A Challenger Series with no real purpose

It is a great challenge to play a three Test match series against the mighty Australians. One never stops wondering about the wisdom behind conducting the Challenger Series of one-dayers, just before a serious Test series against arguably the best team in the world. This series of day-night matches interrupted a very serious conditioning camp. As always, the priorities have been lost to some narrow thinking and the Indians have shot themselves in the foot.

According to the Indian team physiotherapist & trainer Andrew Leipus, this is the best camp the Indians have ever had, as it has been well organised and efficiently managed. He says, "The guys have worked hard. And the intensity with which they have been training has been second to none. I think the ultimate goal is to defeat the Aussies."

As for the quality of cricket on display, it was just a surfeit of runs on a batsmen's paradise. All the four matches were played on the same surface, never an ideal scenario for positive cricket. There was no challenge to the batsmen in any form or other. The fact that 2449 runs were scored in 394.4 overs at a rate of 6.21 per over says a lot.

It was appalling to see young bowlers being mauled all over the park. You might be deceived into believing that the Indian batting is capable of scoring at six runs an over all through the Indo-Australian Test series. Batsmen can only lay the foundation for a victory; it is the bowlers who carry their team to victory in a Test match by taking twenty wickets.

And, what about the probables who wanted to make a good impression on the selectors? If only good competitive cricket is played, one gets the ideal opportunity. To add to the chaos, twelve of the 25 players from the camp have flown out to Nagpur for a tour game against the Australians starting on Saturday. The camp goes on with the players left behind in Chennai. Perhaps the real challenge is more within the working of the Indian team, than their opponents.

The die-hard cricket fans of Chennai and the viewers of Doordarshan were given a royal run feast at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. One can be certain that the Indian captain Sourav Ganguly wouldn't make much out of his blitzkrieg at Chepauk. He is smart enough to understand that Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne are much bigger challenge than Venkatesh Prasad and Sukhbinder Singh. All through the series, the side fielding second was found to be going through the motions; emphasising the fact that no one really gave much importance to this 'Tamasha' under lights.

The Challenger Series did not pose a challenge to anybody; all that was achieved was perhaps to demoralize the confidence of the India bowling hopefuls. You can never expect to unearth quality bowlers in a bowler's graveyard. It was sad to see the much talked about Tamil Nadu leg spinner being whacked around by the batsmen, prompting the selectors to bring in the forgotten leg spinners, Sairaj Bahutule and Narendra Hirwani into the camp.

Now that we have a professional coach in John Wright, he has a lot of explaining to do about what has been achieved by interrupting the conditioning camp and playing a series of 'mock cricket' under lights? It seems that the wise men of Indian cricket think that the Aussies are here as the underdogs.