India look dated, need to grab every inch

India are looking lethargic. The thesaurus says I can use lacklustre or languid, indeed, lugubrious fits the bill as well. Or leaden footed.

India are looking lethargic. The thesaurus says I can use lacklustre or languid, indeed, lugubrious fits the bill as well. Or leaden footed. As you can gather from my search for a word, they weren’t merely slow at Lord’s. Not quite like camels trudging in the Sahara but….you know what I mean. Maybe it is in the air, in the system. The fastest the BCCI can be, for example, is slow. At most times, comatose is the best description. Heard anything about a coach lately?

India are showing a dated look to them. They are decent cricketers, make no mistake about that, some are outstanding, but you can’t run two when three are on and concede three when two would be par. As a result, the batsman and bowlers have to do much more than the opposition to outscore them or indeed, outbowl them. And that is a problem. When you are number six in the ratings, you need every inch you can get. And to think that Anil Kumble, tough, as fit as can be, proud and ambitious resides here.

Oh, and by the way, for those of us who think that the rain, the umpires, anything in the Milky Way really, conspire against an Indian win, well here’s proof that life does level things out. And if Bucknor had given Sreesanth lbw, India wouldn’t have had a complaint to offer, especially since most umpires, and even Simon Taufel on another day, would have given Dhoni out caught behind when it went off his elbow. That was as good a decision as any I have seen.

It doesn’t mean that India haven’t a chance in the series. England were still bowled out for under 300 in each innings and one batsman really made the difference to the scores. But they will have to be on top of their game all the time, not switch on and off.

And when the match heads into a crucial stage, they have to put a giant step forward. At three critical moments, India didn’t and yet, weren’t outplayed. It suggests this England side can be beaten.

The first was when England batted on day one, then when they had recovered from 27-2 and suddenly got becalmed and finally when England looked like collapsing on the fourth day and Pietersen changed the course of the match. You could argue that it was Pietersen who grabbed it rather than India that squandered it, and it would be a fair argument, but the fact remains that at important moments India weren’t raising the battle cry.

But 0-0 means India have time to regroup and commit to playing at a higher intensity. Lord’s was a huge scare and sometimes if the fire isn’t within, a scare can be the best thing to happen. And individual players need to get out of comfort zones because it isn’t helping India win matches, which is the only thing that counts. Unlike in a hotel, where there are side dishes, in sport there is only one item on the menu.

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For all that you know, this may only be conjecture for it hasn’t stopped raining in Nottingham and it doesn’t look like it will. The clouds are overhead and they are playing a Gavaskar kind of innings. Solid, a single here, a quick dart at a boundary and back to being immovable. It means lots of time in our studio and the opportunity to let a cricket lover eavesdrop, which hopefully, is what we manage to do.

Ian Chappell for example raised the issue of whether the recall of Pietersen was another example of the game going the batsman’s way. There is an ethical issue there as well which the game needs to worry about. If the batsman is recalled on the suggestion of the square leg umpire and the decision reviewed, that is fine. If however, team-mates and the third umpire are looking at a replay and causing the change to be made (team-mates waving a batsman back for example), then a similar allowance has to be made to the bowler; otherwise, this will become even more of a not-out game. Eventually the fair verdict was arrived at, for Pietersen wasn’t out, but the process has to be better. It won’t help to say that no replay be shown till the next man is in because that is what television, not the game, controls.

Unless the weather improves dramatically, it looks like 0-0 going to The Oval on August 9.