Sachin, Laxman the good news for India

So Australia’s top order capitulated. It was bizarre. There were demons in the pitch but Australia batted like they were in a horror mo...

So Australia’s top order capitulated. It was bizarre. There were demons in the pitch but Australia batted like they were in a horror movie; as if gooey green monsters were snapping at them every ball. When the mind is made up there is little else that counts. It was a shocking pitch but the best batting line-up in the world cannot be decimated in under 15 overs. Nothing can be that bad; not even this horror at the Wankhede Stadium. It required a fast bowler with a long reach and limited abilities to point out that trying to survive was an option.

Throughout the day wickets were falling like we were in a high school seconds cricket match and if that can be good for the game, we might as well play book cricket. True, Test cricket is all about adapting but we cannot play Test cricket on a pitch where the ball turns, bites and jumps inside the first fifty overs. Batting cannot become a lottery, bowler’s skills cannot become irrelevant.

Sometimes, though, even the best players are better off with no options, for the indecision in the mind is taken away and instinct takes over. It happened at the Wankhede Stadium with VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar and they showed us, and themselves, what had been denied all along.

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Tendulkar was the more interesting one. With three failures behind him and a pitch threatening to throw up the unplayable ball any minute, he started attacking and all of a sudden nothing seemed to matter. The feet, like outstanding cavalry, came down to the spin of Hauritz, the short arm pull reappeared and he charged down the wicket for a second run to get more of the bowling. Tendulkar was hungry, the opposition was concerned and the scoreboard was busy. That is surely how he must play.

Laxman’s move to number three was expected, even if it seemed to have the suggestion of a condemned man’s last wish. At Sydney in early 2000, with his career seemingly over, he launched the most amazing assault I have seen. Now, without quite the same ferocity, he started brightly. The boundaries appeared, the doubts perished and pedigree reappeared.

There is a theory that he finds himself constrained by the pressure of keeping one end up at number five should a few wickets have fallen quickly and that he prefers the relative freedom of number three. I hope that is not true. Good players must bat anywhere but, having said that, I was amazed that Rahul Dravid was willing to drop himself down the order to accommodate Laxman. It showed, for one, how generous he can be and for a second, how much the team values Laxman. There were some good signs at the end of a disappointing series.

Asking for another great series after 2001 and 2003-04 was being extraordinarily hopeful. As a contest this was poor, in spite of what happened on that terrible pitch on the last day. India looked hesitant, anxious and unsettled, they had key players absent and that was too much of a handicap against the best team in the world.