Monotonous England and the rhythms of India - England in India 2016
There are heaps of mud and hordes of men, the mud cheats the eye, the men overawe the ear. The charmers hobble in from not-so-far and release their charms grotesquely. You watch, you attempt and caress your sense with streaks of the impossible and frame your response. The charmer though has the right of way, casts a spell, you end up befuddled as geometry re-invents itself and trajectory demonstrates newer facets.
Welcome to India - have a happy outing ladies and gentlemen!
In the undoing of a touring party’s batting, lies our victory. Undoing – by spin, makes it shudh desi.
Before they realise, teams have lost a significant chunk of their games in their India series. They falter and flounder hurriedly, as if they couldn’t stand the sight of cricket on Indian soil, their game and strategy come apart and the challenge dies on one of those pitches.
England have themselves in a similar situation this series, beginning with a heartening performance in the first Test and not being able to match that thereafter. They have played steady cricket and played by the conventions - not bad if they were the only team in the match, but unfortunately for them, their opponents have managed to outwit and out-think them consistently.
A Test match in this country is seldom a machismo ride on a shining, smooth motorway. It rarely allows for the thrills of a straight line race - running on linear strategy. No team that comes here without its bag of tricks and plans, strategies and countermeasures can dream of keeping the hosts on the field for the entirety of the game. England seem to have done just that.
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Their strategies seem like software code sourced from open sources, their style of attack - pulled out of the age “Anglo-Saxon” rivalry and their vision, blurred by the dust on the pitches and perhaps the chaos on the roads.
Woefully curt as it may sound, as the series has progressed, the English have managed to brew a strange spirit that induces ineffectiveness and ineptitude on a group of extremely talented and thoroughbred cricketers.
India is all about opportunity and a lot about anticipation - be it cricket or elsewhere. It has no place for the laid-back and it is not the place for the unidimensional. As such, this England team has made promising starts and has been taken down not purely because of a lack of skill.
Their spinners have troubled the Indians consistently, their batsmen have played steadily in all innings except one (the last innings at Visakhapatnam) and their fast bowling has been fine. Their approach to situations in games has been predictable and traditional. While nothing is horrendously wrong, nothing seems to be able to stop their downward slide.
Not knowing where their faults and shortcomings are, could be their biggest shortcoming on this tour!
Often as teams do in such times, they would hope for a brilliant individual performance by one of their teammates. A performance so primed and evolved, that it would have an immensely positive impact on their psyche and give them the belief that if anything, they are as good as their opponents.
That’s what Kevin Pietersen’s century in Mumbai did to them on their previous India tour. Firstly, it announced that KP was back to being a monster with the willow. Secondly, it rattled the Indians so much that they seemed to have become incoherent in the face of such blitz. Thirdly, it gave the English, who until then were hobbling and hopping about on the pitch - a reason to see ball and hit ball.
It demonstrated that cricket is fundamentally about hitting the ball with the bat and the rules of footwork and the angles of the head, elbow, collar bone and what not could all fade to insignificance temporarily. (As long as the runs came)
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Perhaps they need such a performance to clear their clogged minds.
KP had the aura, he could scare bowlers with his reputation - for it spoke as much as he did. But then, there’s no way reputation can be built just by gazing at the sky whilst fielding at fine leg or gawking at the pitch while fielding close in. It demands meaningful action guided by an unflinching vision. There’s enough talent in this English fleet to indulge in the former and attain the latter.
There are two games left and the series to fight for. It will be interesting to see if the visitors change their gait and realise that to win in India, one must be prepared to be wily and innovative - for this is not a race on a British motorway but one through the narrow streets of an Indian town.
How well they run this will decide how much history they get to own.
Meanwhile, we will be hoping for more Shudh desi performances from the hosts.