Sri Lanka tour: India consistently inconsistent

By S. Dinakar

COLOMBO, SEPT. 3. It was a tour where the Indians flattered to deceive. A marvellous comeback in the one-day series followed by a meek surrender in the final, a stirring victory in the Kandy Test, after which the team lost its way quite hopelessly in the decisive match in Colombo.

A glorious knock by Yuveraj Singh here, a stunning onslaught by Virendra Sehwag there, a `one-off' match-winning Test innings by Sourav Ganguly, the odd hostile spell from Zaheer Khan...brilliant efforts they might have been, but just where is the consistency?

International cricket, whether it is Test or ODIs, boils down to how CONSISTENT a team is, day in and day out. In contrast, this Indian side works in fits and starts.

How else could we explain the seven-wicket victory in the Kandy Test sandwiched between the drubbings in Galle and Colombo. The Indians can be a dangerous side, not a `consistently' winning combination.

If we resort to the argument that this was the best the side could have done in the absence of stars, we would be taking a huge step backwards. Let's instead look at the other side of the coin. Were the youngsters good enough in the cauldron of the Test series? No, they weren't.

Hours after Muttiah Muralitharan had snuffed out India's hopes in the Colombo Test and the series, when The Hindu caught up with the off-spin wizard, he had a question to ask. ``Is the standard of first class cricket in India bad? I can understand key players missing but the replacements...when a team like Australia loses five players, five others will take their place, and the team keeps winning.''

With these simple, yet strong words, Muralitharan had conveyed the message from an opponent's perspective.

Attitude, the key

The single biggest point coach John Wright stressed upon throughout the tour was on grooming players with the right attitude even if they lacked in talent. ``We need players who would die for India on the field,'' he would say.

During the final Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground, a few cricketers appeared keener on catching the earliest flight back home. Their body language told the story.

Some of the hard facts that emerged from the series are both startling and eye-opening. In a three-Test series where there were seven hundreds from the Lankans, no Indian got to the three- figure mark.

If somebody still insists one-day cricket has not affected our Test performances, he is lying. Lacking was the resolve to dig in there, slug it out, cope with the pressure. There has to be pride, there has to be passion.

For the Indian batsmen, fed on a regular diet of spin, Muralitharan, even with his astonishing skills, should not have been an unsurmountable hurdle. The Indians allowed Murali to dominate by not attacking him enough.

And the fact that Sourav Ganguly was booed each time he walked in to bat did not help matters either. The Lankan fans were not pleased with the Indian captain's bouts of extreme aggression on the field and it showed.

Aggression in itself is not such a bad thing, and for long India needed little doses of it during the heat of the battle. However, if this quality boils over, it can send the wrong signals.

When a captain loses his equanimity, panic can set in, especially with the younger cricketers. Ganguly still has a useful record as captain, but he has to be a leader first. If he can temper his aggression, the man from Bengal might still have a future in the top job.

In this line-up Rahul Dravid is one cricketer with the kind of commitment Wright wants, but then he was submerged under a mountain of responsibility for most part. Dravid did fight bravely though, and his innings in the run-chase at Kandy was vital, the Karnataka batsman's presence at one end enabling Ganguly to fire from the other.

Openers find their feet

It was also good to see Sadagopan Ramesh, a much maligned cricketer, often for no fault of his, looking solid as a Test match opener. The southpaw displayed sound judgment outside the off-stump, and batted nice and straight for most part.

The compact Shiv Sundar Das rediscovered his touch in the Colombo Test, however, it was the Orissa batsman's horrendous swipe at Muralitharan that opened the sluice gates on day one. He is young, has the ability and should learn.

Hemang Badani and Mohammed Kaif could have so easily cemented their places in the side, but they came up short. Kaif was a touch unlucky too in Colombo, a victim of the captain's indecisiveness in running between the wickets - an area where the team disappointed.

And the time has come for India to look beyond the likes of Sameer Dighe for the wicket-keeper's slot. It is crucial to have two wicket-keepers on tours involving Test matches, where a youngster can be groomed.

Zaheer Khan produced a telling burst at Kandy, but soon struggled with injury, probably an old one. Harbhajan Singh, who tended to bowl too flat - again an influence of one-day cricket - had an extremely forgettable series, and he does have to take a hard look at his bowling, which still has match-winning qualities.

The surprise packet in the attack was comebackman Venkatesh Prasad who bowled with the heart of a lion in both the Kandy and Colombo Tests.

However, the attack was not always disciplined and had the Indians denied width to Jayasuriya at Galle, the series might have taken a different turn.

Poor strategy

Coming to the one-day series, there can be no easy answers. And when the team-management seeks quick-fix solutions, it is only worsening matters. The tangle regarding the openers was laughable, even if Sehwag made a cracking hundred in the climactic stages of the league.

The decision to go in with just three specialist bowlers was a shocking one smacking of short-term benefits, and despite the likes of Yuveraj and Sehwag doing their job, the team was always walking on thin ice. It was basically flawed thinking and showed up at the wrong time - in the final. The Lankan batsmen blazed away, and the need for an extra bowler was clearly felt.

The side is getting into serious problems with injuries too, and things do look murky here. If Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra had been battling with varying fitness problems over a period, then they should have been rested for the one-day series. The duo could have been fully fit for the more important Test campaign. All the heart-burning over the Ajit Agarkar issue with the team- management and the selectors never seeing eye to eye, was surely avoidable.

For India, the Sri Lankan tour of 2001 will go down as one of missed opportunities. And there are lessons to be learnt. If the team looks the other way, it will stumble again.

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