I did not expect the series to end so tamely for India

Erapalli Prasanna

June 21, 2001

What a fall it was! I did not expect the series to end so tamely for India and am disappointed with the turn of events in the Harare Test. The result showed that we are just about an average side under pressure. The odd win here and there may come our way but I don't think we have a chance to win outside on a consistent basis.

There was no excuse for getting out inside the first day within 75 overs. Any side which is dismissed on Day 1 hardly has a chance of winning the Test simply because it gives the other team plenty of time to build a lead. The Zimbabweans did that, pulling themselves together despite the loss of early wickets thanks to a series of partnerships beginning with the Flower brothers. The lower order batsmen took up the responsibility of batting around Grant Flower and a very handy lead developed.

That is where we should have learnt from their example but I was very disappointed with the approach of our batsmen which was bereft of any strategic planning. Some of the senior players did not show even 10% of the application displayed by young SS Das. In the second innings, apart from the stand between Tendulkar and Das which propped up the innings for a while, the inability of the rest of the batsmen to string together a worthwhile association was glaring.

The rot started from the top. The Indian team left on this tour with just two specialist opening batsmen and when the team was announced the selectors proclaimed that if necessary, Rahul Dravid would open the innings. But when the need arose, why didn't they entrust the task to Dravid? I mean here is somebody in terrific form and with no real devil in the wicket, it would have been a safe bet to ask Dravid to open. I'm sure he would have delivered. Poor Badani was made a scapegoat which is not the way to promote an aspiring cricketer.

Alternatively the team could have asked skipper Saurav Ganguly to do the job. If he clicked it would have been a bonus, if not the scenario would have been the same. I don't think the captaincy is affecting Ganguly's form. In the middle with the bat in hand, the distractions of captaincy do not intrude; his thinking is like any other batsman. It looks to me that Ganguly comes into the line of the delivery without grasping the movement of the ball off the wicket. He seems to be caught in a blind spot which has to be sorted out in the nets.

Zimbabwe perfected a plan of bowling on one side of the wicket and bowling to their field; you may call it negative but that is besides the point. In contrast the Indian seamers seemed to have no purpose and no focus. Ashish Nehra was impressive but I think he is still not mature enough to plan his dismissals. The less said about the others the better. As for Harbhajan Singh I was not satisfied with his bowling but I think he suffered like some of the others due to unimaginative field placings.

Full marks to Zimbabwe because they showed that a team with limited resources could be converted into a winning combination because of a strategic game plan. They operated almost entirely with just three bowlers of more or less similar style who were not particularly fast or menacing. They just relied on putting the ball in the spot, playing on the patience of the batsmen and surprisingly the Indians succumbed to that simple strategy.

The scene now shifts to the one-day series but I have little respect for the limited overs game. If the bowler is unable to create a psychological hold early on, the fielders are all spread out and the batsmen hardly come under any real pressure. Indeed sometimes I think the pressure on the batsman is self-imposed because he falls to the temptation of trying to please the crowd with big shots. I firmly believe that ODIs are not a true measure of the strength of a side. The Indian team may even come back victorious but that cannot paper over their very real weaknesses in Test cricket.

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