Cricket: From the Far End

Australia’s former coach John Buchanan has given some ideas about how to target Tendulkar when he goes there later in December. According to him, Tendulkar’s feet don’t move initially in his innings and he is likely to struggle against short pitched bowling.

With this in the background, it will be interesting to watch for a couple of things: First having heard this, whether Pakistani bowlers try to take advantage. If they do that, whether he does struggle on Indian pitches. Later when he goes to Australia how he responds to this there.

We will probably get to watch first couple of these today as India has opted to bat at Kolkata.

It’s in fact good for India that Shoaib and Sami are going to play for Pakistan. When opposition teams are supposed to be weak, Indian players - especially batsmen- are more likely to throw it away. There are many such incidences in the past, one I remember well is the England team of 1984-85 that ended up winning the series they were expected to lose heavily. But in more recent times, Pakistan came in 2004-05 without Shoaib. England came in 2005-06 with Vaughan unfit and a lot of other players left back home. In both these case India was supposed to thrash them, but ended up with a drawn series. Honest newcomers trying hard are always more difficult for India than established bowlers.

So when the news came that Pakistan may have play without Gul, Shoaib and Sami it seemed like one of those precarious situations for India. With two of them in, it makes it fairly balanced just like the first test. India will still have to play well, but now at least it’s not any different from the first test.

In his book “Out of my comfort zone” Steve Waugh has mentioned a lot of times the value the players on the bench bring to the dressing room- encouraging the playing eleven, doing things that improve the overall morale etc besides actually contributing in the field from time to time. Many times the player is sitting out just because he wouldn’t fit in the overall plan for the game. But there seems to be a big difference in the way teams like Australia view their players on the bench and the way the teams in the subcontinent do.

While watching the first test on Zee Sports USA one comment made by Rameez Raja caught my attention. Yuvraj Singh was the 12th man in this match and I think on one of the days he was seen carrying helmets or some other gear for the batsmen on the crease. One thing I always find laughable is this compelling urge of some commentators to say something about everything that is being shown on the TV. But this time even the comment was funny: Looking at Yuvraj Rameez said something like “look at Yuvraj, the man of the one-day series against Pakistan, doing the donkey-work here as the 12th man”.

The comment might have slipped out unnoticed by most, but it gave away how many players in the subcontinent look at being the 12th man - considering helping your team mates out in the field as donkey work and not just as another interaction with equal team mates doing different but important roles.

Also if any of the ground staff were listening to the commentary I wonder what they think about this comment! A lot of people have to do a lot of donkey work for the 22 in the middle to play a game.