INDIAN cricket’s oldest bogey is back and how. The shortcomings against the short ball exposed the technical inadequacies of Indian batters during the disastrous T20 World Cup campaign. There was a strong sense of deja vu about the way the top sides attacked India’s weakness against short pitched bowling and it sure wasn’t pretty. It was sad to see top order batsmen hop and jump and even fail to pick the line that was being bowled at them. Suresh Raina was a complete shocker. It is to the credit of the West Indies team management that they thought of this stratagem which has now come back to haunt Indian batsmen. Locker rooms are merciless. As word gets around that Indians aren’t happy with the perfume ball or as Sunny Gavaskar once described it as the whistling ball, then it will get that much more difficult for Indians to tackle this barrage in all forms of the game. That is till someone comes out and counter punches. And this has happened in the past. Only then will this re-opened debate be put to rest.
I remember Henry Olonga bouncing out Sachin Tendulkar in a one day game. Tendulkar looked awkward, but that didn’t deter him. In the very next game, he counter attacked with some brazen shotmaking which had the Zimbabwe side ducking for cover. Ganguly who was at the other end actually had to go down the wicket repeatedly to tell Sachin to control his emotions and adrenalin. I also remember Sunil Gavaskar’s bat being wrenched out of his hands by a Malcolm Marshall snorter (think it was in Kanpur). The crowd and Gavaskar himself were stunned. Gavaskar, the master perfectionist against genuine quick bowling had looked puny in this joust. But Gavaskar was always combative. If my memory serves me right, Gavaskar went back to the basics just as he had when he lost focus of where his off stump was during the period when he started shuffling at the crease. He sought Vasu Paranjpe’s counsel to refocus and reorient. But when Marshall and the West Indies appeared to have him on the rack, he counter punched the way only he could. By displaying a mien, hitherto not seen. By playing two of the most attacking innings ever by an Indian batsmen against seriously quick bowling. I watched the innings at Delhi when he smashed a hundred in next to no time. In the Ahmedabad Test that followed, he bludgeoned the same attack with a 90 odd. He employed the hook and pull with ferocity never seen in the past.
One of the most consistent, audacious and destructive Indian batsman against short pitched was my old friend Mohinder Amarnath. He played some of the fastest bowlers of his time on his terms, hooking with gay abandon. With an odd two eyed open stance, he made the necessary technical adjustment to meet the quick men with his rapier like blade. West Indian and Pakistani pace bowlers were dealt with in an uncharitable manner. He was so successful that it earned him the sobriquet of ‘happy hooker.’ Many believe that along with Sunny Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath, he was the premier Indian batsman of his generation. Vishwanath was not a hooker or a puller, but he had one of the most ferocious square cuts in the game. His knock in Melbourne against Dennis Lillee and Lenny Pascoe or his breathtaking batting against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies side in 1974-75 is something that all of us remember. Andy Roberts was at his quickest then and with Gavaskar laid low with a broken finger for most part of the series, Vishy stepped up to the plate. Jimmy Amarnath, Vishy, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman unfortunately don’t get the credit and plaudits that they deserve for they have been great servants of Indian cricket.
You cannot compare the present lot with either Gavaskar and Tendulkar. Gavaskar writing in his column in The Hindu on this lack of wherewithal to tackle the short pitched stuff says, “What the two losses have shown is that some of our young batsmen have little clue on how to deal with short pitched bowling and both West Indies’s and England’s quicker bowlers came hard at them and the so called sensations were left senseless.” Captain MS Dhoni in his post match presser had this to say, “The bowler is allowed one bouncer per over and it is a question of how you adapt outside the sub continent. When you are thinking too much about the short delivery, your game changes and you are not shaping up for the other deliveries of which you can score off. There are a few lessons to be learnt from this.” Yes, very much so. But the harsh reality of cricket is that you can run, but you cannot hide. Teams would have seen that Indian batsmen are in distress when the ball is pitched short and they are sure to take advantage of this failing.
It rekindles the old debate of Indians being flat wicket bullies with no appetite for the short stuff. What India needed after the game against the West Indies was a Viru (Sehwag), someone fearless who could swat the short stuff to different parts of the ground. India needs a counter attacking innings from one of the batsman very quickly. I write this on the eve of the inconsequential game against the South Africans who are going to come out firing against the Indians. The moot point here is that while wickets have slowed down around the world, including in New Zealand where India won a famous victory, team managements will exploit this new found chink. Many years ago on a tour of the West Indies where India suffered at the hands of the quicks, skipper Dilip Vengsarkar blamed the batsmen for not showing guts and application against fast bowling. This is a throwback to that depressing age. Suresh Raina was caught out, he looked a pale shadow of himself, woefully exposed. Young Jadeja, the stylish Rohit Sharma were out of sorts.
One has to be able to play horizontal blade shots against fast bowling. You have to be able to cut and hook. Unfortunately, the Indian team management was unable to come to grips against what was unleashed by West Indies and England. They had no response. Remember that there is very little response time against genuine quick bowling. In many ways, Rahul Dravid exemplified good batting against quick bowling. Employing the cut and the pull, he has been effective on bouncier wickets. VVS Laxman is another who never backed down from a good fight relying on the hook and pull to play in front of square on the leg side. Ganguly had a known weakness against the ball pitched at his rib cage, but he was dogged, blessed with great mental strength and tenacity to turn this imponderable into an advantage. Tendulkar has a long and glorious record. He has shown over time, that he was an all weather, all wicket player. His hundreds in his first series in Australia at the turn of the 1990s marked him out as a great batsmen.
So, now that the careers of the fab four are winding down, India needs the next crop of good, solid batsmen. This is what I have been discussing in this column in the past. We need these boys to step into the gargantuan shoes of the fab four very quickly. The traumatic experience in England is a wake up call. The West Indies will not relent during India’s short tour to the Caribbean. They will come hard at us. In Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor, they have the necessary artillery. It is up to Gary Kirsten to rejig and rejuvenate the batting order. FakeIPLplayer interestingly has some amazing insights on the carnage in London. He says on his blog that the Blues are completely shell shocked, their large circumferences and larger egos have been shot to pieces by their performance levels in England. According to him, ‘captain kakdi’ skipper Dhoni is all set to pull out of the West Indies tour and with ‘Sheru’ Virender Sehwag also not available, a crisis is all set to engulf Indian cricket. Coach Gary Kirsten is unhappy with the Prince of Patiala’s fielding and wouldn’t like him to lead India in the Caribbean.
I once asked Gavaskar who had an outstanding record against quick bowling whether at any point in time, he felt fear. His answer was an unequivocal no. He also said that the key was to keep one’s eyes on the ball all the time and thereby sway out of the line of fire. Or alternatively attack, but that was always not a good option for one could get a top edge. Time for some serious soul searching by the over ambitious and over aggressive present generation of Indian batsmen who thought they could walk on water. And very quickly at that, for there is nowhere to hide in the 24 x 7 age of international cricket. Being brash and cocky is good, but it has to be backed with displays on the field. To say that they are playing their natural game is a bit of joke when it fails repeatedly or you look maladroit and ungainly. Recriminations and autopsies are easy, but the harsh reality of being found out by quick bowling is another matter altogether. This reputation follows you everywhere. Take your eyes of the ball and you are dead in the water.
