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| Whither will Kartik go? |
From Krishna Kumar |
The selection of India's team for the ODI series was delayed till half of the second test was over. Evidently, this was to see whether one of Yohannan or Nehra would do well enough to get them a one-day place. Nehra bowled with a lot of penetration in the second innings, when he finally seemed to settle into the ideal length and was really bending his back. When he bends his back, he tends to pitch on a good length or just short of it, whereas otherwise, he is either too full or very short at a friendly pace. Plus, he gets just that bit more bounce when he's putting his back into it and with some movement; he demands more of the batsman's attention. But, this isn't meant to be about Nehra. The selectors seemed to have made up their minds about the second spinner much before the second test had begun. We'll probably never know whether Kumble was a unanimous choice, but it will be hard to believe he was. He bowled well enough against the West Indies in the tests. But albeit on very flat pitches and even allowing for the fact that continuous cricket for the last 6 months had probably taken the sharpness from his bowling, he didn't look the part at all in the couple of one-dayers he played. When you don't have a very attacking set of medium to fast-medium bowlers - except of course for Zaheer - you look to your spinners to get you wickets. And, really Kumble isn't an attacking option on away pitches. It's fairly obvious the selectors have plumped for experience and have pretty much made their minds up about who the second spinner for the World Cup will be as well. I'm afraid they haven't been thinking clearly enough. If you'd a seam attack like Australia's, Kumble would be a very nice foil, striking as batsmen try to attack him without much plan or thought. But, when batsmen who have settled in nicely against early seam face him with clarity of intent, he does not look penetrative because he doesn't force them into a different pattern of play. And, he often struggles against innovative players of spin, especially if they happen to be left handers, like Andy Flower. Remember, Zimbabwe is again in our group in the World Cup. What we need is a spin bowler who flights the ball and forces batsmen to use their feet. Ramnaresh Sarwan is a bit like a young right-handed Andy Flower. Never does he look hurried, and never does it look like he believes a bowler could get him out. And, he plays spin very well. He'd some problems early on against Kumble in the Mumbai test, but that was mostly because the turn and the bounce in the pitch made Sarwan hesitant to come forward. Most of Kumble's wickets come that way. On a turning pitch with slightly unpredictable bounce, the bounce he gets makes batsmen wary of coming forward, and then he slips in the quicker one that skids through to trap the batsman on the backfoot. This however is much less likely to happen in a one-dayer on a pitch that doesn't turn much. Sarwan didn't look remotely troubled by Kumble in the Jamshedpur and Nagpur ODIs. An otherwise confident-looking Sarwan struggled a fair bit against Kartik's flight and loop on very flat pitches in Jodhpur and Baroda. Once, he failed to pick the arm ball and on another occasion, he was beaten in flight. We need this kind of penetration in South Africa. Bowling of this kind can turn matches around. Plus, there's a bit of an unknown quality to Kartik. In tournaments where one team doesn't get to see a lot of the other, this can be very useful. Think back to Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and that heady World Championship of Cricket in '85. We desperately needed to show confidence in Kartik. Just when Ganguly had started believing in him after that much-mentioned Ranji trophy match in Kolkata, and after an excellent one-day series against the West Indies, the selectors have fallen back on safety-first ways and hence defensive policies. We needed to give him a decent run in the New Zealand series and see how he bowled on pitches that will not be entirely dissimilar to the ones we shall have in South Africa. We should have played him in at least the first three one-dayers and if only he'd bowled badly, should we have turned to Kumble. This was more important than even looking for a new third seamer. I don't think Rakesh Patel will play in any of the crucial World Cup matches even if picked in the squad of fifteen. Especially, since there's a fair chance we might play Bangar as a decent make-shift third or fourth seamer anyway. An attacking second spinner would be a much more useful option to explore than a not-so great third out-and-out seamer. At least, in some matches. And, in any case, we have Srinath, Nehra and Zaheer with Agarkar as back-up. So, what was the point of picking Patel? There were three balls from Kartik that made watching the recently-concluded one-day series against the West Indies worthwhile. Fast bowling offers delights of a more immediate kind, of a sort that is always better when watched live. Only very good spin bowling can be watched or even read about with equal pleasure over and over. Here're those three balls again, in slightly telegraphic mode: - Ball that got Sarwan in Baroda. Drifting in with the arm, gorgeous loop, Sarwan beaten in flight, groping forward, the ball turning away, kissing the edge, hitting Dravid's pad on the way to Ganguly at slip. - Ball that got Samuels in Jodhpur. Couple of balls before this one had been turning nicely, one beating the outside edge. The next one, exactly same trajectory, angling in a bit, seam wasn't pointing away like the previous ones, continued on with the arm, absolutely skidded past Samuels trying to cut, hit his pads and took leg and middle. For visual effects, this was the best. - Ball that got Sarwan in Jodhpur. Drifting in, nice flight, Sarwan again beaten in flight, ball kept going at the angle toward leg, and took leg. Kumble has an oft-understated, important role to play in home tests and maybe even to a certain extent on away tracks that turn. But, if those three balls didn't convince the selectors to vote for Kartik's wicket-taking potential in the World Cup, nothing will. You can contact the writer by E-mailing |
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