Letter of the Day

We can learn from the Poms

Yes, I believe that we can learn a thing or two from the POMS. 'Discipline is what should make the difference' - that's what Dada had said on the eve of the second test and that's exactly what I am trying to say here. Our players need to get more disciplined, especially the bowlers. We all agree that the English attack is nothing more than mediocre. In fact I'll say that other than the Indians in the recent past when we missed both Kumble and Srinath due to injuries and then Zaheer and Nehra too for a few series, probably the England is the only other team who is unable to play the same set of bowlers for a long period of time. They have been forced to include new bowlers due to injuries to their frontline bowlers, and yet they have been successful in terms of the results. And here I am not only talking about their performance against us. They have done reasonably well in their away tours in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and even in India where they came back very strongly after losing the first test. They may still lose badly to the Aussies in the next Ashes series or may not pose a big threat to the Proteas, but aren't they doing far better in the level they belong to (assuming that Australia and South Africa are two topmost teams in World Cricket now) as compared to other teams in the same level?

We need to look at them closely and try to understand what they are doing right that we are not. As I have mentioned previously, 'discipline' is the key word and it is more applicable to the bowlers. If you look at their records, they are doing far better in Tests rather than in ODIs, which everyone agrees is more favourable to the batsmen. It's in the test matches, whether at home or away, the English team performs much better. In the batting department, they are same or probably even inferior to teams like India, and if you look at their bowling department too, you'll find that they don't have big names, sometimes they are ven playing with rookie bowlers like they did in India recently. But I'll say that the difference between the POMS and other teams lies in the bowling department, where the English bowlers have done a much better job than their opponents.

So how can they still be so successful with their limited bowling resources? The answer is 'Discipline', the English bowlers are much more disciplined and bowl to a plan and to the field set by the captain. Yes, occasionally a bowler may go through a rough patch like Matt Hoggerd did against Sri Lanka recently, but more or less, all their bowlers, even the rookies stick to the right line and length. At Lords, that was the main difference between the two teams. When Hussain set a 7-2 field, his bowlers bowled to one side of the wicket and dried up the runs. I see that in Rediff, they have suggested an 'ideal' field setting for Harbhajan. True, it's an 'ideal' field, but it'll only help if Bhajji bowls exactly like the way an 'ideal' off-spinner is supposed to bowl. If he doesn't or as Agarkar and Co. didn't at Lords, no amount of field setting will help the team. What is after all a field setting? A captain sets a particular field after consulting the bowler assuming that the bowler is going to bowl at that particular length or towards a particular side of the wicket. If he doesn't, then it'll look inadequate. If you remember, whenever India wins and the bowlers do well, Ganguly get praised for 'handling his bowlers well' and 'setting up the right field'. And he's accused of the same charges when the bowlers fail and concede too many runs. What does that tell us? First and foremost, the bowlers didn't bowl the right line and length. Yes, a Captain can 'turn' the course of the game by making the 'right' bowling change during the match, but that change will look only 'right' (or else will be termed as a horrible mistake) only if that bowler comes up with a good performance. In the Lords Test, when every bowler except Zaheer failed, the bowling change and the field setting couldn't have made much difference.

Look at the English bowlers. Agreed that the Indian batsmen didn't have a good time and Sachin struggled, but one has to give credit to the English bowlers who bowled to a plan targeting Sachin's rib cage and on some other occasions that 'leg side' ploy. Unlike our bowlers, they didn't bowl 'hit me' deliveries to ease the pressure. I am sure a batsman like Sachin won't let a lolly pop delivery go unpunished. Although the blame should also go to our batsmen who couldn't come up with a counter tactics against the POMs, but I do give the English bowlers due credit as each one of them bowled to a plan. It was quite evident that they have discussed about each and every Indian batsman and had formulated a strategy. On the field, they were able to implement that strategy successfully. As we often read in the media, the Indian team also does the same as far as formulating strategies is concerned, now in fact with the aid of computer aided technology. Where we lose out is that on the field, we can't implement that strategy. Our bowlers don't have the discipline to bowl 6 deliveries in an over at the right spot, they invariably end up bowling one or two bad balls and thus undoing all the hard work.

That's where I think the English has done far better than their oppositions. Gavaskar may term their cricket 'boring' and you and I may even agree to it, but look at their winning record. So they must be doing something right and I believe 'that right thing' is they bowl well within their limitations, bowl with lot of discipline and let the batsmen make the mistakes. They very well realize that they don't have a Akhtar or Lee that can blast the batsman with sheer speed, neither they have a spinner in the class of Warne, Saqlain or even Kumble. Yet, their bowlers are able to take that 20 wickets to win Test matches for their team consistently. It's pretty much the same situation with us. We don't have any good bowler, but with whatever we have, we can still do well and win matches if and only if they learn to bowl to their strengths, bowl to the right line and length, bowl to one side of the wicket, bowl to the field set, and bowl with discipline consistently, and not just 3 or 4 balls per over. I don't see if a Simon Jones, a rookie, can do that, why can't Agarkar or Zaheer. Someone just has to be a hard taskmaster and tell them very clearly what is expected of them. If our bowlers can lift their performance up by a few level, then we'll put up a much better show.

Jeet Dey