What a series. Well I say series; more like an expertly crafted soupcon of foreplay delivered by an accidental smorgasbord of cricketing Casanovas. Who would have thought the porcine Smith, not picked in either match, would deliver the crushing coup de grace in the 1st test after Billy Bowden’s myopia had struck the near fatal blow just seconds before with his failure to give out Ojha? Or the hyper-proboscis of Pujara would captivate a billion people on the final day? Alongside the majesty of Tendulkar and Laxman there were the seductive gargoyles of Twatto and North. Beauties and Beasts combining in 10 days of tantric, teasing theatre.
So here’s 12 things I learnt.
Twatto is a good player. It hurts but it’s true. His 1st innings century at Mohali was slow, but no one else was going to do it after Ponting deliciously ran himself out. We may pillory him. Indeed we must. Have you seen his whining features? But he can bat. And he can bowl, occasionally. Like Satan he must not be underestimated.
MS Dhoni is not a good captain. There is no sense to his field placings. He doesn’t understand the most basic requirement of keeping the set batsman on strike when at the end of an over when the no.10 is at the other end. His field at the start of the Aussie 2nd innings was a travesty. In form batting sides would have punished him. And his fingers are knackered. He can’t take a clean ball. Oh, and his batting lacks a plan. Maybe that’s the fingers again. Maybe he needs a break. Whatever it is it isn’t pretty and it ain’t worth $42m.
Ponting isn’t that bad a captain after all. His bowlers simply let him down. There were a few oddities in the 1st test. And he clearly doesn’t know how to handle Hauritz – favouring North was never going to help dear Dougie H. – but it almost looks like he knows what he’s doing.
Marcus North is an evil genius. And a lazy one to boot. He doesn’t get runs ‘cos he can’t be bothered to run around in sweltering heat. Then the spectre of getting dropped looms once more and he scores a flawless century. Maybe he’s a 5th columnist sent by Giles Clarke to destroy Australia’s middle order. Whatever he is, he drives Australians mad and that must be a good thing.
Dravid should retire. It’s not that he’s not good enough. And I do sincerely love him. If I was gonna pick anyone to be Supreme Commander of the free world it would be him (after me of course). But we need to see more of Vijay, Pujara and Raina (in that order) and we have to have Sehwag, Gambhir and Tendulkar.
So that also means adios VVS, unless they’re playing Australia. Something happened to VVS at the hands of Australians many years ago. When he was a child his parents must have been murdered in cold blood by a passing Aussie turmeric prospector or media magnate. There is no other explanation for his vengeful ruthlessness. He will not rest until every Aussie heart is broken. So just pick him every couple of years. He won’t mind. He’s getting quite lazy himself now.
The seamers on both sides were at once terrible and effective. I don’t understand it. Johnson is the leader of this pack of wayward genius ineptitude. His pitch maps resemble a Sheffield pavement on Saturday night, spattered with the vomit of hens and stags. Yet he takes wickets at a decent strike rate and a good average. It doesn’t make any sense. There are research scholarships at Oxford being created as we speak to explore this most perplexing of mysteries. Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth are not far behind. Zaheer Khan bowled well in spells with the old ball but only the good German, Hilfenhaus, hinted that he knew where the next ball was going.
Indian pitches get unfairly bad wraps. We’re all so impatient these days that if wickets don’t fall quickly we throw our hands up in despair. These two matches were played on perfect wickets that deteriorated nicely. Perhaps the Bangalore wicket was made to look worse by poor Australian batting in the 2nd innings, but that happens.
Umpires are having a collective nervous breakdown. Bad decisions happen. Even the terrible ones that spared Ojha and did for Gambhir. But the referral of no balls at crucial moments clearly indicates that they yearn for the comfort blanket of the UDRS. Either that or for TV to be abolished, which isn’t going to happen. So bring back the UDRS for every decision and refer the tricky ones to me. I’ll be watching on telly somewhere.
Sehwag occasionally gets bored. And he may have a problem with short balls outside off stump, but I think it’s more to do with the boredom.
Sreesanth is an extra from a Bollywood version of Thriller. I lived through the 80s. As a people we vowed never to go back. Sreesanth must de-necklaced and given a short back and sides.
And finally, test cricket is by a distance not yet calculated by the world’s largest super computer, the most entertaining form of cricket available. Hopefully one day it will be expanded to contain five innings each and last 15 days but until then let’s cancel more ODI series and stage more tests. Ask the micro crowd at Mohali in a year what they remember better; the 1st test or the final of the Champions League.
Now I can look forward with groaning ennui to the ODIs starting on Sunday and learning twelve different ways of saying "he's hit that out to the sweeper on the cover boundary and the basmen have strolled through for a single". Please join me, to keep me from falling asleep if nothing else.