The contrast between two captains

The Australian and Indian captains started the series with contrasting centuries - the former scored the runs, while the latter gave them away.

That might seem a cruel comparison, because it was after all an easy enough batting track. But still, the contrast between the two captains could not have been starker at the start of this much-awaited Test series between the arch rivals of 21st century cricket.

Ricky Ponting started the series with a batting average of just 12 in previous Tests in India. He doubled that with a classy century, cautious by his standards but of immense value to his team. He came in to bat in the first over after the loss of Hayden, the most successful Australian batsman in India, for a duck.

He held the innings together, initially staving off the threat from Ishant and Zaheer, then picking up the scoring rate against the spinners. He did survive a couple of close LBW calls, but none that a third umpire would have reversed even if there had been a referral system. Rudi Koertzen did let him off in a caught-and-bowled too, thinking the ball had come off the ground, but he didn't last much longer after that, anyway, being given out LBW to one that would have missed leg stump by a long margin. So I wouldn't take anything away from his innings, which was a pleasure to watch for a connoisseur of the game who doesn't mind stretches of defensive batting dictated by circumstances and conditions.

You could see he had done his homework well, and he had the mental discipline to put those lessons into practice. To begin with, he did a much better job of leaving Ishant Sharma outside off-stump, something he failed to do in Australia. Ishant still had him in trouble during a particularly fiery spell, but that is to the bowler's credit.

More than Ishant, it is in the handling of the spinners where Ponting's preparation for the series became evident. His batting technique is generally to thrust his pad forward, and that has got him in trouble in the past because the bat also went hard at the ball, making him a prime candidate for bat-pad catches.

It was noticeable that he allowed the ball to come on to the bat instead of thrusting towards it, allowing him to play with soft hands against Kumble and Bhajji, and he hardly ever looked in any trouble. It's early days, because this pitch was really too slow and low for the spinners to have much penetration, but Ponting has got off to an impressive start in the series, leading his team by example.

Anil Kumble's show has been just the opposite. In the last three series, he has had an average of 42 runs per wicket, which is no good even for a part-time bowler in Tests, leave alone somebody who is supposed to be the main striker and captain.

So he really needed to put in a much better performance in this series to justify his place in the side, apart from lending some moral authority to his captaincy. Instead, he got off to the worst possible start, trundling through 43 overs in two days, giving away 129 runs without taking a single wicket in the first innings. He similarly started the last series in Sri Lanka with a century for no wicket. His average is now approaching 50 runs a wicket in the 11 Tests since the start of series Down Under, and that's a major embarrassment.

And it's not even as though India lacks quality replacements. Each time the TV cameras show Amit Mishra and Munaf Patel on the bench makes you wonder if either one of them would not do far better than what Kumble has been dishing out Test after Test.

His lack-lustre bowling seemed to affect his captaincy too, which has lacked inspiration, imagination and initiative. Nearly a third of the runs the Australians scored came in singles, which also upset the rhythm of the bowlers because there was a left-right combination out in the middle almost throughout the Aussie innings.

The inner ring of fielders was set too deep to prevent singles. It doesn't help, of course, that there are ageing legs in the team, but it was the field placement that was more at fault. And it wasn't as though the boundaries were cut off either. If Kumble wanted to be defensive because wickets were hard to come by, he might have been better served by an in-out field, with a sweeper cover on the boundary and the inner ring coming closer to prevent singles.

The easy singles on offer, complemented by easy boundaries off the loose balls, played into Aussie hands, allowing Ponting and Hussey to adapt to the conditions and work themselves into form for the series. India would've been much better off to force them to take more risks for their runs, even if they had got a few more boundaries in the bargain.

There's still a long way to go in the series, but so far nothing has changed from the start of the Sri Lanka series when I had argued in this column that it was Time to end the KumBha mela. It's clear now that it's also time to end Kumble's captaincy.

His poor judgement as captain has become glaring in his handling of bowlers and field placements. But it is also evident in the lack of enthusiasm he has shown so far to induct new talent into the team, despite his criticism of the middle order batsmen after the Lanka series.

Another indicator of his poor judgement as captain lies in his criticism of the umpire referral system tried out during the Sri Lankan series, just because the Lankans made better use of it, and Kumble was perhaps clutching at straws to distract attention from his team's abysmal performance.

He forgot that Indians usually come off much worse in umpiring 'errors', especially against the Aussies. So it was poetic justice that the referral system is on hold for the current series and umpire Rudi Koertzen of South Africa not only turned down a plumb LBW of Katich but also a clear caught-and-bowled of Ponting, both to the bowling of Kumble, who remained wicketless as a result.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net