The weird case of fading heroes

Will both play? Will they climb back to where they should be? With India’s West Indies journey wobbling on the edge, the answers will depend on a crucial equation that will be worked on and maybe reworked even after you have read this.

After three frustrating draws — yet to take 20 wickets in a match — if India finally decide to go into the final Test with five bowlers, the first batsman on the block would be the only one who hasn’t fired so far in this series. And if that number is four, the same yardstick may be used to size up the team’s bowlers, as it was in the last Test. In both cases, it’s those two names once again: Yuvraj and Irfan. And to think that till a few months ago, both would have been among the first eight on any team list.

They say it’s a loss of form, of confidence, even focus. But the fact is both have withered away, match by match, ever since the team landed here in the second week of May: 72 runs in three Tests for Yuvraj, 2/93 in the only Test that Irfan has played so far.

Irfan, who has appeared in only one Test out of three, is understood to be suffering from an overdose of cricket that has left him drained and quite frustrated at the little things that have then gone awry, especially in the run-up, the wrist position. The result: loss of line, length, pace and that world-famous outswing.

The 21-year-old is also believed to be at that crucial phase of his career where he’s caught in the wedge between pace and swing. The Indian team management is quite clear that his strength lies in swing, and it is a realisation that he’s now trying to come to terms with while dealing with the crushing hype and the overwhelming distractions that come along with it.

According to Chappell, Irfan probably didn’t realise how draining it had been — of the 243 overs he bowled in 11 Tests last season, 216 came in the last six during the Pakistan tour and the England visit — till the support staff found out how “tired” he was.

After his economy rate topped the 5 mark in each of the first four games of the one-day series, he was “rested” for the last match. And from then on — he was out of first and third Test XIs too — it has been a sequence of special one-stump sessions, with sports psychologist Dr Rudi Webster and pace legend Andy Roberts chipping in.

If Irfan is the big picture case for India, looking ahead to the World Cup and beyond, Yuvraj’s 72 in three Tests is the immediate hurdle. Striding into this series with a great one-day streak behind him — two centuries and three fifties — that fantastic 93 brought India to within a run from victory in the second one-dayer and pumped up hopes that the 24-year-old would drive the team across the Caribbean.

But immediately after that match, he walked out with a “bad back”, missed the next game at St Kitts, came back with a 51 in Trinidad and has never been the same since. There has been no visible signs of that injury thereafter out in the pitch or at nets, but he has struggled since to middle the ball, move his feet. His Test drive so far has been a disaster.

Like VVS Laxman, he looked solid before throwing it away for 23 and 39 during the first Test in Antigua, but it has been a black hole since. And unlike Laxman, the comeback is still to come: 2 in St Lucia, 0 and 8 from 50 balls in St Kitts.

But then, Virender Sehwag and Mohammed Kaif emerged smiling from similar holes recently, and as Chappell put it, “Players go through spells like this where they don’t make runs or take wickets. But if they are good players, we expect them to bounce back. And we expect him (Yuvraj) to bounce back.” Hinting that all is not lost for the left-hander here, the coach added, “In his case, we’d prefer him to bat and make runs.”

Skipper Rahul Dravid, in fact, hopes that Yuvaj will come up with a “series-winning performance” in the last Test. The evening before the team list, Yuvraj was hunched over his laptop, focused, peering into the screen; Irfan was in his room. Both winding up for the next five days that will, hopefully, turn the series India’s way, their way.