Why can't the Indians use their grey cells?
R Natarajan - 14 Aug 2002

The Indian bowling effort in the first innings of the second Test at Trent Bridge almost lost the team a match that looked headed for a draw after India had batted competently in the first innings and posted a reasonable total of 357. How did this happen?

To explain that one would have to dissect the Indian bowling attack first. Though three of the four bowlers sport bowling averages that are in the high 30s or beyond, the line-up still looks capable enough on paper.

Of the two left-arm pacers, Ashish Nehra is capable of causing trouble with his swing and brisk pace while Zaheer Khan has the pace and the aggression to trouble the best in the business. Harbhajan Singh, meanwhile, is acknowledged as a world-class spin bowler, and Ajit Agarkar is surely capable of putting the ball in the right place. So what went wrong? Well, it seems quite obvious that what they lack is not the skill but the intelligence and the tactical acumen required to succeed at the international level.

Though they were being tonked to all parts of the ground at almost 4.5 runs an over, the fast bowlers, who are pretty adept at bowling the slower one and the yorker in the one-dayers, never seemed to try them. Why? Did they think that these balls are banned in Test cricket or did they forget that they had such balls in their armoury?

Meanwhile, Harbhajan, who practices an art which requires considerable intellect, repeatedly strayed on to the leg stump which led to him being milked for runs behind square on the on side. In contrast, even a part-time off-spinner like Michael Vaughan knew that with the ball turning, the off-spinner’s line should be a good three feet outside the off and aiming to hit the off stump.

Moving on, when Harbhajan was beating Mark Butcher by the proverbial mile, ball after ball, even a amateur cricketer albeit a good one like myself realised that all he had to do was to go around the wicket. Guess what? It was 10 overs after the thought occurred to me that Harbhajan finally tried this ploy. All that can then be said is that he either does not have the confidence to go around the wicket or does not have the brains to reason it out. In either case, he shouldn’t be playing at the Test-level as a spinner.

The question that begs to be asked, then, is if even I can discover the remedy why then do the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid find it difficult to do the same? Skill they have aplenty, but what our players need is to be coached on the tactical and intellectual aspects of the game. Till such time we will continue to see similarly inept displays from them on the field.

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