BOMBAY, 19 March 2004 — You can combat the toughest opposition, if you are as fit as the other, but you cannot fight injuries within and on you, whatever you class and ability. This adage is proving to be just the bugbear for the Indian cricket team in the last couple of years, perhaps more so now.
This problem is not so much with the batsmen, even though both Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman, had to sit out a couple of series in the last two or three seasons. In fact, Tendulkar has had more than his share of injuries, from back to foot to hand. Being the seniormost player in terms of his tenure in the Indian team, you have to allow for the usual wear and tear. But whenever he has returned, he has been at his best, in terms of both fitness and his game.
The problem of fitness, or rather the lack of it, is more acute with India’s bowlers and that too when that department appears to be at its weakest in several years. In Australia recently, India had to do without the full services of the leading spinners, Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble, and later had to leave out Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra on the recurrence of their old injuries.
On the tour of Pakistan, the Indian team, which has seen both Harbhajan and Kumble missing out, is now faced with the forced home-return of Ashish Nehra, after playing only two matches. The fact that he had played a no small role in India’s overall stupendous peformances so far, must surely hit the Indian team hard.
The injury-prone Nehra was, in fact, a doubtful starter for the Pakistan tour on account of his recurring ankle injury. He had to pass a last minute match-fitness test by taking part in a domestic tournament while all other players were in the training camp.
After bowling fabulously at the “death,” in the first One-Dayer in Karachi and enabling India to win, he is again on the injured list. The team management took a chance with him and played him at Rawalpindi. The man who had defied a bad ankle, however, has to go out again, this time with a hand injury. While fielding, he tore the webbing between the index and the middle finger of his left-hand, which is his bowling arm. He will be out for at least two weeks. So a replacement has been provided in the form of Delhi medium-pacer Amit Bhandari.
The question that is being asked by many is that why Irfan Pathan, who had made such a fine impression in Australia, and earlier in Pakistan with the Under-19 Asia Cup team, is not being included in the playing eleven. Now that his inclusion is obvious with Nehra’s return, why send another medium-pacer. The reasoning for this is that Zaheer Khan is himself on a very shaky wicket with regard to the state of his hamstring injury. In the first match, he left the field for treatment and when he returned on the field, he was not allowed to bowl, as he had to be on the ground for the period that he was off it.
His bowling performance is still not up to the mark, mainly because of the fact that he is not fully fit. Both sides at the present are struggling with their bowling on the flat wickets in Pakistan. At least in the second match at Pindi, the Pakistanis bowled performed much better. Not only did the pace of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Sami came to the fore, but also the leg-spin of Shahid Afridi, for whom it was a magnificent return to the Pakistan team after almost a year.
India’s bowling is once again going to be badly affected. That would mean so much more pressure on the batsmen. But for Sachin, almost the much-acclaimed Indian batting more or less failed. This cannot be any more inspiring for the bowlers.
The outcome of both the matches, enthralling and thrilling as they were, have proved one important point in limited-overs cricket. That is: However strong a batting side you have, it is easier to set a target than chase one.
