Sea breeze should help India clear their heads

Peter Robinson

November 9, 2001

India have a chance to regroup and reorganise over the next four days in the sleepy seaside town of East London where the tourists meet a South African A team at Buffalo Park.

It's probably the ideal venue for a team that needs a little soul-searching if it is to establish exactly what went wrong in Bloemfontein earlier in the week. To put in bluntly, there's not an awful lot to do in Bloemfontein, as past touring sides have discovered.

Two years ago when England were in East London, the man from the Daily Telegraph likened the town to an open prison. This, perhaps, was a little harsh (after all, locals claims with some pride that the ratio of women to men in this part of the country is nine to one), but the point is that not a lot, barring elderly couples out strolling along the promenade, seems to happen here.

So if the Indians wanted some sea air and a chance to rethink their approach, then they could scarcely have asked for better surrounds, always providing that the band of rain currently sweeping across South Africa stays away from this part of the Eastern Cape.

The opposition facing the Indians this weekend should test the tourists. Although the South African A team has suffered a spate of injuries, some would argue that the call-ups of Daryll Cullinan and the diminutive Northerns Titans wicketkeeper Kruger van Wyk have actually strengthened the team.

From a South African point of view, the performances of Cullinan along with Jacques Rudolph, Paul Adams and Charl Langeveldt will all be closely watched. Cullinan is in the frame possibly for the third Test and the subsequent tour of Australia as is Rudolph, while Adams is desperately trying to prove that he has recovered some of the spark that brought him 96 wickets in 34 Tests

Langeveldt, meanwhile, was in the squad for the first Test before being abruptly discarded. Exactly where he fits into the selectors' thinking is something of a puzzle, but, clearly, he's in there somewhere.

For the Indians, though, the match provides an opportunity to sort out one or two vexing problems, most particularly an opening partner for Shiv Das. Rahul Dravid was used there, without success, in Bloemfontein and it is hard to believe that the tourists will again sacrifice one of their senior batsmen again in Port Elizabeth.

Connor Williams should get a game in East London - it will be his first bat in the middle on South African soil - and the other option for the Indians, of course, is to try out Virender Sehwag at the top of the order. The argument against using Sehwag as an opener is that he had just scored a century at number six, so why change him. At the same time, Sehwag must be brimming with confidence and, in scoring his hundred in Bloemfontein, he demonstrated that he has the stomach to take on the South African seamers.

Harbhajan Singh will get an outing in East London after sitting out the Test match with his unfortunate affliction and while India might want to give their left-arm seamers another run, they surely will also let Ajit Agarkar loose once again. Indian coach John Wright as much as admitted that it had been a mistake to leave Agarkar out of the first Test and now that he's had two weeks off, he surely needs a run out in the middle.

© Cricinfo

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Players/Umpires

Harbhajan Singh

Series/Tournaments

India tour of South Africa

Teams

India

South Africa

Grounds

Buffalo Park