Bring the left handers up the order

A player making his 100th Test appearance can expect a few lines to be written in praise of him. Rahul Dravid already got more than his fair share of it. I saw no harm in doing the ‘in’ thing and put up a piece about his current assignment as Indian skipper. That was a sucker and I got completely off the topic thereon. On second thoughts the current duscussion on one of his major concerns befits the occasion better than a retrospect of past laurels of a man who never finds the time or inclination to rest on them.

The Indian top order collapse in the Nagpur Test was alarming - less for the occurrence and more for its familiarity. We have now seen one such in all but one of the Test matches since Dravid took over - and that includes the 1st Test of the Sri Lanka series where play started on 4th day. Stats will tell you that India have lost only one of the eight Tests (the ongoing one is excluded) but fortunately for Dravid his team has pulled off more rearguards in the past three series than skipper Tendulkar had seen in the two tenures he served at the helm.

A great many of these fightbacks featured left-handed bats in starring roles. Cricket pundits have long argued that the batting is a lesser rigour for those who show the other half of their persona to the bowlers. Dravid’s team does nothing to rubbish this one-eyed stance on left-handed batsmen.

Even the now-untouchable Sourav Ganguly produced no less than four 80 plus partnerships (two of them over hundred - surely a rarity these days with the Indians) in the five innings he played under Dravid’s stewardship. Pathan and Yuvraj contributed their valuable bits in both series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan following top order failures. Pathan did it again in a decisive knock versus England at Mohali.

The basic premise of this discussion is: if the lefties are repairing the innings regularly then give them a chance to prevent the collapse. India had seven right handed batsmen as their top seven at Nagpur (Yuvraj sat out due to injury). The pattern of the Nagpur collapse and Matthew Hoggard’s sustained spell probing an off-stump line suggested that India have to get a left-hander or two in their top five to disturb opposition bowlers that get into a rhythm. At present, an ‘all right’ top order is perfectly all right for them. Yuvraj is made to bat at number 5, which is not high enough to prevent the initial damage.

Even leaving aside the left-handed logic, the top order batsmen of India are struggling with the exception of Yuvraj and Dravid and opposition bowlers will be the first to notice that all the guys in the midst of a patchy phase are right handed. Playing the in-form and hugely improved Yuvraj up the order at number four can be a big help. That has a huge implication though : making Tendulkar bat lower than his preferred spot.

The change, if effected, can (and should) be seen in a positive light. This move should help Tendulkar and the other players get back into the groove while the bowlers swear at them for being made to adjust their lines to Yuvraj every time they take a single. The sudden ease of scoring that accompanied Yuvraj to the crease after Sachin’s departure on 2nd day of the Mumbai Test illustrates the above point and adds some more wind to the case for his promotion to number four by team management.

The amazing results achieved after doing that in the ODI’s are there for all to see. On that I am tempted to go a step further and suggest the inclusion of another left-hander like Raina in that batting line up – but that would be going too far I suppose, as poor Mohammad Kaif is already sitting out after a wonderful knock in Nagpur.

It is a wonder that he bats right handed….

PS: Just for a lark, this one. Around ten years back Ranatunga and his team management got frustrated with the non-performance of their opener Mahanama and keeper-batsman Kaluvitharana in the one-dayers. The 1996 World Cup was getting closer and they had to do something about it. So they just swapped the batting positions of the two struggling men. Sachin and Sehwag have batting techniques that are perfectly suited to each other's batting positions. If only ......(expecting the expected, after this)