The Fallen Frontier

The slide has continued this season with a series loss to Australia and a narrow win over South Africa.

Then came Pakistan, fresh from a series of missed chances Down Under and carrying a team of unsettled elements: the variable opening pairs, the absence of fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed and Umar Gul, a vice-captain with question marks against his selection and promotion, a coach yet to win serious silverware and a captain without even an iota of the success his opposite number had achieved in the last five years.

India, by contrast, had the upper hand: home advantage, a full-strength bowling attack and Virender Sehwag taking first strike.

So where did it go wrong?

MUDDLED IN MOHALI
India required four Pakistani wickets to win on the last day of the First Test. The bowlers managed to pick just three in two sessions, before Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer decided to declare and win some brownie points.

After India dominated the match on the first four days it seemed like one of those freak moments in cricket when two ordinary batsmen played extraordinary cricket. Time lost due to rain was also factored in.

What was not factored in was the slow batting on day two of the Test, when just 59 runs were scored in 29 overs between lunch and tea. The bowling was from Mohammad Sami, who had yet to bowl a good ball in the match; Abdul Razzaq, a bowler who probably runs in faster than the velocity of the delivery; and Naved Ul Hasan, an average one-day bowler.

Apart from drawing that Test, India let Pakistan into the contest; gave them the confidence to compete, gave heart to their bowlers who, before the series, were dreading the sight of the much-vaunted Indian batting line-up. Witness Sami’s renewed length and raw pace in the second and third Test.

‘‘Sami has been trying too hard since he knew that he was the spearhead. After Mohali, he just relaxed a bit with the result and came back with a bang’’, says Younis Khan.

BANGALORED
Save for the old warhorse Anil Kumble, even the Kolkata Test would have been a draw. The manner in which the Test yo-yoed between the two teams till the last morning of the match showed how close Pakistan came to taking a lead in the series.

Eventually, the facade came crashing down in Bangalore. The main problem was that the batsmen failed to build on their starts. Coach John Wright had stated before the series began that batsmen would have to convert the fifties into hundreds and the hundreds into double tons. Only Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid heeded that piece of advice to register the sole centuries from the Indian camp. Sachin Tendulkar had three fifties, Laxman two and skipper Ganguly failed to aggregate fifty runs in the series.

Sehwag’s early dismissal on the final day of the Bangalore Test was picked as the turning point of the match but the failure of the Indian batsmen to match Pakistan’s 570 in the first innings was the most crucial one.

Even vice-captain Rahul Dravid told a TV channel that India’s failure to match the Pakistani total in the first innings undermined their chance to shut the door on a defeat, leave alone a win.

Instead of taking more of a chance with a 1-0 lead in the series, India decided to preserve it. But series are not won by adding minutes to your name, they are won by scoring runs. It makes for a great argument that the Indian team got scores of 400 plus in four of its completed innings in the series. But that doesn’t matter. As Pete Sampras was once told by his coach, no matter how many points you lose in the match, make sure you win the last one.

India scored big in all the innings but failed in the one that mattered — the fact that it was the last day of the Test is just fine print. Is the world’s finest middle order dependent on the Virender Sehwag’s form for victory?

CAPTAIN IN CRISIS
After Bangalore, Sourav Ganguly said that he hadn’t lost the series, merely drawn it. That shows the current mindset of a captain under great pressure, for whom safety first is the best policy.

Not only did Ganguly miss a golden opportunity to be captain of the world’s second-ranked team, the Bangalore defeat exposed the thinking of a team that once believed they could strive to be number one in the world.

Ganguly needs to come out of his denial mode. His captaincy is under attack and it is time for him to admit it. He might however still salvage it what with our next Test opponents being the minnows Zimbabwe later this year.

Hamstrung by his own batting failures, the knock-on effect showed when Tendulkar suddenly decided to bat for time in the Bangalore Test well aware that an out of form Ganguly was to follow him after which it would be VVS Laxman — only marginally less shaky — left with the tail.

With coach John Wright leaving the job in May, it may be time for the powers that be to decide on a complete overhaul at the top. That brings in to the frame the one man who’s wanted the job for a long, long time: Rahul Dravid.