Repairing for battle

Prem Panicker

When it comes to a Test series, a good beginning is half the battle.

Okay already -- having got the mandatory 'cliche of the day' out of my system, let's move on. To the Indian team's beginnings in the Caribbean. First crack out of the box, premier off spinner Harbhajan Singh is rendered hors d'combat. He will, we are told, be unavailable for the first Test. And when it comes to replacing him, the tour management opens the cupboard and finds it empty. (Off-spinner Sarandeep Singh has been told to be ready to fly out to the Caribbean at short notice if Harbhajan is ruled out for the opening game)

The unwisdom of going on tour with just two spinners was pointed out in an earlier article -- recent events have merely served to reinforce that thought. India will now go into the first Test with a bowling lineup reading Zahir Khan, Ashish Nehra, Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble -- in other words, three seam bowlers and a spinner who at least in the first innings will be played, by opposition batsmen, as a seamer. And it puts the fan in a spot -- the heart hopes that India gets off to a winning start but that persistent, logical imp hidden in the brain keeps whispering, 'How?'

Basic commonsense could have avoided this problem. By no stretch of the imagination were we ever going to play more than two seamers -- okay, let's push the probability quotient to its limits and say three -- in a Test. And yet we pick five in the side. However, it was a sure bet that we would play at least two spinners in a Test -- and we go in with just two, leaving no margin whatsoever for illness, injury, and other acts of god. Meanwhile, talents such as Sarandeep Singh and Murli Karthik languish.

The trouble is that five years from now, all we will ever remember are the scoreboards -- and there is no space on that document for the sins of omission and comission perpetrated by our selection committee.

Or by the board, come to think of it. A five Test tour is a tough ask -- doubly so for an Indian team that hasn't played an extended series in a long while, and is unused to the mental demands of such a tour. Thus, getting off to a good start becomes a matter of prime importance -- and the only way to do so is to go in to the first Test with adequate practise, with the top players, and the bench, having got their feet wet against quality opposition.

Check back through the archival sections of newspapers and net sites, and you will find stories indicating that months before the start of a series involving Australia, England, even New Zealand, officials of those boards visit the host country for a series of meetings. At these meetings, the guest country lays down certain stipulations -- the number of warm up matches it wants to play, the kind of pitches it wants to play on, and most importantly, the quality of opposition it wants to play against.

We read those news stories and we think, hell, these blokes are a touch too finicky for their own good. Perish the thought -- what those boards, and officials, are is professional. They are aware that good preparation is an indispensible element to a Test tour, they are hell bent on ensuring that their team gets the best of conditions, and facilities, and opposition when they play practise games, and they discuss it all, and have the final agreements written out in black and white. Try selling them a dummy and giving them sub-standard opposition ahead of the first Test and see how soon they scream bloody murder and refuse to play.

We -- or rather, our board -- however, can never be bothered with such niceties. Remember an earlier tour of South Africa (not the last one, but the one before that?). We stuck out our chin for the classic sucker punch -- the Proteas gave the team a warm-up game on the slowest pitch it was possible to devise, and 48 hours later, ambushed the team in the first Test in Durban, on the fastest wicket in contemporary memory.

Someone once said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat it. The BCCI is a classic exemplar because lo, we have done it again. Because our officials do not think cricket, because they could not be bothered to tour the host country and fine tune the arrangements, the Indian team ends up playing a farcical three day game against opposition that the weakest team in Ranji Trophy would sneer at. And that is all the preparation it has, ahead of the first Test.

You've got to be Panglossian in your optimism to think the team, with this kind of preparation, will show to best advantage. It is more likely that the Indian team will end up being hopelessly wrong-footed. And when the results are in, we will blast the much hyped stars, the foreign coach, the imported physio and the made in South Africa physical trainer. The selectors, meanwhile, will take note of the team's performance and sack a whole clutch of players -- as they did with the entire fast-bowling brigade after the last tour of South Africa.

Everyone will be held accountable -- except the selectors, and the board. Who, secure in that knowledge, will look about for fresh blunders to perpetuate.

It's a nice job, if you can get it.

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