Come on India, show some fight!

Border View

If you have to sum up the overall performance of the Indian team during this the first Test in Melbourne, it was nothing short of abysmal. All the basics of good hard Test cricket were missing.

The batting, supposedly the most vaunted area of this Indian team, was sadly below par. Rahul Dravid is sadly out of touch and must be in some doubt for the Test in Sydney. Sachin Tendulkar looked in very good touch and his first innings knock reminded most of us of the Tendulkar of the ‘90s. The rest of the batting showed some glimpses of resistance but overall it was very disappointing. All the talk pre-tour was of taking the fight to the Aussies and not being intimidated. Having just come away from home with a win over Pakistan, all of us here in Australia were really looking forward to an hard-fought series. But going by the first Test, I doubt whether India will live up to those expectations.

Unless there is a minor miracle, the series will be another sweep for Aussies. I’m not sure whether Gary Kirsten, the new Indian coach, has been watching this Test on television but he might be having second thoughts about what he is taking on!
Let’s start with the positives. Most of the talk before the beginning of the series surrounded around whether the Indian bowlers would be able to take 20 wickets to support their highly renowned batting. As a sweet surprise, the area that I was most impressed with was the bowling.

Anil Kumble was superb throughout the Test, particularly in the first innings and he received some good support from Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. They showed enough to me to suggest that the Indian bowling can worry the Aussies.
The only thing that might curtail this is the fielding. If India are to challenge this Aussie team, they must take almost every chance that comes their way. And moreover, with the vast and slowish outfields that we have in Australia, the Indian fielders must try and not let the Aussie batsmen convert twos into threes.

Then there is the batting. There’s no doubt this Indian batting line-up matches the world champions’ batting order place to place. Just about every player in the top six averages over fifty in Test cricket and they all have at times shown that they can take the fight to the Aussies. If India are able to rotate the strike regularly, something that they lacked desperately in Melbourne, they can get rid of the burden of not keeping the scoreboard moving. For this, the batsmen have to be positive, not just in shot selection but also while running between the wickets. Having come into the Test series short on match practice in the Australian conditions, India now have one Test match under their belt. And I hope it will reflect in their performance in Sydney, where traditionally it’s been happy hunting for spinners.

India need to show some grit going into Sydney. All of us here in Australia are desperate for a competitive series. So come on India, show some ticker!