In defeat, for India there is only one certainty: swirling howls for the captain to hang up his cap and resign. Saurav Ganguly’s calling card — no, 21, 12, 12, 1, 2 is not some binary code for revival but his Test outings against Pakistan this season — is so dismal that the levelled series is being projected on his vanishing act at the batting crease. The personalisation of India’s unexpected surrender is even visually complete. As Ganguly went through the rituals of post-match announcements, it was visible on his person, his missing aggression evident in specks of grey above the ear, dark brooding circles shadowing the eyes. This is sad. This is an ungracious way to close a series that has seen one of the game’s most beautiful spectacles: men of promise, like Kamran Akmal and Younis Khan, finding form. Ganguly is becoming a passenger in the India XI, yes, but the terms of his exit must be crafted in a more forward-looking strategy.In Indian cricket, it is time for a split: for the one-day team to reflect less exactly the Test side. The Test side is definitely in crisis. But the remedy could well lie in India’s one-day transformation. That, in fact, has been the way with India for a while. It was, remember, innovation born of exigency in ODIs that set up the national team for Test victories, 2002 onwards. It was in one-days that India first flirted with reversing the dictates of classicism — packing the team with middle order batsmen: in the opening slots (Sehwag will still tell you, a double and a triple century later, that he wants to drop down the order in Tests), and even in the wicket-keeper’s position. That move carried into the five-day version of the game, with India last year, on the eve of the Rawalpindi Test, announcing that they had no place even for a traditional opener.The one-day strategy, however, has turned stale. And a whiff of freshness here could energise Test cricket. So, change the one-day captain, we say. Do it right away. Excise the wannabe’s compromise of a stand-in wicketkeeper (now almost into his fourth year). That plan aimed to compensate for inadequate bowling through a richness of batters. Now let the team swivel on its young and mean bowlers, stop cushioning the batsmen with excess. The ODI returns will hopefully be satisfying. The Test team will certainly take note.
