VIEWPOINT: CRICKET TALK

Throwing It Away

Needless experiments led to confusion in the ranks — affecting war preparedness

By Navjot Singh Sidhu

Have you ever played snakes and ladders? The game in which one throw of the dice brings you down to earth? You can slowly climb to the top and everything is suddenly nullified by a single vicious snake bite. Just the kind that Zimbabwe produced in that lethal hour in Harare to swallow the Indian batting up without even a glimmer of resistance. Losing the series-the 1-1 draw was a defeat because India squandered the chance for a Test series win outside the subcontinent in 15 years-was an experience that has shattered this young Indian side which had come to Zimbabwe with a bushelful of hope.

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In the span of an hour, Indian cricket was put in the right perspective. The batsmen still have nightmares about the seaming ball and their worst fears came true at the Harare Sports Club. The perennial problem of adapting to alien conditions raised its ugly hood again. For long Indian cricketers have been described as "tigers at home, pussycats overseas". The critics have always said the "perfume ball" will sort India out. It's the one that buzzes past the nose like a bee and naturally, it stings. In Harare we waited and watched, and the outcome was not pleasant. For me it was an unwanted trip down memory lane, for I was part of the team that suffered a similar setback three years ago when we failed to make 235 at the same venue.

As Indian coach John Wright pointed out, the team had made some very clumsy shot selection. Sachin Tendulkar told me "driving the ball on the up was difficult because it tends to hold on and climb on you". It is a valid observation which should have struck someone like V.V.S. Laxman very early on the tour. But it didn't.

Where did we go wrong? The Indians had their priorities wrong starting with the very composition of the team for the Test. Not in the selection of the squad, because the horses-for-courses policy was in place with some path-breaking selections in the shape of five seamers. It was all right until we landed. Once the series began, the team management indulged in some needless experiments which only led to confusion in the ranks. This was not the best way to prepare for a war. And mind you, it was a war because the Indian team was on a mission to erase a past made bitter by repeated failures overseas.

Where then was the need to promote make-shift openers on such a critical tour? If Sadagopan Ramesh was injured, the team management ought to have gone back to Rahul Dravid. This was a role only a specialist could have performed and I saw no merit in promoting a debutant to the job. To open at international level a batsman has to have the right technique and I don't think Hemang Badani or Sameer Dighe were suited for the job. It works well on dead-as-a-dodo Indian pitches when you have to accommodate an extra spinner, but the scenario overseas is different.