our Test of weakness.

RAJU BHARATAN

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