Prem Panicker

May 17. Lord's, England.

A date, and a venue, deserving of prominent sign-posting -- because on that day, at that venue, England and Pakistan will take the field for the Test that will flag off the ICC-sponsored 10-year cycle to crown the champion Test team in the world.

Which makes the recently concluded Test series against Australia vitally important, for India. At one level, it was about India -- not so long ago battered by the Proteas at home -- learning to win at home again, and against the unofficial world champions to boot. But at a more important long-term level, it was about rebuilding a team that was -- thanks to the match-fixing scandal and what, to phrase it politely, can only be called interpersonal dyspepsia -- was in shambles.

So what, then, were the gains and losses for Indian cricket at the end of the Australian tour?

Some of the pluses are immediate, and startlingly obvious. Number one in that list is -- no, not VVS Laxman -- Harbhajan Singh.

Thanks to a combination of coach John Wright's perspicacity and skipper Saurav Ganguly's obduracy and willingness to put his foot down, Harbhajan Singh actually got to play in the national eleven -- much against the wishes of the selectors and even some of the BCCI members. And the young offie seized the chance in dramatic fashion to prove the point that neither unfounded allegations of chucking, nor personal trauma, had affected the ability and talent he had shown when he first came on the scene.

John Wright summed up the Harbhajan factor best, when he said at the end of the tour that he was now "salivating" at the prospect of having the off-spinner bowling in tandem with Anil Kumble. India's problem in the Test arena has, for a long while now, stemmed from the fact that it did not have a pair of bowlers capable of attacking and running through sides. In the Harbhajan-Kumble duo, the side just might have found the ideal mix.

Item number two, on the credit side of the ledger, would be VVS Laxman. Who, after years of being shoved around the board like a gambit pawn, finally stood up for himself and demanded that he either be allowed to bat in the middle order, or not be considered for selection at all. That was step one. Step two was taken by Wright when he, at the first opportunity, pushed Laxman up to the number three slot, which he regularly occupies for his state team and where, he says, he is most comfortable.

Laxman makes for an ideal number three. Too often in the past, when India loses a wicket early, Rahul Dravid has come in and tended to play the quiet, waiting game. No blame attaches to him on this, given that this is what the team management asked him to do -- the result, though, is that such caution has allowed opposing bowling attacks to settle into dominant mode. Laxman, on the other hand, is an aggressor by nature -- the kind of player who can, and will, come in with a wicket going down off the first ball of the innings, and drive the first ball he faces through the covers simply because it is there to be hit. Laxman combines the twin virtues of scoring at speed, and staying at the crease seemingly for life -- if he hadn't come along when, and how, he did, Indian cricket would have needed to invent him.

Laxman's promotion has also had an unlooked for benefit -- Rahul Dravid's demotion appears to have helped him unlock his mind, and free his game from shackles imposed partly by himself, partly by his team. And when he plays freely, Dravid becomes a very important component in the batting mix -- it is surely no coincidence that the biggest partnerships in recent years, in both Tests and one dayers, have almost inevitably featured him at one end.

That's three positives, batting-wise. Adding up to a fourth -- to wit, Sachin Tendulkar (as and when he brings himself to realise this) is no longer the spine of the Indian batting lineup, but merely a very important component thereof. All along, when he walked out there with the realisation in back of his mind that the team depended entirely on him, he has allowed that thought to weigh on his mind and affect his batting style. The presence of other batsmen demonstrably capable of taking the load should have the effect of freeing Tendulkar to bat a whole lot more freely than he has been able to in recent times -- so, chalk down yet another plus.

And before you close the books on the batting, make two small -- but potentially important -- tick marks in there, against the names of Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan. Both bowlers have, with the bat, shown a willingness to be combative, to not give their wickets away without a fight.

One tangential point worth mentioning is that in the Wright regime, the batsmen have been showing a greater awareness of the fact that the single is as much a scoring shot as the boundary. This change in mindset has been more readily noticeable in the one-dayers -- but the signs are that it has percolated to Test match play as well, and if that trend continues, then India will have added a very important string to its batting bow.

Turn to the bowling -- and apart from Harbhajan and the potential return of Anil Kumble, the only positive you can think of is the emergence of Zaheer Khan as a frontline bowler in his own right, and not merely a stepney to be wheeled out when Ajit Agarkar is either injured, or decides he does not want to be "considered for selection".

As against that, there is a heap of negatives. Firstly, the opening. In the series against Australia, Shiv Sundar Das has shown signs of coming of age -- most notably, in the way he has been willing to put a premium on his wicket. Set against that, is his very real weakness against the ball lifting at him on line of the stumps -- a weakness that, in these days of global television coverage and videographic analysis, opposing teams will be quick to spot, and exploit. On the plus side, there is a good six weeks, followed by a relatively easy outing against Zimbabwe, for Das to apply corrective measures.

Across him, on the batting strip, is Sadagopan Ramesh -- a player of undoubted talent, and suspect temperament. He was at his casual worst right through the home series against Australia -- and at his very best when, just ahead of the third Test, the message was finally drilled into him that it was a case of shaping up, or being shipped out. That leaves the Indian team one of two alternatives -- either find a way to light -- and maintain -- a fire under Ramesh, or seek alternatives. One thing is for sure -- in a season where India will find itself playing a lot of Test cricket, much of it abroad, the team cannot afford an opener who does not put a price on his wicket, and is content to throw it away with casual wafts at anything outside off.

An equally crucial minus is the wicket-keeping. Nayan Mongia -- yet again, for flaws of personality and temperament more than skill -- finds himself out of favour. Sameer Dighe, tried in place of Mongia, proved an unmitigated disaster behind the stumps -- and never mind that coach John Wright is hugely impressed by his grit with the bat, the fact remains that a team whose perceived weakness is not being able to bowl the opposition out twice cannot afford valuable chances off pace and spin to go to grass. Vijay Dahiya meanwhile was equally unimpressive with the gloves in the one-dayers.

Which means that for the team, the hunt for a classy wicket-keeper (who, in this day and age, needs to be more than fair with the bat) is just beginning. And candidates are pretty thin on the ground -- the names of Ajay Ratra the Under-19 star, Reuben Paul the hard-hitting batsman-keeper from Tamil Nadu (do note, that in the case of Paul, it is the 'batsman' that precedes the 'keeper') and (okay, here is a potentially controversial choice) Tilak Naidu of Karnataka are the only ones to come to mind. Somashekhar Siriguppi's frequent elevation as Karnataka's first choice keeper owes more to politics than to skill -- Naidu has easily the softest hands in the ranks of Indian keepers today. Add to that the kind of batting skill that sees him go as high as four in the strong state lineup, and it becomes something of a surprise that his name is never once mentioned by the selectors.

What goes against Naidu is height -- which, when you consider that Adam Gilchrist does not hold a passport from Lilliput, smacks of specious reasoning. And weight, of which Naidu has more than his share -- but that, again, is Andrew Leipus territory, and cannot be a reason to not even consider the lad. And finally, the mind -- statemates hold the opinion that Naidu is not focussed enough, does not really apply himself enough. But again, that is precisely where a John Wright could come in.

To continue the list of negatives, there is Ajit Agarkar, whose initial promise has been rapidly eroded, and who increasingly is more of a gamble than anything else. He reminds you a bit of India's Geostationery Satellite Launch Vehicle -- all you can do, these days, is to light the fuse, stand back, and see which way he will go.

There is, too, the question of third spinner -- and you can bet good money that whether we play at home or abroad, there will be times when a third regular spinner will be an option worth considering. Sarandeep Singh is steady, and solid. But even if you discount the old-wives tale that it is stupid to play two offies at the same time, the junior Singh is still a few tricks shy off a full hand, at the highest level. The tricks will come in time -- but at this point, he is by no means a finished product.

Worse, is the question of a left-arm spinner. Theoretically, if you have an attacking, aggressive offspinner in Harbhajan and a rock-solid leg-break bowler in Anil Kumble (who is at his best when he is sure the pressure will be maintained at the other end), a left-arm spinner is the ideal third string to the bow. At this point, we do not have one -- mainly because of the policy that has seen five practitioners of the art being used in five sequential Test matches.

On balance -- if, importantly, you keep in mind that the choice has to be a long-term one -- the selectors could do worse than pick Murali Karthik, give him the confidence of knowing that he is an integral component of the side, and let him loose. Judged purely on form and skill, Karthik is the best left-arm spin bowler in the country today -- it is crucial that the selectors pick the lad, and persist with him.

One other major problem remains, relatively unsolved -- to wit, fielding. During the just-ended series, it was heartening to see, finally, that there was some attempt to man key positions with specialist fielders -- Laxman in the slips, Das at forward short leg, Dravid at leg slip being the prime examples. And the trio, with Ramesh supporting at silly point, lent Harbhajan that crucial edge. Overall, though, the catching and ground fielding standards were short of international class, and the chronic inability to hit the stumps, or even find the keeper with the throw when it matters, persists.

The silver lining? John Wright's reception of the news that India would not be playing any cricket till the Zimbabwe tour: "Good, now we can have a good, hard 15-day camp and work on a lot of the basics."

That leaves one question unasked, and unanswered -- namely, the captaincy and batting of Saurav Ganguly and, tangentially, the role of John Wright. Which will be looked at in a follow-up article tomorrow.

Meanwhile, a thought to leave you with: 30 years ago, India defeated the West Indies in the Caribbean, and Indian cricket changed forever. Check out the schedule ahead of the team over the next two years -- do you get the feeling that the recently concluded home series against the all-conquering Australians could be a similar watershed?