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.