The Hindu : Sport : Indian batsmen need to play positively

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Wednesday, Jan 02, 2008
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Indian batsmen need to play positively

S. Ram Mahesh

Grassy wicket at the SCG likely to aid stroke play; Zaheer injured, taken for scan

— Photo: AFP

TIME TO STEP UP: Anil Kumble, Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman will need to play stellar roles if India is to grab the initiative in the second Test against Australia.

Sydney: The Sydney Cricket Ground, which will host the second Test between India and Australia from Wednesday, is the warmest of the world’s most famous cricket venues.

Where the Melbourne Cricket Ground is grand and formidable, the SCG retains an air of well-worn comfort. The Brewongle, Churchill, O’Reilly, and Doug Walters stands — each modern, self-sustaining, and white-roofed — have been raised in recent years, but the setting remains intimate.

Particularly welcoming are the Members pavilion and the Ladies stand, with their gracious Edwardian turrets, distinctive green roofs, and red-brick columns. Encouragingly for the Indian team, down a Test in the four-match series, the welcome is expected to extend to the conditions.

The SCG strip, though recently re-laid, looks a good cricket wicket — the sort that over five days will involve every facet of the game.

Bouncy wicket

Reading the entrails confirms it will have the most critical component: bounce. For one, the wicket-square is flush with grass, a sight that soothes even the most curmudgeonly of curators. It’s a sign of vitality in the soil. Set firm with the volcanic Bulli soil (a composite of 65 per cent clay), the strip should play better than Melbourne, offering pace, but also letting the ball come on. The covering of grass, brushed so it stands like a three-day-old stubble, may well allow deviation off the seam. With showers forecast, there could also be conventional swing.

Such a strip may have worked on the minds of Indian teams of the past, but the current side, over the last five years, has done well abroad. The seamers rejoice, knowing they have been armed, all the better to get 20 wickets with. The spinners aren’t chary either; the bounce benefits them. In any case, they often get to bowl at batsmen who aren’t set — the seamers break through more often in such conditions.

For India’s bowling unit, which acquitted itself well at Melbourne on a pitch that didn’t favour attacking, this will prove a different challenge. The Australian batsmen will come hard at them (and Ricky Ponting will be looking to make up for his twin failures at the MCG).

The bowlers will need to think calmly and nimbly. Above all, they must remember that forceful advances create chances for wickets.

It’s India’s batting, however, that’s under the scanner. Australia’s bowlers handcuffed them at Melbourne with thought, patience, discipline, and a great deal of skill.

Brief defiance

But, even amidst the embarrassing timidity was defiance, however brief, when a partnership was strung. Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly put on 65 at 4.33 runs an over in the first innings — a rate of considerable rapidity. Ganguly and Anil Kumble added 44 at 3.61 in the same innings, and, in the second, Laxman and Ganguly gathered 41 at 3.36 — both perfectly acceptable speeds of scoring on that wicket.

As Kumble pointed out, India did alright when they got partnerships started; only, no partnership grew significantly. Much of the mental readjustment Kumble said his batsmen needed has to do with relaxing — indeed, he called the approach in the first Test “uptight” — and building big partnerships.

The cruise along the coast of Sydney, taking in the fireworks over the Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve, ought to have helped with the loosening up.

That the co-ordinates of conflict can change here at the SCG will boost the cause of partnerships. Stroke-play will be less laboured on this strip. The outfield, unlike the pan-flat expanse of the MCG, slopes towards the boundary rope from the wicket. Both should help India’s batting, which is at its best when hitting boundaries. Moreover, India’s batsmen have had success here, running up a score of 705 for seven declared in 2003-04.

In some dispiriting news for India, Zaheer Khan picked up a leg injury on Tuesday. The left-armer was taken for a scan, and will be assessed on Wednesday morning.

Virender Sehwag batted with abandon at the nets, going in first and sparking talk that he may be included. But, word from the Indian camp late on Tuesday suggested he wasn’t in the 13 short-listed for the Test (Dinesh Karthik and Pankaj Singh, the others ‘missing out’). All an elaborate decoy perhaps?

The teams (from): Australia: Ricky Ponting (capt.), Matthew Hayden, Phil Jaques, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson.

India: Anil Kumble (capt), Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Karthik, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, V.V.S. Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, M.S. Dhoni (wk), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, R.P. Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma and Pankaj Singh.

Umpires: Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor. Third umpire: Bruce Oxenford. Match referee: Mike Procter

Hours of play (IST): 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., 7.40 a.m. to 9.40 a.m., and 10 a.m. till close.

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