Kumble’s form is crucial to India’s hopes

In India’s case they have one star bowler in pace man Javagal Srinath and a fading one in Anil Kumble. If Kumble can rediscover his sparkling best in this series, it would greatly increase India’s chances of victory. Australia, on the other hand, will rely on a super star in Shane Warne to lead the attack, assisted by a group of hardworking bowlers trying to make their reputation.

If Australia’s much diluted pace attack (minus Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie through injury) can’t provide Warne with the early breakthroughs a spinner requires, then the blonde bamboozler will have to provehimself a genius or his team is in trouble.

Despite Warne’s undoubted ability, if he has to keep bowling to the top order batsmen when they are well set it will wear down a man of even his prodigious talent. I have only ever seen one spinner able to succeed for a full series in those circumstances and that was India’s Erapalli Prasanna in Australia, 1967-68. That is one of a number of reasons why I have so much respect for `Pras’.

If Warne is regularly forced to work very hard to dismiss players like Navjot Sidhu, Nayan Mongia and Rahul Dravid at the top of the order, it will also detract from the eagerly awaited sideshow of Sachin Tendulkar versus the wizard from Oz. If the Australian pace bowlers struggle and Tendulkar has the better of the duel with Warne, it will then come down to a simple matter of whether India’s bowlers are good enough to dismiss the opposition twice for moderate totals. On recent evidence the answer to that question, even allowing for Australia’s vulnerability against good spinbowling, would have to be no.

This is where Kumble’s form is crucial to India’s hopes. If he bowls well he will enable Mohammad Azharuddin to exert a lot of pressure on the batsmen and this will help India to restrict Australia’s totals. Once Australia score a big first innings total, Warne looms large on the horizon and, as a team, they are like a freight train without brakes — very difficult to stop.

Australia’s batting is potentially dangerous with Michael Slater returning to the fold. In his best form, Michael adds an extra aggressive bat to the line-up and Australia’s ability to score quickly has played an important role in there being very few drawn games in Mark Taylor’s captaincy reign. In addition to Slater, Mark Waugh, Greg Blewett and Ricky Ponting provide the aggression, while Taylor and Steve Waugh the stability.

Equally as important as the duel between Tendulkar and Warne will be the battle between Srinath and the Taylor-Slater combination. If the lanky quick can establish a dominanceover the Australian opening pair, it would then open the door for the Indian spinners to weave a spell over the other batsmen, if they are good enough.

While Kumble will be trying to re-establish his reputation, Australia’s off-spinner Gavin Robertson will be attempting to build his. The `Riddler’, as he is known to his teammates, is a good bowler and he has some experience in India having toured with the Australian U-19’s in the eighties.