An analysis of India A performance in England

Ambati Rayudu
By Gaurang - July 31, '03
July 31 2003

The young (and some not so young) men of India A have done quite well so far on their England tour. Credit must go not only to the players, but also to coach Sandip Patil who seems to have instilled a very positive and aggressive mind-set.

OK, so the opposition in most of the games, except for South Africa match, was not the strongest, with few counties playing their best sides. But you can only play who is picked to play against you (ask Australia).

Yet time after time the players have individually or collectively dug deep and played with heart, with different heroes stepping forward in different games. Gambhir, Das, Gavaskar, Badani, Patel, the quartet of fast bowlers Salvi, Irfan, Balaji, Bhandari (both as bowlers and batsmen), and even Bharadwaj have all won games, or set up wins, for India A.

Interestingly, before the tour started, people were looking forward to the performance of India A's fast bowlers, who were expected to find the conditions helpful to their trade, while the India A batsmen were expected to struggle against the seaming ball.

But except for a single One Day match against Lancashire, where the ball held sway, it has been the batting that has dominated.

In fact counting both One Day and Three Day games, every batsman picked for the tour has scored freely and notched up a century. The only one who has not notched up one or more century, Wasim Jaffer, actually played the best against the strongest opposition, the South Africans.

The one batsman who has made the most progress however is young Ambati Rayudu. Not only does he have a 100 plus first class batting average and top the batting averages (followed by Rohan Gavaskar, who can thank one brilliant knock for his average), but the fact that he has always looked like making runs whether in One day or three day matches, his shot selection, his utter ease at the crease, all add to this impression.

Interestingly, India's most successful bowler in terms of strike rate and average, Salvi, was rested for the early games. While spinner Mishra showed that English players were vulnerable to spin, regardless of the conditions. South Africa's Test batsmen showed less vulnerability and Mishra had a poor game. Mishra will have to develop greater variety to make the move up the grade, but he is fast becoming a complete bowler with two 5-fors on this tour. Irfan Pathan Jr. has shown a very economical streak and has grabbed wickets in the One day games as well, to easily be regarded as the second best India A seamer behind Salvi. Amit Bhandari has done far better than expectations with two five-wicket hauls so far: against Surrey and Glamorgan.

Despite scoring a gutsy 60 odd, Rohan Gavaskar dropped to second spot on the India A FC batting average, though both are averaging over 100! Interestingly the highest run scorer is Das, though he has the lowest average among regular batsmen of 39 odd. The FC bowling average is led by Salvi, with Bhandari moving into second spot with his 6-38 against Glamorgan. In One dayers Badani is averaging over 100 while Pathan is averaging a wicket every 10 runs with the ball!

The two bowlers who have not performed up to expectations so far have been Murali Karthik and L. Balaji. As they have been on India A tours before, this is doubly disappointing: they should have been the ones leading the attack. While Karthik has taken the most first class wickets, his combined bowling in One dayers and first class matches has shown lack of penetration and he has been expensive from time to time. He has no match winning performances with the ball and his batting has also been disappointing. Balaji similarly has just about done OK with no outstanding performances except for a good performance with both bat and ball in the One day win against Lancashire. But in that match all three fast bowlers did extremely well with ball and bat.

The team is on track to return home unbeaten. They have done a superb job going unbeaten so far, and being in winning positions in all of them. That is a great achievement on tour playing English county sides, regardless of the quality of the opposition. India A and their coach, Sandip Patil, who seems to have instilled a very aggressive and positive frame of mind in the players, as well as the two captains Das and Badani, should all take a bow. Shabash!