Is Yuvraj Singh a good test batsman, what to make of Anil Kumble’s captaincy and is India the clear No. 2 in test cricket? CNN-IBN’s H R Venkatesh speaks to Mukul Kesavan, cricket writer, author and teacher for answers to these questions and more, on the conclusion of the four-test India-Australia series.
H R Venkatesh: Hello and welcome to The News Junkie Podcast. This week, we're going to be discussing India's tour of Australia, the four-test series, the result 1-2 in Australia's favour, what it means for Team India and really, where does India go from here. Joining me is Mukul Kesavan - writer, teacher and writer of one of the more popular blogs on cricket on Cricinfo.com, thanks very much for joining in.
Mukul Kesavan: Thank you for having me Venkatesh.
H R Venkatesh: My first question, Ricky Ponting was asked after that last match, the Adelaide match if Team India is the No. 2 test side in the world now, we've had this sort of debate for the last few years, but based on the last few results, what is your opinion?
Mukul Kesavan: I think formally we are the No. 2 in the ICC test rankings. But, as nearly everybody has said, over the past 7 years dating back to 2001, we've been the one team that has been competitive against Australia, I think the only team that pushed Australia was England in that last series in England, but that didn't last very long. So, I think it would be fair to say we're the second best test team in the world.
H R Venkatesh: From Australia's point of view, we've seen in the last couple of years 4-5 people, key people retiring. Adam Gilchrist recently, but of course last year it was Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn. Would it be fair to say Australia is a team on the wane and perhaps India could eye that No. 1 test position, unofficial position sometime in the future?
Mukul Kesavan: I think it's early days yet, because if you look at Ponting's achievement, 16 tests on the trot, they won them all continuously, not a single draw in the whole lot, it's hard to think of circumstances where another team, whether India or any other could match that. But I think you're right. If it's not a team on the wane, it's certainly a team that has plateaued. Once Gilchrist goes, as he will at the end of this one-day series, and perhaps in the not-too-distant future that extraordinary champion, Matthew Hayden at the top of the order, then Australia will have difficulty. I think we saw this with the bowling attack.
The Australian bowling attack, despite the heroics of Brett Lee is possibly the weakest I've seen in a long time. You don't have a great penetrative spinner. I think they have vigorous, young, interesting seam bowlers, who aren't a threatening. You know the idea that a Stuart Clark can replace a Glenn McGrath would make an Indian fan laugh because McGrath induced a sense of menace. You didn't want him, you didn't like him. He brought an aura of almost malign efficiency into the arena. I don't think Australia has any other bowler who does that.
H R Venkatesh: A word now on individual players from India. Sachin Tendulkar, that big name - in the last few months, or weeks we've seen the Sachin Tendulkar we're used to, of course we hadn't seen that Sachin in the last 3 or 4 years, what do you think has changed?
Mukul Kesavan: Not just in the last three of four years Venkatesh, I can remember that I was introduced to the new, sober Sachin Tendulkar in the Chennai test of 2001 which I actually watched all five days of at the ground where he made a very boring, very competent, very crucial century and seemed to park the old Sachin Tendulkar in some garage somewhere.
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So I think it's been 7 years since we saw that magnificent batsman of the late 90s who dominated every bowling attack. And I frankly don't know what to make of his current form in Australia. It's magnificent, I've celebrated. And most of all, I think there was a point where Sachin threatened to be immortal and then settled for being merely great. Now I think he's bidding for immortality again.
H R Venkatesh: Now onto the other perhaps contentious subject - Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. Is it fair to judge one person's, say one-day form and bring it over to the test side like the selectors did to Sehwag who doesn't have a great one-day career or one-day statistics? And Yuvraj Singh on the other hand, he's been a brutal batsman in the one-day arena - couldn't quite do it in Australia.
Mukul Kesavan: I think that's a very acute question. I think what's happened is that Sehwag has suffered partly on account of his lack of fitness and seeming casualness and mainly because of his failure in one-day cricket. Now, Sehwag has an extraordinary five-day record, test record. Even the last year he played in test cricket, before the current series, he did reasonably well. He didn't set the world on fire, but he did reasonably well but his limited overs performance counted against him.
In the case of Yuvraj Singh, as you so sharply pointed out, here you have a person who has had a patch record in test cricket and yet has sometimes threatened to displace one of India's great test batsmen VVS Laxman, there was a series in which he actually played two matches in his stead. I think that this series has borne out that at the highest level, Yuvraj is not a test batsman. He is a good test batsman on flat, subcontinental pitches against mediocre attacks, but on competitive pitches, against first-rate seam attacks, he just doesn't seem to have the technique. And Sehwag, triumphantly has demonstrated that despite the so-called unsoundness of his method, he scores runs at such a rapid rate, that the interval between errors is long enough for him to make substantial scores.
H R Venkatesh: What do you make of Anil Kumble's test captaincy, there have been a few good things written about him, especially the way he handled the Sydney test and its aftermath?
Mukul Kesavan: You know, he should have succeeded Ganguly. I think Dravid is such a cultivated and wonderful man but I don't think he's a good captain. Actually, strike that, I think he was a very bad captain. And he wasn't helped by the fact that he couldn't distance himself from a contentious coach, Greg Chappell.
I think Kumble brings to the captaincy, not dignity which is what people have been mentioning a lot of, but he brings a kind of ferocity in terms of competitiveness and a kind of gravitas that makes opposing teams sit up and listen when he makes an allegation such as the one he did about the spirit of cricket. I think appropriately for someone who has a nickname like Jumbo, he has a massive integrity as well as a ferocious competitiveness that makes him the ideal vanguard for India.
H R Venkatesh: One final question. We seem to have a very good bench strength as far as the bowling attack goes, the pace attack. Sometimes the substitutes end of performing better than the No. 1 choice bowler. So are you optimistic, looking ahead, at test cricket?
Mukul Kesavan: I think you're right about our bowling bench strength in seam bowling except...with the one proviso that sometimes they seem to be constructed out of glass, cause the rate at which they break down is truly alarming. But I think we're doing very well, with Ishant Sharma especially on the fast bowling front, with Pathan back in form.
Our batsmen seem to be good for a couple of year more yet, I'm afraid in the matter of spin bowling that we have a difficulty. I don't think Harbhajan Singh should be in the team anymore. I think the Indian team suffered for playing him, though ironically his contribution as a batsman was crucial. But I think as a bowler, he's past his best and after Kumble I think there's a serious question about who will do the bowling for us.
H R Venkatesh: One final question. We have the one-day series coming up, I think the 3rd of February, what did you make of the team that was announced by the BCCI?
Mukul Kesavan: I think Dhoni has taken a strong line in this matter, I think he's decided that regardless of current results, we need built for the future. I think he feels more comfortable as well, with a group of contemporaries and younger players.
I tend to be conservative, so I would have liked to see Sourav Ganguly in this team. I don't think Dravid claims a place in this team on current form. I would have liked to see Ganguly in it, but on the other hand you know, perhaps it's reasonable to give someone like Raina another chance to come good and to build an athletic young team.
H R Venkatesh: That's about all, thanks very much for speaking to me on The News Junkie Podcast.
Mukul Kesavan: Thank you.
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