India under siege
Dileep Premachandran
There was a somewhat sombre note to the proceedings at India's press
conference this morning. With 24 hours to go to the third and final Test,
both Sourav Ganguly and John Wright have weighty matters on their minds and
as a member of the media's foreign legion told me, "Ganguly seems to be
everywhere but here".
Although the team gave a spluttering performance at Ahmedabad, the captain's
predicament is almost entirely down to his personal form, or rather the lack
of it. Those boundaries off Andy Flintoff at the fag-end of the second Test
- with nothing at stake but boring old statistics - fooled no one. Till
Ganguly can walk through the storm and find the blue sky, as Mark Taylor did
after a two-year horror run, the knives of the media will keep carving
intricate patterns on his back.
Wright, who has the unstinting support of all his players, will find out in
less than a week if his services are deemed surplus to requirements by
Jagmohan Dalmiya. Now that Indian cricket's big cheese has his sights
trained on Wright, there is a siege mentality about this Indian team that is
more in keeping with a team heading for defeat and not one holding a 1-0
lead.
The newly-laid pitch at the Chinnaswamy stadium is an unknown quantity and
that explains India's reluctance to take risks. A member of the Karnataka
Cricket Association (KCA) told me that it is their aim eventually to have
the pitch here resemble an Australian one - fast, true and bouncy. That's
certainly not music to Indian ears, not with our record on such tracks.
except that it would give the batsmen some practice.
For the moment though, the greenish tinge is mere window-dressing on a hard
and flat track that promises to give the batsmen plenty of Christmas
presents. Bangalore hasn't been a happy stomping ground for India in recent
times and England will take heart from the manner in which Nicky Boje ran
through the hosts two seasons ago. Ashley Giles is twice the bowler that
Boje is but at the same time, the English batsmen have done nothing to
suggest that they've worked out the Indian spinners the way South Africa
did.
For India, the core group of players has to deliver. Runs have to be made
with more consistency and wickets thrown away with less enthusiasm. And as
Javagal Srinath, who had a miserable time in Ahmedabad, will tell you, it
helps when you hold your catches.
For all the talk of crisis, India are likely to make only the one change, if
any. Sarandeep Singh will come in for Tinu Yohannan if the think-tank
decides that a spinning trident will unlock England. Deep Dasgupta has had a
shocking time of it behind the stumps but his resilient batting at the top
of the order allows him to fight another day.
If local hero Anil Kumble can pick up wicket No. 300 and engineer another
home triumph, the crisis will blow over - momentarily. You only need to take
one look at Ganguly and Wright to understand the importance of this match. A
drawn series against England would be seen as a massive step back and heads
will roll. It's easy to imagine India playing this game with Dalmiya's
raised scimitar casting an ugly shadow over them.
India (probable): 1 Shiv Sunder Das, 2 Deep Dasgupta (wk), 3 Rahul Dravid, 4
Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 6 VVS Laxman, 7 Virender Sehwag,
8 Anil Kumble, 9 Javagal Srinath, 10 Harbhajan Singh, 11 Sarandeep Singh.
Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com India.
Look out for full coverage of the third Test from 9.30am Indian time (4am GMT) on
Wednesday, with bulletins from S Rajesh and Lawrence Booth, verdicts from
Dileep Premachandran and roving reports from Tanya Aldred.
