Hail Harbhajan

The maturity that Harbhajan Singh showed in his bowling on the concluding day of the first Test was the most heartening feature from the Indian point of view. For far too long in his career he was happy bowling a good length in the hope of getting bat-pad catches, but he now clearly realises the importance of inducing the mistakes by getting the batsmen to drive; the two wickets he got caught and bowled today - especially that of Carl Hooper - are a reflection of that effort. It's a ploy that will serve him well, especially overseas. Virender Sehwag's success at the Test match level is also a happy augury for India. His man-of-the-match awards in both forms of cricket clearly mark him as an asset. Zaheer Khan was impressive in testing conditions, Rahul Dravid's hunger for runs was mind-boggling, and young Parthiv Patel showed yet again that he is a genuine keeper with his technical correctness behind the stumps.

The return of Javagal Srinath, however, has not been successful. There was nothing encouraging about his performance at Colombo and now here at Mumbai.

As for Anil Kumble, he may be happy to be among the wickets, but he would surely realise that he could have easily picked up a lot more on a wicket that afforded both pace and bounce. And with SG balls that helped him - as well as Harbhajan - and his high action.

Talking of wickets, I think the experiment by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to relay the tracks is a step in the right direction finally, unlike in the past when there has been much talk and little action after every disastrous overseas tour. What the BCCI could possibly have done though, is taken a couple of wickets as an experimental case and gauged the reaction rather than relaying 10 wickets at one go. The Wankhede wicket may not have been upto the mark, but that is no excuse to condemn the BCCI experiment: I think the Bangalore wicket for the Test against England last season was brilliant.

West Indies have a lot of hard work ahead. Hooper may not have had a happy 100th Test, but he is too classy to let that affect him, and should come good in the next two Tests. The trick to surviving on Indian wickets is to guts it out and hang around. Once a batsman learns to do that, survival becomes easier as the track gets progressively slower. That's a lesson the other West Indian players, especially the left-handers, Chris Gayle, Wavell Hinds and Ryan Hinds, could learn from Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

India clearly look a superior team and that's the way it looks likely to be in the series ahead.