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Australia in India 2008-09
India haunted by past failures
For all the strides Indian cricket has made, every now and then they seem they can't move over from the past
Sidharth Monga
October 14, 2008
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For all the strides Indian cricket has made, part of it still cannot break free from the past. When they get a chance to beat England 2-0 away, as they did last year, they forsake it in the fear of losing the opportunity of winning their first series in England for 21 years. That fear marked their reluctance to push for a win against Pakistan in the Bangalore Test last year: they don't want to risk a 1-0 lead for a mere Test win.
When India, favourites at the start of the series against Australia, go into the last day of the Bangalore Test needing a big effort to earn a draw, the thoughts of the collapse in Sydney in January, and other such failed efforts, are very much with them. In the end the draw in Bangalore, managed against a side without a quality spinner and carrying an injured seamer, is celebrated as a heroic one.
For the moment it is worth celebrating, because some of the leading Indian batsmen, feared opponents all, have had to live with the blemish that they can't save Tests in the fourth innings. However, it can only be hoped that the main lesson here is not lost, asit was after the Sydney Test. There, controversies notwithstanding, India failed to bat out 71 overs on a far-from-terrifying pitch, losing three wickets in 11 balls to Michael Clarke. In Bangalore, all through the game they played catch-up with one of the weakest Australian teams to visit India.
As much as the stodgy batting on the fifth day on a tricky pitch is worth acclaiming, it is worth acknowledging what Australia have managed to do. They arrived with an unsettled batting order, still coming to terms with life without Adam Gilchrist, and freshly jolted by the Andrew Symonds blow. For all practical purposes they didn't have a spinner; none of their fast bowlers had bowled in a Test in India before. Still, at the outset, they set the pace. They exploited India's old legs and tired minds. They threatened to inflict a follow-on. In the second innings, they recovered from a poor start to score enough to make a sporting declaration. Australia were clearly the better batting side in the first Test.
The bigger worry for India was that their spinners managed only three wickets. In fact, Harbhajan Singh took all three; but he, Anil Kumble and Virender Sehwag conceded 370 runs between them. In contrast, the Australian spinners picked up three for 166.
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Australia can take many positives from this match. Ricky Ponting, the captain, has won a personal battle, the kind Sourav Ganguly won in Brisbane in 2003-04. Ponting's achievement, perhaps, was more significant: Ganguly wasn't called upon to lead the batting line-up, nor had he been as hopeless in Australia as Ponting had been in India.
It took two freak deliveries - a big reverse-swinger and a topspinner that hit a crack and turned in - to remove the immovable object, Michael Hussey, who ran India ragged in the first innings and threatened to do so in the second as well.
Twice in the last five years India have played exciting series in Australia; in both instances they have struggled in the series openers. Ganguly's brilliance and the weather earned them a draw in one, while they were mauled in the other. It is in stark contrast to how Australia have started this tour.
If India have come out scar-free from the first Test, it's thanks mainly to the batting of Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan. Zaheer and Ishant Sharma are the only Indian players to have come out of the match with credit; also Harbhajan to some extent, because of his batting.
Zaheer fired a cheeky salvo after the match: saying that Australia were more defensive than they have ever been. Indeed, they were defensive. Perhaps Australia know their own limitations well. Perhaps it was the slow pitch that made them play the way they did. At any rate, the comment came from a member of a side that is not the most aggressive, physically or mentally. Zaheer and Kumble both talked about the toss and the kind of difference bowling last here would have made. But at no point did India inspire confidence that they could run through Australia, on the first day or the last.
A close draw is a beautiful result. Both teams look at it as a moral victory: the side that pushes for a victory and the one that plays for time. The two possible moral defeats inherent in such Tests are that the aggressors can start to doubt themselves for not having crushed the opposition when they were down, and the defenders can feel exhausted by the effort of having to keep up for five days. Then, theoretically, they start the next game as equals.
With three days between the first two Tests, India have little time to celebrate a ghost that has been exorcised. If, come Mohali, they are to start as equals after the draw in Bangalore, they need to exorcise the cause of the strife.
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo
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I am writing to express my displeasure at the substandard quality of this article. Mr. Monga seems to take liberty with facts and tries to blur the distinction between facts and opinion. While, he is completely entitled to his opinion, however silly they may seem to the general population, I have objections against the tone of his article. His article seems to undermine all the significant achievements of Indian Cricket over the past decade and focus exclusively on the failures. There was no objective analysis and focus of the article was unjustified criticism. In Cricket, new stars are born every season, but Mr. Monga seems to miss Warne and McGrath more than the Aussies. I still believe that this Austrailian team is the strongest in the world, eventhough it lacks a quality spinner in the world. I feel that Indians did a great job by drawing the Bangalore test and feel that Mr. Monga article lacks substance.
Posted by idontknowidontcare on (October 16 2008, 12:08 PM GMT)Siddharth, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath retired more than one and half years ago. So for how long will you keep saying, "If Warne and McGrath were playing ... " By the way, Warne's average against India is 47.18, please note.
Posted by idontknowidontcare on (October 16 2008, 10:39 AM GMT)Siddharth, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath retired more than one and half years ago. So for how long will you keep saying, "If Warne and McGrath were playing ... " By the way, Warne's average against India is 47.18, please note.
Posted by Nabil.H on (October 16 2008, 07:56 AM GMT)An excellent article. Well written and indeed Mr. Mongia has kept up his tradition of producing quality, balanced and fair articles that address both sides of the coin. SOmetimes I believe there are some people out there who ar very jingoistic and like to rant about their team and take any constructive criticism as sacriledge. Unfortunately a sad aspect of humanity. If only we were able to look positively at criticism and improve ourselves as a result of it. Indeed the draw was finely balanced but I think it tilted 51% towards australia. My reasons being on a spin dustbowl the norm in India the aus batsman made anil and to a lesser extent bhajjie look very ordinary.They blunted their effect but got mauled by the indian pacemen who I believe are world class. I have the utmost of respect and admiration for Zaheer Khan and Sharma. Both complement each other. There was so much hype about the spinners but aus batsman negated them. Zaheer and bhajiie partnership was the difference.
Posted by pom_basher on (October 16 2008, 07:34 AM GMT)India may have been defensive, BUT THIS ARTICLE IS VERY ORDINARY. Nothing new here, and a lot of 'facts' are incorrect. Your major source of information seems to be the below par Indian news channel who are interested only in sensationalism and change their veiws shamelessly almost every day depending upon what suits them; you are no different. If you just trying to create a platform for a debate and let readers have a healthy discussion, then its a good effort, but if you are into some serious journalism, then you are crap. I could have ignored this article and moved on, but I think we readers deserve better than this from cricinfo.
Posted by msb27 on (October 16 2008, 02:58 AM GMT)Imagine if the roles were reversed: would Australia have backed themselves to make 299 on the last day or would they have claimed a moral victory in grinding out for a draw? In terms of negative cricket, those in glass houses ...
Posted by bluz13 on (October 16 2008, 01:39 AM GMT)Your statement "That fear marked their reluctance to push for a win against Pakistan in the Bangalore Test last year: they don't want to risk a 1-0 lead for a mere Test win." is so two-faced. If the team had indeed gone for the win and LOST, people like you would have been first ones with knives out. You cannot have it both ways. Indian journalists like yourself give bad name to journalism. It is the most dishonourable profession in India because it is not accountable to anybody and they misuse their power without fear of retaliation e.g. when was the last time a journalist was caught taking a bribe? Well, it would never get reported. Get it?
Posted by Nirav-13706 on (October 16 2008, 00:53 AM GMT)I am pretty sure Siddarth Monga is the one getting old and tired, not the Indian Team. First of all coming out to chase a target of 300 on the final day of a test match in less than 3 sessions is always a risk, regardless of the pitch conditions. Had the Aussies been given the same target to chase on the final day they would have faced an equal risk of losing the test match without any doubt. Ofcourse aussies batted well in their first innings but the indian bowlers did extremely well on the 4th day to keep the aussie run rate low and therefore they had to spend more time at the crease to get to a safe lead and in turn getting themselves less time to bowl out the indians. Besides I am sure the indians do not even bother about what happened in the Sydney test this year because it wasnt the indians that collapsed on the final day. It was the umpier who collapsed with his decisions on that day and that also not on one but several occasions. Siddarth Monga should get his facts right.
Posted by r1m2 on (October 16 2008, 00:00 AM GMT)I think this is an excellent article from Mr. Monga. I don't get what all the negative comments regarding the article are about. The observation is excellent in that neither sides are at their best at the moment for various reasons. The fact that Australia did well enough to draw was certainly due to the excellent performance by their sub-excellent bowlers (barring Lee of course) AND quite the shabby performance by India (barring Zaheer and Ishant). Zaheer in fact could be considered the main reason the result turned out the way it did. It's great to see an Indian cricketer being delivering quality verbal performance and match changing performance on the field. I think both sides as Mr. Monga says, now goes into the second test on equal terms and it'll be exciting to see what each team has picked up from Bangalore. I hope the pitch is similar to Bangalore with a bit more green for the quicks and that Munaf comes in for Harbhajan. Drawn tests are NEVER exciting to me.
Posted by abhra1808 on (October 15 2008, 23:53 PM GMT)Don't blame the series of editors, sub-editors and what nots in Cricinfo for their awful articles. After Ganguly's announcement they are left with one less topic to write their articles. Ganguly's place in the team and how the deserving 25+ youngstars like Badrinath and Kaif are getting deprived of their justified spot was their favourite topic. They need to come in terms with the reality before wrting anything worth a reading.