BOMBAY, 10 May — With met offices now directed by satellites, the weathercock is an extinct "bird." To followers of the fortunes of Indian cricket, however, it still exists and turns with the changing winds.
It was all things nice and sweet, when India beat the West Indies in the second Test at Port-of-Spain. The ecstatic reaction knew no bounds and a victory in the Caribbeans after 26 years was hailed by all and sundry as if it was the greatest thing to happen to the game in recent years.
Yesterday’s carping critics of Saurav Ganguly turned so swiftly chameleonic that they rated him the greatest Indian captain on foreign soil. In a crazy comparison, the likes of Lala Amarnath, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Ajit Wadekar were forgotten. In just about a week, the dream team came down with a thud in the estimation of the very same persons who had jumped on the bandwagon of celebration. A defeat inside of three-and-a-half days in Barbados had them once again sharpening their knives. What is surprising is that these included some former players now turned experts.
With due respect to his status of one of the greatest batsmen in the subcontinent and one of the best openers in the world, Sunil Gavaskar may have contradicted himself in hitting out as some of the leading players in the present Indian team. Not the one to mince words, either spoken or written, Gavaskar lay the blame squarely on Sachin Tendulkar and even went to the extent of finding a technical flaw in his batting technique.
"Sachin Tendulkar has become more vulnerable to falling leg before because of a technical flaw that has crept into his batting," according to Gavaskar. India’s leading batsman has been dismissed lbw four times in five innings in the current Test series in the West Indies and failed to reach double figures in his side’s 10-wicket defeat in the third Test on Sunday.
"What is of concern is that he is playing across the line so much," former Indian skipper Gavaskar wrote in a column. "He is moving back and across, something he rarely did before. By doing that, he is opening his right shoulder a bit and that is bringing his bat down at an angle unlike the impeccably straight way it usually comes down earlier.
"This is only a slight movement but it is making him play across the line and when he misses the line, he is a sitting duck for an lbw decision." "Once he stays still and moves only after the ball is delivered, it will be all right."
Tendulkar, widely regarded as the world’s best batsman, hit his 29th Test hundred — five less than Gavaskar’s world record — to lift India to their first victory in the second Trinidad Test, their first in the Caribbean for 26 years. But he was out for a duck in the second innings of the Trinidad game before falling cheaply in Barbados both times as West Indies bounced back to level the five-match series.
Was Gavaskar, a known admirer of Tendulkar, provoked to find a technical flaw in the batting technique on account of the repeated failure of the champion batsman? Just a few days earlier, when Tendulkar had equaled Bradman’s achievement of knocking up 29 Test centuries, a feat only surpassed by Gavaskar himself, the Little Master had described his younger celebrity’s batting as being flawless and the only one capable of breaking his batting record of 34 Test centuries. Gavaskar is perhaps the only former player who can find faults with the technique of even the best because he was the closest to perfection amongst the leading batsmen of the game. But why did he not, in the same breath, find fault with policy of compromises that is foolishly followed by the team management, with the skipper playing a dominant role?
It was only after tremendous pressure from critics, the selectors back home and even his own colleagues, was a specialist opener Wasim Jaffer was given a break as an opener. How well that move worked is borne out by the fact that the Indians finally had the kind of start that they had been yearning for.
The biggest blunder that is being committed by the team is to keep Anil Kumble out. India’s leading wicket-taker after Kapil Dev and only the second bowler in history to capture all ten wickets in an innings has not only dropped for the first three Tests but was also humiliated to a point where there is a hint of a split in the team.
Just an hour before the start of the third Test at Bridgetown, vice captain, after consulting coach John Wright, informed Kumble that he was in the playing eleven. Kumble quickly changed into his playing clothes and had a serious workout in the nets. It was only after the toss, did he learn that he was not playing. Skipper Ganguly did not even have the courtesy to inform him about that. Other members of the team too were unhappy about this development. It need hardly be stressed that only a happy, cohesive unit can bring out the best in terms of teamwork.
