Wickets with the ball, runs with the bat and, most importantly, a renewed hunger to perform in difficult conditions are all responsible for things being in very good state within the team.
This is a team playing without a conventional coach. In recent times, I have grown tired of reading about differences between the players and the coach, of the coach expressing his candid views about senior players. All this was was totally unwarranted. All we hear now is about the game and the way it’s played. If this team continues to play such good cricket, the idea of having a coach can be shelved for some time.
To me, the best part of the first three days of the Trent Bridge Test was not necessarily the performance of the team, but the manner in which the team played. No one scored a big hundred, and yet we all but totalled five hundred.
We had asked for a concerted effort in the same innings from the openers, and they gave us a 100-plus stand. Also, the transfer of knowledge from the seniors to the juniors seems to be taking place seamlessly and as a consequence, everyone seems keen to pull his weight.
It did look as if the lads were absorbing more from the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in this direct scenario where there is no coach.
Captain at ease
The captain himself seemed more at ease, all the turmoil of the recent past well behind him. I think I saw a greater level of communication between the senior men themselves. The whole challenge of captaincy is in getting your senior men to work with and for you, and Ganguly chipping in with the ball despite carrying a back niggle into the match spoke highly of Dravid’s success on that front.
Some may say that captaincy is affecting Dravid’s batting, but I do not quite agree. He is too strong mentally to allow such a situation to arise. We will have to give Monty Panesar due credit for his part in snaring the Indian captain. It was good bowling that got him Dravid’s wicket, and it had nothing to do with Dravid being bogged down by the wares of captaincy. I think I know him well enough to say that.
The best batsman on view on Sunday was Ganguly. It was probably one of his best ever knocks, and certainly the best in recent times. His footwork was definitive and he handled the short ball superbly. He undoubtedly out-batted Tendulkar, and that is saying something.
Not the end
Tendulkar, for his part, struggled but never gave up. In my experience, when you are not doing well, the trick is to bat as long as possible and that’s what Tendulkar did. In England, the ball always moves about, and being beaten now and again is not the end of the world.
It’s about retaining your confidence and using all your experience. Of course, there were a few gems in between, but this innings of Tendulkar will be known more for the partnerships that were built around it.
For the Indian cricket team, the most important wicket that may stand between a draw or a win could be the England skipper Vaughan.
Chivach Sports / Hawkeye Communications