Sir Len Hutton never toured Asia, but he might have hadIndia in mind when he used to state with his Delphic air of wisdom: “There is alot to be said in cricket - pause - for brute strength and ignorance.”
India, for the most part of their history, have lacked fastbowling, which is what Hutton was referring to. It is wonderful to havemajestic batsmen and wristy spinners, but pace bowlers fuel a Test team.
This is why Mahendra Singh Dhoni was right to single outJames Anderson as the biggest difference between the two countries. OnceAnderson fired in Calcutta, India were never going to win. After a slow starthe finished with as many wickets, 12, as all of India’s pace bowlers puttogether.
This current state of affairs, however, is India’s norm. Thecountry has seldom had quick bowlers. Only six Indian pace bowlers have evertaken 100 Test wickets and one of them bowled spin some of the time, KarsanGhavri. The other five are Kapil Dev, Zaheer Khan, Javagal Srinath, IshantSharma and Irfan Pathan.
What took India to No 1 in the world Test rankings a coupleof years ago was not their truly great batting line-up. For almost the onlytime since independence they had a fine pace bowler at each end, taking earlywickets so middle-order batsmen came in against spin with fielders crowding thebat.
This pair was Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma. Whileleft-handed opening batsmen dominated world cricket - Matthew Hayden, GraemeSmith and Alastair Cook - Zaheer specialised in bending the ball in and knockingout poles or pinning them lbw. Of his 295 Test wickets, 44 per cent cameagainst left-handers.
Although both played in this series, Zaheer took fourwickets in three Tests, Ishant four in two. Ishant used to surpriseright-handers as good as Ricky Ponting by jagging the ball back. Now, thereverse of Samson, he retains his hair but has lost that yard of pace.
Thus Dhoni had to bring his spinners on early, when nowickets had been taken, when Cook and Nick Compton were batting steadily for England.A much harder ball-game.
The second vulnerability in this Indian team was apparentbefore the series, more so than the passing of Zaheer and Ishant. Their batsmenwere divided into two kinds. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli were on the wayup. Both were very promising but neither had played 10 Tests, so consistencycould not be expected. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, meanwhile, were onthe way down.
Sehwag still had a wonderful hundred off 90 balls inAhmedabad left in him, but not Tendulkar. So these two could not be consistent either.
This left Yuvraj Singh, who had never been worth a regularspot, and Gautam Gambhir, who had been through two rocky years and exposedoutside off stump on harder pitches abroad.
And after Ahmedabad, England played with such unity andpurpose that India’s fundamental weaknesses were revealed. That is the beautyof a proper Test series. That is why a two-Test series between countries ofequal calibre should be banned: wham, bam, and never any consequences, whetheryou win or lose.
In effect, after levelling the series in Mumbai, Cook’s teamtook a scalpel and opened up the body politic of Indian cricket to seriousquestioning.
Did Dhoni have the right to order pitches that turned fromthe start? The consensus was no: India’s captain was not supported by public ormedia.
Should India’s groundsmen do what the Indian captain tellsthem? Again the answer was no. They are employed by their state associations.Dhoni got his wish in Mumbai, not that it did him any good, but not in Calcuttaor Nagpur.
Ultimately in Indian cricket there is no accountabilityprovided the accounts look good. India, with far more cricketers than any othercountry, has not produced one umpire on the elite international panel sinceSrini Venkataraghavan retired. What sort of training system does the boardhave?
India does not have one quick pitch in the whole country -the main reason why their total of pace bowlers with 100 Test wickets numbers5½. What sort of investment is that?
And the status quo will remain so long as India’s boardpresident and captain - N Srininvasan, owner of Chennai Super Kings, and Dhoni,the CSK captain - get along cosily. India’s selectors wanted Dhoni removed. Nochance.
India’s powers-that-be can argue, after all, that the normalstate of affairs applies now - which is true. It just ignores the millions ofbanked dollars which could be spent to greater effect.