Cricket-England's pl...

When Sehwag, Ganguly and Tendulkar fire in unison, an Indian victory is almost a given. Hence, if you are looking at potential Indian losses in South Africa, generally, you'd need at least two of the trio to fail.However, happily forgetting New Zealand for a while, the rest of last year showed us that a double failure from the top three doesn't necessarily lead to a loss. Think of the last World Cup in England, the contrast between the current batting line-up and the one in '99 is striking. We were so top heavy then that numbers five and six were consistently useful only in the slog overs and number 4 wasn't exactly in prime form. Dravid was probably half the one-day batsman he is today, and then there were Ganguly and Tendulkar.

The emergence of Yuvraj and Kaif has given the top three and Dravid the buffer they deserved. Failure for them now, isn't as all consuming, success isn't as imperative. When McGrath bowls early at Sehwag and Ganguly, he wouldn't be able to go as flat out as he did at the Oval in '99. For, even if gets them, he'd know it's only less than half the job done. When Hussain talked last year, of the feeling that the Indian batting kept coming at the English bowling, his tone suggested the same weary respect that Warne reserves for Laxman, Tendulkar and Sidhu. But, all this assumes the continued success of Kaif and Yuvraj.

While Yuvraj has if anything, strengthened his position in this talented Indian middle-order and showed a good amount of tightness of technique and the ability to play straight on the New Zealand tour, Kaif has strangely fallen away a little. Strangely because, he was the one who was the possessor of the better technique and hence picked ahead of Yuvraj for the tests. Our top order had failed a few times during the year, but it was Kaif who'd brought his team back from the early losses almost every time. And, more importantly perhaps, stayed till the innings ended. Kaif's lack of success was one of the big negatives in New Zealand. The one time he played well, in Napier, we looked very much on course for victory till both he and Sehwag fell in quick succession.

The Indian late middle-order needs Kaif because he's not the typical Indian batsman. He's almost Australian in his running between the wickets and in his preference for the quick single and the scampered two over the flamboyant boundary. That last-second tautness of body along with the urgent pick-up of bat as the bowler gets to his last stride reminds me at times of Dean Jones. Kaif's batting is all about immediacy. When he pulls, there's none of the fine pirouette of a Laxman, the bat's follow through doesn't complete the full arc, it stops three-fourths of the way, and then his feet point back up the pitch in readiness to run. A Laxman or a Ganguly or even a Dravid or a Tendulkar seems to weave continuous patterns with bat and body when batting, Kaif appears to leave discrete lines at different angles. His very busy but cool-headed approach to batting makes him the perfect counterpoint to the more extravagant Indian top-order.

Kaif somehow seemed to lose a bit of rhythm in the home series against the West Indies, the experiment with Agarkar at 3 could have contributed a bit to this. I remember Manjrekar vehemently arguing at the time, against the pinch hitter move and I wasn't sure then of the strength of his case against the promotion of Agarkar. But, in hindsight, I think he'd a valid point. Coming off a successful ODI tournament in Sri Lanka, Kaif possibly needed to be given more responsibilities to shoulder rather than less. But, it's difficult to foresee these things I suppose.

In New Zealand, Kaif got out to the prod outside offstump 5 times out of 7. A batsman of his foot speed doesn't need the frequent nurdle down to third man to get him a single. He should be playing closer to his body at the beginning of his innings, like he used to. And, maybe not play the pull very early on.

To win in South Africa, India desperately needs Kaif to get back to his run-making ways. Especially, in matches like the one against Zimbabwe in Harare, where the not-so friendly medium-paced swing of a certain Douglas Hondo awaits them. Or, to paraphrase more dramatically, if Mohammad scales the mountain again, India surely will.