Play hard with the Aussies

Sriram Ranganathan

The Aussies are coming. The Aussies are coming. And they are coming to do something they have not done for a long time; win a series in India.

Arguably the best team in the world today, the Aussies command respect from cricket followers everywhere across the world. A team of tougher competitors or triers would be hard to find anywhere in the history of the game.

Probably the toughest team that the Indians will be facing at home in many years, the recent South African cricket team notwithstanding, this will be a chance for India to prove themselves as World beaters, a chance they would not again get in the near future. On a roll having won continually against Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India and the West Indies without ever looking like they would not win, the Aussies seem to have forgotten how to spell defeat. Something that the Indian captain will be looking forward to teaching them. What is required here for Indian cricket is something that can erase the bad memories of the Indian tour Down Under, which really brought out the fact that we have a long way to go before we can call ourselves champions of any sort.

For India, it is the time for quick and decisive action. Their aura of invincibility on home turf shattered by the Proteas, they have to take on the mighty Aussies with a largely inexperienced side and show that they are still a team to reckon with, at home, at least. They beat us at home, we beat them at home; we are quits. Something those bad-mouthers of the Indian team would have problems accepting but very much valid in the fair-is-fair analysis.

The Indian captain, easily the most astute captain we have had in recent times (a thousand apologies to Sachin, who may have had factors other than cricket affecting his captaincy; something Saurav has been lucky not to be burdened with), will be plotting and planning the demise of the Aussies with the new coach, New Zealander John Wright, who a thorough professional, again gives Saurav an edge that previous captains never had.

For the sake of Indian cricket, all the fans here and India's pride of winning at home, I hope they succeed.

The Indian cricket team today has several strong points besides some weak ones, if one sits back to evaluate them with an unbiased and non-cynical frame of mind. The Indians have a strong batting line up, good fast bowlers and a weak spin department. The fielding standards are of an extremely low quality. That is it in a nutshell.

To expand on that, today with Ramesh, Das and an untried Sriram, we seem to have plugged the opening gap after a long time. With a compact Das showing good temperament and hopefully carrying on in the series ahead; and with Ramesh, easily the best opening batsman we have seen in the last couple of seasons, being at home against pace and spin, we can at least look forward to some good opening stands instead of being 24 for 3 after 14 overs.

In fact, if Ramesh gets over his habit of handing over his wicket on a platter due to sheer laziness after he is done a good job of seeing through the new ball, we could easily face the Aussies eye to eye with our champion number three, four and fives coming in the form of Dravid, Sachin and Ganguly. Number six today would be mostly a fight between Kaif, Laxman and Badani, with Laxman having the edge over the other two mainly on the basis of his experience and tremendous form on Indian wickets.

True, he struggled in Australia except for that one magical innings but Laxman is someone who could be a good bet against the Aussies on home territory. Badani, having shown a very impressive cool-headedness in tight situations in the recent one-dayers would also be a candidate for the number six spot, but it remains to be seen whether he manages to edge out the experience of Laxman.

Coming to the wicket-keeping spot, despite Indian stumper Nayan Mongia's name being cleared by the BCCI fact finding Madhavan report, I would still advocate the inclusion of current wicket-keeper Vijay Dahiya for this series at least. Currently a part of the Indian team and doing well with the bat in the recent one-dayers, something that Mongia cannot do for love or money (oops!!!), Dahiya seems to be the wicket keeper of choice for some time to come, if we are serious about the wicket-keeper contributing with the bat.

Wicket-keeping skills alone counted, Mongia would be deemed to be better by many critics but today with Gilchrist, Moin and Boucher redefining the stumper's role in cricket, we cannot afford to have a wicket keeper who is a rabbit with the bat. The likes of Gilchrist being in a different class altogether, today Dahiya seems to be the best bet we have of the wicket-keeper doing something other than keeping wickets. As for his keeping, as Tony Grieg (or was it Ian Chappel?) mentioned in one of the recent matches, it is worrisome that Dahiya has pulled off some blinders and yet put down some sitters, an area where Mongia would seem to be more reliable. Mongia never pulls off blinders but he does not drop those simple takes either. A coin flip, you think? I prefer a heads we take Dahiya, tails we take Dahiya kind of toss. Taking sitters ten out of ten times is something to do with concentration than skills and that is something that can be improved in off-field sessions.

Some of the gossip appearing in the newspapers has suggested that the Indians would be going in for spinner friendly wickets with the twin objectives of negating the Aussie pacers and let our spinners run through the Aussie batsmen. I am not too sure that is exactly the way to go here.

First let us consider the meaning of the phrase "spinner friendly". Does it mean a wicket that favors spinners or does it mean a dust bowl, the two being considered to be different entities here. It being true that some of the pitches here in India are such that the Brett Lees of the world would seek shoulders to cry on and contemplate early retirement if ever told to bowl on them on a permanent basis, the thing to consider here is not how to incapacitate the Aussies but how to push home our strengths.

On the bowling front, with Kumble being "hors de combat", we really are extremely bare on the spin front. The aura of world class Indian spinners is today just that, an aura, an illusion. Even with Kumble, we don't have a world class spinner, just a world class on the spot bowler who knows how to use the pitch. Leaving Kumble aside, with Murali Karthik, Joshi, Harbhajan, Sharandeep and Venkatapathy Raju (suddenly his name comes up, after all these years, amazing!!!) we really don't have a spinning option to rely upon.

Who among Karthik, Joshi and Sharandeep has Ganguly shown a good deal of faith with in recent times? Also look at it this way; to which of these bowlers would the silly point and forward short leg fielders feel confident standing close to the bat? With Kumble, though he is no longer the deadly bowler of some seasons back, at least the fielders know where the ball is going to pitch most of the time. That is the beauty of the guy, he is so dead on target, he is admirable. But of course, he is not there. So who then?

The Aussies on the other hand have Warne, MacGill and Miller in their ranks who are in the genius (in case of Warne) to very good (MacGill) to good recent performances (Miller) categories. Whatever hammering Warne may have gotten last time he was in India, we should not blind ourselves to the fact that he is an excellent bowler and to dismiss him as someone Tendulkar can take apart would be folly of the highest order. In the spin-bowling department at least, the Aussies have a lot more variety than we do and to make ourselves happy by reflecting on our world-class-spinners theory would be playing into the opposition's hands.

On the other hand, look at the pace-bowling department. The idea of having fast bowlers in the team is to have them bowl fast, and of course accurate. With Srinath, Agarkar and Zaheer, we have three bowlers today who can do just that; bowl fast that is. The accuracy part is something that depends solely on their bowling on the day.

Others like Iqbal Siddiqui, Ashish Nehra and Santosh Saxena producing good performances in the recent domestic matches, India, traditionally a spinners dominated powerhouse, actually seems well stocked in the pace department though the three later named gentlemen are hampered by their total non-exposure to quality cricket. Venkatesh Prasad being a non-fast non-spin option also gives me a reason to think that a slow spinner friendly pitch may not be quite the way to go.

Realistically speaking, with the confidence shown in Agarkar by team management and selectors alike, the three fast bowlers named above would definitely form part of the line up. What is to be seen is whether the team goes in for a five bowlers-five batsmen-one wicket-keeper policy or whether it goes in for a four bowlers-six batsmen-one wicket-keeper policy. If finally we go into the matches with the wicket-keeper opening then it just means that reasoning has gone to the dogs and we can all do a Lele and predict a whitewash, brown-wash, whatever-wash.

Preferring not to consider the last named option, I would prefer to go into all matches with a six batsmen-four bowlers line up with Dahiya having instructions that his job does not end with the finishing of the opposition batting. We have to see that with the Aussies having the depth in batting that anyone in International cricket would give their eye-teeth for, we have the ability to chase and overhaul them every time. The possibility of bowling out the opposition cheaply with five bowlers is an option only when we have five class bowlers, which we do not currently have. If we do go in with five bowlers, one bowler will end up not bowling a lot, scoring even less and generally being an ornament in the field. We may have got away with it with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe but we surely will not get away with it against Australia.

Thus having four regular bowlers and three of them probably being the fast men, why should we be thinking of having slow and spinner friendly wickets, let alone dust bowls which might make Srinath contemplate giving up Test cricket too and make Zaheer sorry he chose to be a fast bowler?

The Aussies have fast bowlers in McGrath, Lee and Gillespie but so do we. The Aussies have world class spinners but we do not. Lets take them on in conditions where we can match the Aussies and that is tracks that will assist the fast bowlers too. Not really bouncy ones else our batsmen would be up against it, but ones with decent carry and movement.

Surely in the Big Three, we have batsmen who can take on the firepower of the Aussie fast bowlers and in Ramesh at least we have an opener who can comfortably play fast bowling, as he showed in Australia before having his hand broken by a fast bowler. Ironic? Nope, Just Lee. Das, with his technique ought to do good too, fingers crossed, and with the number six in Laxman/Badani, all rounder Agarkar (he has a few scores to settle with the Aussies for making him a quacking laughing stock down under) and the wicket-keeper contributing something substantial rather than the meek submission these slots come up with so consistently, we can have an even chance of out-batting Australia. Any additions by the wasted batting talent Srinath, the capable-of-big-bigger-biggest-hitting Zaheer and the spinner would be bonuses. On the spinner front it must be mentioned that Joshi is another wasted batting talent while Harbhajan is showing some skills with the bat in recent domestic matches.

Finally forget the awesome recent records of the Aussies, forget the fearsome Warne, McGrath and Lee. Forget Adam Gilchrist who at number seven, must surely make the opposition captain want to pull his hair in frustration at the thought of getting yet another top order batsman out.

Finally, where the difference is going to come up is in the attitude of the two teams and the fielding support given to the bowlers, areas where the Aussies are miles ahead of us. For us to beat the Aussies, we have to look at smashing them and believe we can do it. We cannot go defensive, play on poor pitches and expect them to fold up and die. This Australian team is a team that adjusts easily, one of their strongest points, and they will adjust to the conditions, whatever they might be. We have to attack them and outplay them. We have to hold all catches that come our way and hit the wickets every time a chance for a run out occurs. We can be sure the Aussies will every time.

If the bowling game plan is to revolve around our fast men then our slip fielding must improve dramatically else it won't do any good our fast bowlers getting nicks and edges. Something that is easily accomplished during practice if the will to do so is there and the effort put in honestly.

The batting and the bowling will sort itself out, with nobody being able to do anything if a top batsman loses form totally as happened to Dravid on the Aussie tour or if the top bowler suddenly loses rhythm and starts pitching every other ball short and wide. The batting is something that the prime batsmen mainly handle, the bowling is something only the bowlers handle, but fielding is something all eleven men are responsible for and so is the attitude.

So let's play aggressive cricket, glare at the Aussies and make them feel like maggots by thumping them for fours and stopping their best shots in the inner circle. Let's forget the fines handed out so generously to the sub-continent teams as reward for their aggression. If we win the series, I am sure boxes kept at supermarkets to collect money for paying the fines would fill up quickly. Let's play to our strengths and not worry about what the Aussies have and what they do not have. It is superficial since they have almost everything. Let us be the ones to teach the Aussies that defeat spells d-e-f-e-a-t.

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