Sydney Pointers

What are the lessons that must be imbibed by Kumble and his men if they are to avoid a second knock down? The key lesson to be learnt is that offense is the best defense against these Australians. This applies to the Indian bowling, batting and fielding, but especially to the batting.

The negative tactic of trying to grind the Australian bowlers into submission with stone-walling starts has to be abandoned immediately.  India must include Virender Sehwag in the team, to open with Rahul Dravid.  Wasim Jaffer must be dropped, as he neither provides the attacking option like Sehwag, nor does he seem capable of surviving long, unlike Dravid, who despite scoring painfully slowly, did actually bat out over thirty overs himself.  Dravid can and should continue to play the role of sheet anchor at one end, allowing the batsmen at the other end to do more of the scoring.  One thing he will however have to improve is using soft hands to prod, nudge, and simply drop and run, singles, and rotate the strike.  

As for the bowling, Sydney promises to be a much more difficult pitch to dismiss batsmen on, especially the Australians, in their current form.  Taking twenty wickets will prove to be a challenge and so I would go with five specialist bowlers.  I would suggest inducting Irfan Pathan into the team in place of Yuvraj Singh.  Pathan could hardly do worse than Yuvraj with the bat, and he is a genuine third seamer to support Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma.  I would include young Ishant ahead of R.P. Singh simply because he is more likely to take wickets than R.P. in his current form, and also because if R.P. were picked, India’s pace bowlers would all be left armers, and wouldn’t provide the variety that Ishant as a tall, hit-the-deck, right hander, would.  I would however still pick Harbhajan Singh, who showed signs of regaining his old touch when he slowed down and bowled much better in Australia’s second innings, as support for India’s main spinner, and key bowler, Anil Kumble.

Finally I would include Yuvraj Singh as twelfth man, and have him field for one of the seniors, Laxman, Dravid, Sachin or Sourav, as much as possible during the match. 

I doubt that Kumble will make these bold moves, but if he fails to drop Jaffer and Yuvraj, India are likely to once again be easily rolled over as Ricky Ponting marches inexorably towards the coveted record of seventeen Test victories in a row.  It is almost as if Ponting and his team are no longer concerned about the challenge presented by their opposition on the field, but instead want to challenge history, and etch their names as the greatest Test side of all time.  In other words Ponting’s real challenge seems to be Bradman’s invincibles, Lloyd’s legends, or Waugh’s warriors.  The actual opposition on the field is almost irrelevant.

Kumble’s India on the other hand have nothing to lose.  And if they somehow can stop the juggernaut that is the current Australian team for even one match, they will have achieved something that only one two other teams have done this century, i.e. Ganguly’s fighters in 2000-01 and again in 2003-04 and Vaughan’s brave hearts in 2005.