Nudge Me Please

On a day when Gideon Haigh wrote on the joys of Test cricket and how it manages to keep the marketers at bay who want to slap and tickle it into pulp fiction, the West Indies and India provided an exciting second day at Sabina Park. Thanks mainly to a lack of runs, it may well end in three days if India's captain, MS Dhoni, is brave enough to declare with a 250 run lead. On the basis of the West Indies recent Test form, it should be more than enough.


Only 230 runs were score in almost the full quota of overs but wickets kept clattering down, 12 in all. The pitch was as promised, fast and bouncy but the quicks on show in either side are only shadows of the lightning boys who once sent thunderbolts down. Just what mince meat Griffith or Hall, or Roberts, Holding, Garner and Marshall would have made of batsmen on such a deck only bears thinking of in abattoirial terms. That fellow Ambrose might have liked it too. As it was, average fast men like Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar made the ball jump and jag and were too much for the West Indians. After Sarwan fell first ball of the day, Barath and Bravo resisted but only Barath looked capable of taking the bowling. When Kumar changed ends and removed him with one that angled in, jumped and cut away, he had done well to edge it to Dhoni. When Bravo and Nash were removed by Kumar inside his next two overs, West Indies had the death rattle at 5-102. Baugh scored most of the runs in adding 45 with the dogged Chanderpaul but the spinners finished what the quicks started and West Indies had another meager Test total. Harbhajan claimed Chanderpaul for the first time in Tests with a ball that got big on him, took the inside edge onto his thigh and was easily caught. It has taken the turbaned tweaker nearly a hundred overs to claim this obdurate little fighter. These days, Chanderpaul needs to bat longer for bigger scores, so concerned is he with not getting out. Stiil perhaps if a few more of his team mates attached as much concern to their innings, the West Indies might get totals to bowl at.



The chart illustrates the problem admirably. In sixteen first innings since 2009, the West Indies have averaged 295 in their first innings and 223 in the second. Sounds reasonable, even given that 300 isn't considered enough in a Test first innings in the modern game but nine of those sixteen have been below 250 and four more only just over the 300 mark. Three large scores, inflated by outstanding individual performances, most notably Chris Gayle's triple at Galle and Chanderpaul's epic 166 against the South African's at Warner, have bumped that average. The bottom line isn't the lack of bowlers who can worry Test batsmen but a lack of batsmen who can do just what Chanderpaul used to: drop anchor and score runs. Batsmanship has reverted to the cavalier days of the pre 1950's. Sure Sir Viv was the most aggressive batsman of his time, perhaps ever, but he didn't throw his wicket away and that can only be attributed to the influence of money and the short forms of the game which have seduced officials and players in this part of the cricket world where so many of the players stem from poverty or at best humble backgrounds. In the nineties it used to be the Yankee dollar which led these young athletes away from the game but now, it the incestuous appeal of the rupee, offered from within the ranks such that these men learn the game from the wrong end.

India batted more circumspectly against a spirited attack, Dravid in particular intent on setting a target beyond his opponents after Sammy floored a sitter in slips when he was on 6. Vijay and Laxman collected ducks" the former stunned by a shooter from half way along the track and the latter somehow managing to return a gentle catch to the bowler Sammy. India, already enough in front with a lead of 164, only need another hundred to be sure of it. Dravid, in this mood, will take 45 overs to get them so we may yet get to a fourth day where rain and showers beckon but not in English proportions and with that baking sun between them.