The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : India made a bold statement by going in with five bowlers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 15, 2006

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Sport - Cricket

India made a bold statement by going in with five bowlers

Graham Gooch

Team India is counting its riches. They made a bold statement in Mohali by going in with five bowlers even though only Munaf Patel and Anil Kumble had the England batsmen in trouble.

Patel's emergence points to an India where talents are sprouting in far-away fields. They are hungry, competitive, skilled and mature. They have control, confidence and are more than just one-trick ponies. Suddenly, there is a scramble for places in the bowling department.

It would encourage the team management to the same with their batting. Wasim Jaffer has made a statement of intent in the first two Tests and in keeping out the likes of V.V.S. Laxman and Sourav Ganguly, the message is loud and clear for the rest.

A Sachin Tendulkar is still out of reach but a Virender Sehwag has caught the hint palpably. Informed ones must tell me if they have ever seen Sehwag apply himself in such a manner as he did on the last day in Mohali. He got one of his rare good scores in the second innings and what is more, it could perhaps be his slowest fifty in Test cricket.

All that talk of "leave-him-alone" and "he knows only one way to bat" has been tossed out of the window. The sense of self-preservation can make the best of us do strange things.

Kumble's transformation

And finally to a man who played his first Test against me in Manchester in 1990. Anil Kumble was an unorthodox sight to us, which was bemusing since India also had a conventional spinner in Narendra Hirwani. When we visited India in 1993, Kumble started to feature a lot in our strategic discussions in the team meetings. It would appear he has not stopped evolving since then.

England froze in Mohali because they realised that they no longer can treat him as a medium-pacer. He was giving the ball a loop and his leg-breaks were turning. He seems to have finally mastered the trick that has been missing in his repertoire.

In its absence, he relied on developing his googlies, variations in pace and even clever use of the crease. Now if the leg-break has come to stay, Kumble could be good for 600 wickets and more. — PTI

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