It might sound cliched to attack the Indian team after another loss – after all, that’s what critics do after defeats – but it was the nature of the capitulation, rather than the fact of it, that raises several questions.
To me, an interested watcher — and not obsessive fan – of Indian cricket, the defeat had its origins not in the batting collapse of the fourth day, but in a strange defeatism that’s part of the Indian psyche.
Consider the way we approached the first innings. Sehwag blazed away as usual, and Dravid and Tendulkar seemed keen on building up a long innings. But the intent, it seemed to me, was to play out time, to try batting through the third day, instead of wresting the initiative through attacking batsmanship. The running between wickets was terrible – every shot to the deep brought just two, instead of three when the Aussies batted.
And the way both Dravid and Tendulkar treated Nathan Lyon – who’s but a babe at this level. They seemed circumspect, happy to get two or three every over, when the crying need was to hit him out of the attack and give skipper Michael Clarke something to worry about. Instead, the Indians played the tune expected of them; jogging to two or three runs every over and hardly posing any worry to an embattled Australian team. In the event, the quicks were able to recharge themselves and the Indian total was never a threat.
What this says about us is that, with an opponent down on its knees, we refuse to go for the kill. Only Sehwag seems to have the intent to destroy; but too often he loses his mind and gifts his wicket. Sachin and Dhoni have long compromised their destructive batsmanship for a more percentage game.
The same strange unwillingness to go for the kill was apparent early on day four, when the Aussie tail wagged interminably. We’ve seen this many times – indeed, on an earlier tour, I remember Jason Gillespie putting on 60-odd runs in a late fightback that thwarted an Indian win. (Commentator Wasim Akram called him a ‘walking wicket’, but the bowlers were attempting line-and-length bowling to him when a yorker or two should’ve done the trick. Or perhaps a short ball with a fielder under his nose.)
Dhoni’s response to the defeat: “The Aussies bowled good line and length.” Oh please. Was that such a surprise? Isn’t that what any nine-year-old is taught on his first day at the nets? Was it astonishing that the Aussies would attempt good line and length? In any case, this Aussie attack is not a patch on the generation before it. If India cannot make a strong statement on its first Test, against an Aussie team that’s the worst in recent history, with three or four of the greatest batsmen in its side… what can one say?
The Indians might yet be able to turn this series around, but they have already ruined a golden opportunity to seal a Test win and go into the second Test sneering at their opponents. They now go in as the hunted instead of the hunters – and perhaps that’s a role they’re comfortable with. Perhaps they will still squeeze something out; perhaps the series will end in a draw or a win.
But that will not answer the uneasy questions the first Test raised. Despite having some so-called geniuses in the team, we have been unable to crush opposition for any length of time; we’ve been unable to win with consistency; we do not have what it takes to be like Waugh’s ‘Invincibles’.
Waugh was able to build a formidable team not just because he had some great players like Gilchrist, Hayden or Langer, but because he had the good hunter’s instinct of dominating when the opportunity arose. In contrast, Indian cricket’s biggest victory – at Eden Gardens – has been from a position of weakness, when there was no option but to try and survive. We are not used to dominating, and when we find ourselves in that position, we tend to chicken out – the prospect seems too intimidating. There was just no reason we should’ve let this first Test slip away.
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