Column

Coach Kirsten was either being disparaging or 'positive' by discounting Dhoni's absence; either way, it rang hollow

India's coach Gary Kirsten does not think one-day captain MS Dhoni's absence from the Test team makes much of a difference to the balance of the side, because "he has been replaced by two keepers who do similar jobs".

To suggest that either Dinesh Karthick or Parthiv Patel has the batting abilities of an MSD, who can either hold fort - as he did to save the Lord's Test last year - or go ballistic as he seems to be able to do at will, begs the question: on what evidence?

In fact, even behind the wickets, neither Karthick nor Patel can be counted on as being as safe as Dhoni has become in the vital matter of taking catches and effecting stumpings. Obviously, Dhoni's absence will also affect the balance of the team, because India can now ill-afford the option of playing five bowlers (two pacers and three spinners).

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, Dhoni was the only one not to fall for the mystery ball of the new Lankan sensation Ajantha Mendis who wreaked havoc on the Indian batting line-up in the Asia Cup final. It remains to be seen if the Fab Four (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman) will read the freak spinner any better.

So what does one make of the Indian leadership's mental makeup ahead of the Lankan series from Kirsten's remark? The uncharitable view would be that Kirsten and Co are peeved at Dhoni's decision to pull out of the Test series, citing fatigue. That Dhoni is unlikely to win a popularity contest in a Test team that includes a number of seniors who are unwelcome in the One-Day team almost goes without saying. Whether Kirsten has been influenced by these undercurrents we don't know, but the cohesiveness among the players representing India is a problem that the board will have to deal with sooner than later if it persists with different captains for different formats of the game.

To give Kirsten the benefit of the doubt, however, let's assume that by discounting the effects of Dhoni's absence, he was just being 'positive', as coaches and captains are wont to do these days to score imaginary psychological points before a series.

On the contrary, I would have thought a refusal to acknowledge the obvious would be read by the opposition as a sign of weakness. In fact, during the recent Euro 2008 I noticed the more successful coaches waxed eloquent on the virtues of the opposition, perhaps to lull them into complacency or a false sense of security, instead of tom-tomming their own strengths or trying to cover up weaknesses. The German camp even kept feeding media speculation until the last minute that captain Michael Ballack would be unfit to take the field in the final.

The Australians started these mind games in cricket some years ago, but they did it in a heckling, blustering sort of way designed to irritate or intimidate. Of course, they also had the performances and records to back up the bluster, but even the Aussies seem to have tired of these tactics in recent times.

Just looking at the number of times Brett Lee extols the genius of Tendulkar, for example, makes one wonder if he does that to claim more credit for taking his wicket.

Talking of mind games, I wonder what India's Test captain Anil Kumble had in mind when he exuded confidence on his team's ability to overcome the Mendis factor. "Test cricket is different," he said. "We have an experienced batting line-up," he pointed out.

Again, perhaps it would be reading too much into these to suggest Kumble meant his Test team has more quality than Dhoni's one-day team. Such a comparison would be odious because it can only be made when Dhoni leads his young team into Test cricket.

Until then, the only arena on which we can see the seniors competing on equal terms with the juniors is the IPL, and there the teams led by Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman failed to qualify for the semi-finals, while those led by Dhoni, Sehwag and Yuvraj did. But perhaps that's a churlish comparison too.

Maybe Kumble, like Kirsten, was just being 'positive', although his claim that the Test team had "been really consistent in the last year or so" was stretching credulity, considering that India barely managed to avoid being beaten at home by the South Africans, thanks mainly to a groundsman who produced an under-prepared, rank turner to enable the Indians to draw level in the last Test at Kanpur, which incidentally was led by Dhoni in Kumble's absence.

Dig a little deeper and you find that the only innings of note played by Dravid was a century at a strike rate of two runs an over in the first Test at Chennai where India scored over 600 at four an over and South Africa scored over 500 at 3.5 an over. Laxman had a solitary knock of 50, albeit an important one in the final Test that India won. Tendulkar fell for a duck in the first Test and played no further part in the series.

Methinks Kumble dost whistle in the dark, as dost Kirsten, who has won nothing since taking up the coach's mantle.
c_sumit@dnaindia.net