Chin music and tweak chronicles: The woeful saga of Yuvraj and Raina

Yuvraj Singh – Running on empty?

For one classy player, fighting a life-threatening illness wasn’t enough.  Those picture-perfect, stylish pulls towards midwicket and deep square leg , the sparkling cover drives and the beautiful flicks over the on-side have suddenly given way to awkward pokes around the off-stump. And to make matters worse, the mystique of spin has also taken a vice-like grip on his psyche.

The other one is well on his way to becoming a perennial enigma. He isn’t any less talented, but for all his abilities, he hasn’t quite managed to work out one particular aspect that fast bowlers around the world have exploited to the fullest. Too many times, he has been guilty of throwing his wicket away just when India have been within striking distance of a win.

Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina have, of late, been subjected to a barrage of what cricketing parlance calls chin music. A strange term that, because there’s barely any music actually played out that the spectators can hear. While the latter’s struggles against this fiendishly clever strategy have been well-documented, the former has had limited success in tackling the same.

But both players have different areas to work upon.

For starters, Yuvraj is still not comfortable against spin early in his innings. It has dogged him since his debut in the ICC Knock-Out Trophy at Nairobi in 2000. You would expect that a guy with more than a decade of international experience could be a little more confident against the tweakers. Yet, Yuvraj seems to go into a shell whenever the slower bowlers are on.

I am all in favour of circumspection in the initial part of a batsman’s innings. He needs time to get used to the wicket and the bowling. But for how long can he do it? In ODIs, the maximum any team can bat is 50 overs. How much sense does it make to keep blocking when there are less than five, maybe ten, overs left and your side wants you to score quick runs in order to set a daunting target or get close to a win?

Or, if you happen to be settled at the crease and the spinner comes on for his final spell, would you rather go after him or still push and prod like it is a five-day game?

Yuvraj’s problem against spin, from what I have seen of his style of play over the years, is more in the mind. He seems to blanch at the sight of a tweaker very early in his innings. Since he is a batsman who likes the ball coming on to the middle of the willow, the slower pace is sometimes enough to frustrate him. Also, he favours scoring his runs rapidly and does not prefer to be bogged down. Off-break bowlers, however, are able to turn the ball away from the southpaw so that he is lured into playing a false stroke. In the 2005 Indian Oil Cup, he was able to handle the wily Muttiah Muralitharan with great difficulty; but in the Asia Cup three years later, Ajantha Mendis got his goat. Nevertheless, he has shown no lingering weaknesses against left-arm spinners, and that should give him some confidence against the other category: leg-break bowlers.

Now coming to chin music. In the recent series against Australia, the Punjab dasher was bemused at the number of short-pitched deliveries bowled at him by the likes of Mitchell Johnson, Shane Watson and others. From his substantial experience, Yuvraj decided to unleash his signature pull shots – he was not going to take any nonsense from the Aussies. But the pace of those deliveries unnerved him to the extent that he was simply playing for survival.  And more often than not, he got out playing awkwardly.

Despite being an extremely fine player of the pull shot and its partner the hook, Yuvraj has clearly shown a tendency to be affected by the rising ball. He will have a tougher time in South Africa if he is unable to rectify it soon. The tracks there are bouncy, and the formidable duo of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel will attempt to keep him on a tight leash with their own brand of chin music, while part-time off spinner JP Duminy will relish the opportunity to dismiss him early.

He has his work cut out for him. So does Raina.

Suresh Raina – Struggles with the short stuff still persist

The UP-born left hander has been a big let down in recent times. While he has been able to play spin fairly well, the fast, bouncy and away-going deliveries have long been his bane. To make matters worse, the creed of the Twenty20 player makes him go for his shots without even taking full stock of the situation first.

Okay, so Raina has been part of successful run-chases in the recent past. Everyone, including me, thought that he had finally overcome his penchant for going after each ball like a madman.  His IPL success in South Africa in 2009 and again in the Champions League the following year led us to believe that his shortcomings against the rising ball were a thing of the past.

And then he flopped again. He has this habit of playing the ugly hoick over cow corner – a stroke that has proven to be his downfall many times. I call it the Balaram heave , because Raina looks like a skinny farmer with a heavy plough who could fall over any time when he plays that shot. It was his penchant for that ungainly stroke which cost him his wicket against the Aussies in November 2009, nullifying all the hard work he and Sachin Tendulkar had put in to keep their side afloat.

Raina is guilty of trying to play too many shots too early. Yuvraj has a mental block against spin. Both will need to pull their socks up if they want to emerge from the African safari with their reputations intact. Otherwise, the chin music, and the web of tweak might just prove to be too much.