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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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| OVER AND OUT: Opener Das' tour went from triumph
to torment |
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.
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Our
batsmen's nightmares about the seaming ball came to life at Harare.
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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.
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