INDIA’S batting in the just concluded one-day series with New Zealand was nothing short of awesome. The way the batsmen tore into the bowling right from the first ball was thrilling and made for great viewing. With the short boundaries there were plenty of fours and also a record number of sixes. With that performance in view and the arrival of the Test players like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman it was but natural that the talk in Kiwiland should turn to whether this Indian batting lineup is the best to have visited their shores.
The debate got further boost when Sourav Ganguly differed with the view expressed by Sachin Tendulkar that this is the best batting lineup that he has been part of since he started playing in 1989-90. The little champion did not make it clear if he was referring to the one-day team or also including the Test batsmen he has played with, but his observation is not to be taken lightly for the simple reason that he is not given to making statements just for the heck of it but does so after due consideration and lots of thought. Comparisons are odious and never fair simply because of the difference in playing conditions and the quality of the opposition which will always be debated. There is also the difference in the way the red ball and white ball behavior as also the laws of the game which undergo change to suit the requirements of the hour. There is also another factor which makes a huge difference, umpiring. Amazingly and in a way refreshingly this aspect was brought out by former Kiwi wicketkeeper Warren Lees who also had a spell as the coach of their national team. He rates the Australian team of the 1970s including the Chappell brothers, Doug Walters, Keith Stackpole, etc as the better batting lineup. His reasoning being that the Kiwi attack of the Hadlee brothers, Richard Collinge, Hedley Howarth was a superior attack to the current one which he rates as a ‘c’ class attack and that the Australians had to “do it against the superior attack on green pitches and score against our umpires too and I don’t think I need to say anything more on that point.”
This is not only a revealing but also an incredibly honest statement and Lees has gone up several notches in my estimation for his statement. Before the concept of third country umpires was accepted by the international cricketing community, it was ‘de rigueur’ to blame lack of success in the sub-continent on the umpiring.
Yes the umpiring in the sub-continent wasn’t great but if anything they tended to give decisions in favor of visiting teams so that they would get a favorable report from their captain. But the visitors and especially their media would go to town accusing them of cheating.
When we found out that the umpires in other countries were also making obvious errors and that too at times when the match was delicately poised we were expecting that to be reported by the Indian media that was covering the tour. True there were not as many people covering tours then as now but still we thought that there should have been mention if only to give a correct picture to the fans back home. It used to be a huge disappointment not to see that being mentioned. In the local media these mistakes would be called human errors which again used to be infuriating simply because similar errors by Indian umpires would get headlines like ‘butchers of Bombay and cheats’ etc. One thought that if not for the players’ sake but at least for the Indian umpiring fraternity that could have been mentioned by our media when on tour.
Now that Lees has conceded that point and remember he was a wicketkeeper so he would have had a great view from behind the stumps. One feels a lot better because as he said it was tough to get runs when the umpiring is diabolical like it used to be overseas but mainly in New Zealand. Believe me India would have had many more overseas wins if the umpiring was good but as stated earlier the umpires there were smart enough to make the crucial decision in favor of the home team when the match was nicely poised.
Talking of umpires, Steve Bucknor retires at the end of the third and final Test match between South Africa and Australia but even as he is going he has had a go at BCCI for ostensibly getting him sacked from the Perth Test match on India’s tour to Australia in 2007-8. He has cited that he had 94% correct percentage ratio in that game. That however can be easily explained since every single appeal is taken into account so if in a day’s play there have been 25 appeals made and he has got two wrong then he has a 92%correct percentage ratio. What this doesn’t take into account is the impact of the wrong decision on the game. In the last ICC Cricket Committee meeting, I did try to bring this aspect for consideration when deciding how good an umpire has been, but it wasn’t accepted. Most decisions in the day are easy but it is when the match is finely balanced that the umpire needs to get his decision spot on, else he has helped turn the course of the game. Hopefully this aspect will be given a bit more thought than it was in the last meeting for if anything spoils relations between teams, it is bad umpiring which leads to tempers being lost and ill advised words coming forth from players.
