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Journalism of Courage
His handling of Inzamam-ul Haq’s take on the ‘‘unsporting Indian team’’ was typical Dravid, calm and rational. There is no case, he said today, and that’s where the matter should end.
But his attempt to explain away as ‘‘inexperience’’ his bowling attack’s impotence at Peshawar was beyond the pale. ‘‘We have a young and inexperienced bowling attack and they are learning on this tour’’, the captain said.
Sreesanth — who, incidentally, may be replaced by RP Singh on Saturday — qualifies for that tag. But Irfan Pathan has played 49 ODIs, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan have been around for 14 seasons between them and even Murali Kartik has played enough international cricket to know how to counter the flat track and flaying bat.
Yet at Peshawar the Indians bowled everywhere — short and over-pitched, wide of off-stump and on the legs-— and posed little hreat to the batsmen. Pakistan are not great chasers but they looked relaxed for much of their innings despite the imposing target.
‘‘You set your targets and see what kind of players can get you to that’’, Dravid said. ‘‘Frankly, you can do much better with the batting than you can with your bowlers.’’
Even if none of the Indian pace bowlers can match up to Mohammad Asif’s cutters, it was shocking to see the dearth of variations coming in the bowlers. Except for Sreesanth slipping in an odd yorker early on to Salman Butt, efforts to produce another resulted in beamers and Agarkar was lucky to get away with full tosses.
Kartik’s leg-stump theory was, in theory, error-free but too often he started a lot farther from the leg-stump, bowled either too short or full and was hoisted over long-off. Irfan was looking for swing but at his pace, he can’t bowl up to the batsman.
At least they tried different things. ‘‘We made Ajit (Agarkar) bowl with the old ball and tried Sreesanth to open the attack. We made Irfan bowl his entire quota in one spell… We are trying, sometimes it clicks but there are times when things don’t work to our expectations. Still we are trying to come up with different ideas, trying out different people and try and be a little better than the last match.”
Harbhajan Singh is still a concern; he didn’t bowl at all at the nets but tried spinning the ball in his hand. Having done that, he decided knocking around with the bat was a better option.
The Indian team is monitoring his case closely but back-up man Romesh Powar joined the team practice and his experience — though admittedly limited — of bowling on the last tour will stand in good stead. The lofted shots are in vogue; the boundaries are deliberately kept short and Pakistan batsmen spent good time trying to whack the ball over midwicket.
There’s no scope for minor improvement, Indian bowling have to come with a big effort to stop the rampaging Pakistan batsmen. That’s the only way out to come back in the series.
I did have a say, but couldn’t get right pitches: Inzamam
Rawalpindi: Having drawn flak for failing to ensure result-oriented tracks in the first two Tests against India, Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq has revealed that he had sought ‘‘hard and bouncy’’ tracks but did not get whatever he asked for. ‘‘Yes, it is true I did have a say in the preparation of these pitches but the truth is what I asked for was not prepared in the first two Tests. I know the strength and weaknesses of my team and I was confident when asking the curators to prepare a hard and bouncy pitch,’’ Inzamam said.
‘‘But I don’t know for whatever reasons I was left disappointed twice. Thankfully, we got a good track in Karachi where the surface was not fast but there was some seam movement for the bowlers and we exploited it well to win the Test,” he was quoted as saying in The News today. (PTI)
