Virender Sehwag-Gautam Gambhir must make amends

Three Tests, six outings and not a single opening partnership worth 50 or more! What are our openers doing? Well, 22 & 17 (Melbourne), 0 & 18 (Sydney), and 4 & 24 (Perth) are not the kind of contributions you expect from Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Something is certainly amiss.

The basic problem is that they are batting like they would (and should) on subcontinental wickets. One needs to change his technique and adjust his footwork on bouncy tracks. You can’t just stay rooted in the crease and not use your feet. The other issue, of course, is defence.

In our days, openers like Sunil Gavaskar, Chetan Chauhan and yours truly used to assign a lot of importance to the forward as well backfoot defensive shot. Our openers are just trying to score off every delivery.

Let me explain how one can correct this flaw. A batsman — more importantly an opener — must use his feet and smother the movement (swing, seam or both) by getting behind the line of the ball. He need not necessarily play at it. In other words, he has the option of leaving the ball.

As a batsman, you must be extremely sure of your feet movement; so much so that it should confuse the bowler. In Australia, our openers seem anything but confident. Most of their fast bowlers are reaping benefits by pitching it up.

Viru and Gauti don’t seem to be in Test-cricket mode. If they were, then they’d be focusing on tiring out Peter Sidle & Co. Instead, they seem to be gifting their wickets. An opener’s primary job is to see off the new ball; scoring runs comes later. In our time, we would frustrate the bowlers to such an extent that they’d be forced to bowl on our legs. We’d then pounce on the scoring opportunities.

And yes, preparing for an overseas assignment is equally important. We used to ask net bowlers to bowl from 18, even 16, yards. It gave us very little time to judge the pace of the ball and, of course, make the necessary adjustments. But it prepared us for the tour.

Mohinder Amarnath, now a member of the national selection panel, told bowlers to bowl from halfway down the pitch. That’s how seriously he prepared for a foreign tour.

And mind you, we trained with ‘real’ cricket balls. There was a risk of getting injured even before the tour started. But we took our chances. Your concentration had to be impeccable, your footwork immaculate, your timing perfect and your judgment spot on. Anything outside the off or leg stump was left alone. Like I said before, the idea was always to stay on the wicket. Runs would follow.

The Test series is lost, but both Viru and Gauti must make amends in Adelaide. It’s unfortunate to see a player like Viru faring poorly in ‘away’ Tests. Frankly speaking, he is not doing justice to his talent. I have watched him from close quarters during my days as the coach of Team India and I must say that he’s not achieved even half of what he could have. However, all’s not lost. With a few adjustments, Sehwag can still churn out four match-winning knocks in five outings. He needs to start valuing his wicket. He cannot throw it away and then nonchalantly claim that he was just playing his “natural game”.

Another area of concern is our batsmen’s technique against short-pitch bowling. Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly are the names that readily come to mind. The moment these guys were peppered with short stuff, they used to literally start jumping. Suresh Raina’s troubles are also well-known. But then again, there is a solution. Most batsmen rely on bowling machines to iron out this flaw. There is also a traditional method wherein you get net bowlers to bowl at you from different angles on cement wickets. You take a few blows, but eventually learn how to tackle the short ball. No pain, no gain.

The simplest method to counter all these problems would be to prepare fast and bouncy pitches. Before the sceptics tear into me, let me tell you that we need lively pitches in domestic cricket and not when we host Test-playing nations. Let our U-16, U-19, U-22, Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and other tournaments be played on sporting wickets. And when England or, say, Australia visit India, we might as well dish out turners.

If our batsmen learn to bat on tough pitches, then they wouldn’t be found wanting — like they are at the moment — on foreign wickets. What’s the point of playing Ranji Trophy matches on absolute featherbeds. We are creating — and encouraging — inept batsmen.

So how difficult is it to prepare a lively wicket? The fact is that the flattest of tracks can be transformed into a greentop. Look at Mohali or Wankhede for that matter. A bowler would get purchase on these wickets throughout the day. The money is there and so are the personnel. But I don’t see the intent.

The writer is a former India opener, selector and coach

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