Pollster146;s nightmare

For a major part of the day it seemed like there were two different Test matches going on. Virender Sehwag was playing in one of them, the c...

For a major part of the day it seemed like there were two different Test matches going on. Virender Sehwag was playing in one of them, the conditions looked fine for batting and there were enough boundary balls available to keep the scoreboard moving. The others were somewhere else and when they were batting, the bowling was mean and miserly, even singles were grudgingly allowed and it looked a bit like a Vajpayee speech, filled with the odd cultured statement but largely composed of pauses.

Indeed while he was in Sehwag played 221 balls for 155 runs while the rest between them had 259 balls for 65. You could say the union of the two did the job for India but you could also say that if one of Sehwag8217;s typically adventurous forays had failed, India would have been in a lot of trouble.

Sehwag is an interesting player in that he seems so utterly independent of trends. He would be a pollster8217;s nightmare, not that they need one with the way election results are turning out these days. He could struggle to put bat to ball one day and on the next, unfurl shots of great majesty. He could be exhilarating and frustrating but if he picks the balls to hit, rather than regard every offering from the bowler as a means of depositing the ball into the stands, he could play more innings like this one.

He played across the line, inside out, even used the reverse sweep but he had a solid defensive shot as well, the left elbow was high and dignified and the bat, most often, was respectably straight. He still played like a flowing river but he didn8217;t recklessly flood the banks. Of course this could have no bearing on the way he bats in the second innings. That is another day, another adventure.

The rest of the batsmen hung in but the men manning the scoreboards could take tea breaks while they were in. It allowed Australia to keep the run-rate down and that meant that if they got a few wickets, the scoreboard hadn8217;t run away from them. Indeed, till Kaif and Patel dug in towards the end, Australia were in a position to mount a strong comeback.

For all Sehwag8217;s might and Dravid8217;s mason-like approach, India have problems in the middle order, almost as grave as Australia8217;s in the slips. Ganguly8217;s greatness through the off is a pleasant memory, but a memory nonetheless. He is not looking Test class at the moment, instead he is feeling his way around a path he knows so well but has temporarily lost sight of.

Laxman8217;s is the more peculiar case because he looks leaden, weary in his mind and in his feet. The feet are a symptom of the mind, they move to its rhythm and currently there is none.

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When Laxman is feeling good, there is a certain joie-de-vivre about him, his strokes are like lines from a great writer, they make you smile and gasp. But for the last couple of months, he seems to carry the worries of the world on his shoulder and that is causing his feet to be nailed to the ground. Where he wore dancing shoes to the spinners, he now seems to stand in concrete. Maybe he needs a confidant rather than a net session.