Lets salute Anil the leader

Lets go back to late 2007. Arch rivals Pakistan were just about to come to India in some days and Rahul Dravid, who had just led India to a historic series win in England, had decided he had had enough of the pressures of captaincy. To make matters worse, after 'due consideration', Sachin Tendulkar too declined to become the captain. The jury was still out on whether MS Dhoni had matured enough to be handed the Test reins especially in light of the then impending tour Down Under. Erring on the side of caution, India's selectors handed the captaincy to Anil Kumble, for the 'time being'.
Retrograde step, screamed the 'experts'. Two steps backward for Indian cricket, they claimed. High on the recent T20 glory, they felt that Dhoni was being 'denied' the Test captaincy. Agreed, MSD together with Yuvraj Singh is the future of Indian cricket. But just look at how poor old Kumble was treated. Rather than being lauded for having the guts to take the responsibility when everyone else had shunned it, it was almost as if he had been made a 'trustee' in charge of a heirloom (the captaincy) to keep it safe until the 'beneficiary' Dhoni could rightfully claim it.
Now lets take a look at what transpired in Australia. 'Fort' Perth was conquered. And none other than Sunil Gavaskar hailed it as India's greatest win in the past 35-40 years. Which pretty much makes it the greatest because before 1971, we didn't use to win anything. No one gave India a hell of a chance to win at Perth, of all places, and that too after the events at Sydney.
So the entire team played well. Whats Anil got to do with that? A lot! Ravi Shastri made the point that he knew 3-4 guys in the current team who wouldn't have been able to handle the situation in Sydney as well as Anil did, if they had been in his place. It has been a gargantuan effort from Anil. First, he made the entire cricketing world sit up and take notice by saying that there was only one team that was playing in the spirit of the game. Its not hard to see why that statement made so much of an impact. The last time such a statement like this was made was during the Bodyline series in the 1930s, by the Australian captain when Englishman Larwood was maiming and injuring Aussie batsmen with short pitched bowling. Thats all it took from Anil's side. One strong sentence. No shenanigans. No posturing. Moreover, it is to his eternal credit that he maintained his dignity all along. And on top of that, to get the team out of the "We have been betrayed" mindset and get them to play with such intensity speaks volumes about the mental strength of the man. Lets hear it for Jumbo then!

India All Out - C Bucknor B Benson

If seven out of eight umpiring errors go against a particular team (I am not even considering Lbws here), only a miracle could prevent it from ending up on the losing side. That India did should come as no surprise, but part of the blame must be also be shared by their by now almost predictable fourth innings collapse. That a team which boasts of the Greatest Batting Line-up In The WorldTM should capitulate in the fourth innings with such alarming regularity should be a cause of concern for the team management. Its happened too often now for it to be ignored. Sunil Gavaskar admitted as much during the tea interval on Day 5 at the SCG when he doubted the ability of this Indian team to stick it out for a draw. At that point of time, India had lost only 3 wickets, all legitimate mind you.

However, that does not take anything away from the fact that the umpiring reached its absolute nadir during this match to the extent that you were tempted to call it biased. Its a regular occurrence that umpires do not hear small nicks and edges in the din of packed stadiums, but the healthy edge that ensued from Andrew Symonds' bat could have been heard as far as Bowral and Canberra! And whoever heard of third umpires making such basic mistakes? I mean, if the foot is not grounded, you are out, as simple as that. 'Benefit of doubt' is given to the batsman when there is a 'doubt', in the first place. In Symonds' case, it was clear as daylight that his foot was in the air when the bails were removed.

As if this was not enough, India were really done in by some horrible umpiring after tea. Rahul Dravid was playing the spin of Symonds as it should be done on a fifth day turning pitch, from within the pads. It was clearly visible to the naked eye that bat was nowhere involved. Bucknor keeps coming up with such howlers against India, time and again. And lastly, the less said about Ganguly's decision, the better? For starters, the 'agreement' to take the fielding captain's word for catches was between Ponting and Kumble, not between the umpires and Ponting. If umpires start taking the fielding captain's word for catches, then we might as well dispense with them, and have an all-encompassing 'agreement' for matches, like the one between Ponting and Kumble, where the fielding captain's word will be taken for anything and everything. If there is even an iota of doubt, the third umpire has to be called in. Its high time that all the fancy technology on display be made available to the two men who matter in the middle.

One last word. For people like Nasser Hussain, who claimed that the Indians had lost his 'sympathy', for clamouring for the removal of Bucknor. If one side has lost confidence in an umpire (with some justification), regardless of his perceived ability and standing, how do you expect its bowlers to appeal to that particular umpire for him to make his decisions in the very next match? How are they to be convinced of his impartiality, when recent events have suggested that there is something lacking on that count?

The travails of Rahul Dravid

A thousand gremlins seem to have inflicted the mind of Rahul Dravid, India's most reliable batsman over the past decade. The first casualty has been the attitude, which has become ultra-defensive to remind us of the days in the late 90s when he used to struggle to get the ball off the square. The next thing to suffer has been his footwork. This can be seen in the way he has been getting out in recent times, getting leg before or bowled while trying to play across the line. Another frequent manner in which he gets dismissed these days is when he goes leg before, getting caught on the crease to the incoming delivery. Now you would not expect a batsman of Rahul's class to get dismissed regularly playing across the line or half-cock. This is happening because the front foot which is normally mobile and enables transfer of weight easily is getting stuck in the crease with the effect that he has to play around it to execute his favourite on-drive. This leads to two things. One, because of the front foot being planted in the crease, the bat has to come down at a greater angle, probably from third slip or even gully, rather than first slip. Secondly, he tends to fall over while trying to execute the shot due to lack of balance. This ultimately leads to him missing more deliveries than usual and he gets bowled or leg before. Moreover, he has got into the habit of playing half-cock without going fully forward or fully backward getting trapped leg-before to the incoming delivery. This is more a direct fallout of the ultra-defensive mindset that he is in currently where he is looking to block even hittable deliveries. We all know Rahul has the mental strength to pull himself out of this rut. Lets hope it happens in Sydney.