A struggle at the top

Shikhar Dhawan needs to adapt to English conditions quickly

Bowlers with batting pretensions or those with an eye for quirky stats would certainly have enjoyed the first Test between India and England, concluded on Sunday in a draw.

From an Indian point of view, the five batsmen coming in at number seven to 11 had together scored 320 runs in two innings, setting a few personal and team records. But that also reminded us the need for India’s top order batsmen to buckle up, for leaving the job for the late order time and again would only hamper the team.

The disappointment in the failure to take charge of a favourable situation at Trent Bridge would equally be distributed among the team members. But at times, a harsher yardstick could be employed to assess some individual performances, an irony in any team sport.

In that context, the Indian team management would have taken a particular notice of the widening gap between productivity and barrenness in Shikhar Dhawan’s outings. This is not to write off Dhawan as after all he has played just eight Tests. But the left-hander needs to find his range soon to give solid support to M Vijay, who impressed all, making a hundred in the first innings and a fifty in the second essay of the first Test.

Few batsmen would have experienced a brighter beginning to their Test career than Dhawan. Once Virender Sehwag’s form had slumped, almost irreparably, India needed someone to take the place, more significantly someone to spread terror in opposition ranks. Dhawan offered promise.

The effect of his 187 off 174 balls against Australia at Mohali in March 2013 was so brazen that we have pushed Sehwag out of our thoughts. So, the new era has bloomed? Not exactly!

Since that innings, Dhawan went seven innings without a fifty, though he continued to evolve as a one-day player, scoring five hundreds and six fifties in 33 matches in the period between June, 6, 2013 and March 5, 2014. That was enough to seal his place in the Test squads for South Africa, New Zealand and England.

The trip to Rainbow Nation was so colourless that he didn’t get a fifty in either ODIs or Tests. The tour of New Zealand was much more profitable, making a 115 in the second innings at Auckland and 98 in the first innings at Wellington, though, he couldn’t hit the top gear in the limited over versions.

Agreed, England is not an easy place for a touring batsman, especially if he is a free-spirited stroke-maker in Dhawan’s mould. But India, rather surprisingly, encountered a sub-continent pitch at Nottingham – devoid of any assistance to the bowlers. Here too, Dhawan couldn’t to kick on, falling for 12 and 29. In the first innings, he fell to Anderson’s clever movement after subdued 29-minute stay.

The second innings saw a more cavalier Dhawan, trying to tear into the English bowlers. But a tame return catch to Moeen Ali snapped his nearly an-hour-long knock. It seemed that Dhawan had transformed Trent Bridge into his personal experiment lab, trying to find the right way to bat in Tests in England.

Perhaps, Dhawan just needs to look back at those two innings in New Zealand. In Auckland and Wellington, the left-hander didn’t get bogged down in the face of some quality seam bowling. He neither batted over-aggressively nor spurned any chances to score. A similar method of not driving early in the innings and playing the short balls with caution may bring success for Dhawan in the subsequent Tests.

Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni emphasized on this. “Once you get in the middle, you need to respect the bowlers. At times, you will give some more respect to the experienced bowlers and look for opportunity to score off some others. If the ball is in your area you can play the shots, and, of course, the most important thing is that you should score off bad balls,” said Dhoni.

If Dhawan can walk down that path, then England will be sweating a lot in this mild summer.