Impressions of the first Test... from the US

Prem Panicker

"Watching" cricket while based in the US is, as I discovered over the past five days, an essentially frustrating experience.

When you are largely dependent on the Internet for your information, you find yourself limited to scores, runs scored per balls played, wagon wheels and the like - in other words, all the stats, but none of the nuance, the colour, and life that makes cricket what it is.

At one level, it's been a learning experience -- when covering games back home in India, I must admit to a touch of frustration that the mails from NRIs, while impassioned and from-the-heart, tend for the most part to argue the numbers, not the game itself. And the numbers, seen in isolation, do not let you get under the skin of the game, to get a feel for its ebbs and flows, its nuances.

Having spent five days - okay make that four - following the game, I now know why this happens. Having, also, spent over two weeks chatting with, literally, dozens of hardcore cricket fans here, I find it a huge pity that the majority of them are so cut off from following, visually, a game they seem to love with a passion that exceeds even that of those of us back home.

Anyways, to get back to where I started from, having spent four days following the game on the net, I come away with impressions - which I then weigh against the six-plus years of actually watching these players in action.

Like, I don't think this team can afford Deep Dasgupta. This feeling comes not merely because he scored a duck his first time out, but because he is atrocious behind the stumps.

When you start with the fact that India generally goes in to a Test with an under-strength attack, it becomes mandatory that all chances be held - in fact, it is vital to create chances. In the case of our wicket-keeper, however, the story is more about missed opportunities and almost invariably, the batsmen he has let off early in their innings have gone on to make big scores.

Carl Hooper is a case in point - started edgily against some good seam bowling especially by Srinath, was let off, found a second wind, and made a double hundred. Not only did that knock put India on the back foot straight away, it also gave the Windies skipper the confidence he needs for the rest of the series.

Again, Ganguly at number three is one of those inspired lunacies - you have to remember that in the Windies, they play with the Kookaburra ball, which means the real danger period is the first 20, 25 overs. Once the ball gets older and softer, it really does very little by way of either bounce, pace, or even seam and swing. Thus, coming in at three - in other words, during the only period in the innings when the bowling is likely to prove problematic for a player who has in any case more than his share of problems against pace - is not an idea you want to see being made permanent.

Rahul Dravid, with whom I had a chat over phone just now, brought up an interesting - and related -- point (though I need to clarify that we were not discussing Ganguly when he talked of this) when he said that unlike the last time around when pitches in the Caribbean tended to be low and slow, this time round a genuine effort is being made to juice them up. The Bourda, Dravid says, had more pace and bounce and movement than in the past - and the team expects that this trend will hold true for the other venues as well.

Referring to the match itself, Dravid thought that Srinath's inspired spell early on the first day had actually given the team a chance to stun the opposition at the outset of a tough tour. "But then we let Hooper off - Deep (Dasgupta) got a difficult chance down leg side and a little later, one went between Lax (VVS Laxman) and me in the slips. If we had taken Hooper out early, we could have kept them down to 200 or so, and really got into the driver's seat. But once we conceded 500 plus, we were always batting to save the game, there was no chance of winning from there."

Talking about his own innings, Rahul said it felt good to start off a series like this with a big score. "More so, because we had to bat ourselves back into the game after the Windies ran up a big score. If you notice, we haven't often started Test series abroad with scores of 400 or more - so getting there, as a team, this time has been very good for morale, a great way to start off this series.

"Actually I thought when Laxman and I were batting on the third evening, the situation was looking really good. Unfortunately, we lost three quick wickets on the morning of the fourth day, and then had to fight back all over again - so from that context too, the partnership I had with Sarandeep felt really good."

But having said that, it was a slow start - typical, in fact, of the Dravid style of play. In fact, when following the game on the net, I kept getting the feeling that Rahul's caution was rubbing off on the till-then free-flowing Sachin as well. To which, Rahul said, "Well, when I went in, the bowling was on top, they'd taken out three of our top order, we were facing a massive score, so for me, it was vital to survive that initial phase, buy myself time to get used to the wicket and the conditions and settle in."

And the bowling? This particularly attack is surely a highly diluted version of the Windies pace batteries of the past? "Yes, well," says Rahul, "I haven't played the Marshalls and Holdings so I don't know at first hand what that is like. But talking of the recent past, yeah, I'd guess they miss the experience of Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose. Against that, you have to remember that the wicket was juicier than it was last time round, and the bowlers they have now are younger, and more enthusiastic, tend to be at you all the time, so I guess what they have lost in terms of experience, they tend to make up in terms of exuberance."

Preparation is always a touchy issue for the Indian team on tour, and Rahul agrees that maybe the side is a tad undercooked heading into a series of this kind. But then again, it is a Rahul Dravid trademark that whatever the issue, he tends to look at both sides of the coin. Thus: "Well, on the one hand, we only had about ten days after the home series against Zimbabwe - so if we wanted to squeeze in one more practice game, that would have meant flying out here immediately after that series, and when you do something like that, the physical and mental pressure only escalates. So in that sense, I guess it was good we had a bit of a breather before coming here.

"On the other hand, if you are talking of an ideal situation, then yes, coupled with a week, ten days of rest, it would have been ideal if we could have had another three day game in the schedule. Two warm-up games would have given us the benefit of ensuring that everyone got a go, got their eye in and were match ready before the first Test. Also, I guess it would have helped more had the opposition, in the only three day game we did play, been more up to scratch. As it is, we played a second string team - for us batsmen, it wasn't so bad because the wicket was a bit tough so we had to concentrate and stay focused, but the bowlers weren't tested at all, and that is poor preparation heading into a Test series."

That is a truncated version of my chat with Rahul Dravid - an expanded version will in fact feature in the upcoming issue of India Abroad . In passing, thanks to all the guys who've been calling and/or dropping in for a chat here at the IA office in New York - I came here wondering if I was going to feel homesick after a bit but given the frequency of calls and drop ins, it takes some doing to realize I am not in India any more.

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