Unlearnt Lessons

After weeks of speculation, during which much work was done in the darkbackroom, the national selectors came up on Monday with their maiden offering ofthe season - the Indian team for the triangular series in Sri Lanka. A cursorylook will lead many to believe that it is a balanced outfit with a certainleader. And there can be no complaints against that.

Let us look at the positives first.

To begin with, the selectors have done well to name Rahul Dravid captain forthe tour of Sri Lanka, irrespective of what happens to the Board of Control forCricket in India's fight against the International Cricket Council in the latestversion of l'affaire Ganguly. This has ensured that there is no uncertaintyabout the leadership at the start of a new season under a new coach.

The decision to blood teenager Suresh Raina and Y. Venugopala Rao as well asthe recall of Jai Prakash Yadav augurs well for the team, giving the tourselectors some additional options when they pick the squad for each match. Itremains to be seen though which of these three will actually get to play againstSri Lanka and the West Indies.

V.V.S. Laxman's presence must be seen as an insurance cover for theinjury-forced non-availability of Sachin Tendulkar and the question mark thathangs over the availability of Ganguly. India's batting can do with Laxman'sexperience and expertise, even if he was not at his best last season. We may notsee too much of Laxman if Ganguly does become eligible for selection.

Sadly, the India think tank has not learnt its lessons at all. For somestrange reason, the selectors have picked four fast bowlers and a fifth who mustbe branded a seam bowling all-rounder. I would have liked left-arm spinnerMurali Kartik to be in the squad, providing the tour selectors an additionalspin bowling option.

Why am I saying that? For an answer, let us look at how India fared in theAsia Cup in Sri Lanka last year.

In the opening game against the United Arab Emirates in Dambulla, India wentin with Irfan Pathan, Lakshmipathy Balaji and Zaheer Khan as the pace trio whileAnil Kumble was the sole specialist spinner. Tendulkar was used as the fifthbowler In the next game against Sri Lanka at the same venue, India chose thesame set of bowlers but had to use Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh tobowl 12 overs.

Against Bangladesh at the SSC grounds in Colombo, Ashish Nehra andoff-spinner Harbhajan Singh came in for Zaheer and Kumble. The duo of Tendulkarand Sehwag sent down 15 overs for 59 runs. The league game against Pakistan atthe Premadasa Stadium saw India field five specialist bowlers. Seamers Pathan,Balaji and Nehra conceded as many as 167 runs in 25 overs while spinners Kumble,Harbhajan and Tendulkar gave away 127 runs in as many overs.

In the final league match against Sri Lanka, India realised that thethree-seam option was not working at all and picked Zaheer to pair up withPathan as the two quick bowlers. The slower bowlers Kumble, Harbahajan,Tendulkar and Sehwag accounted for 32 of the 50 overs that India bowled underlights, eking out an improbable four-run win over the home side.

India erred in choosing a trio of left-arm seam bowlers, adding Nehra, forthe final against Sri Lanka. The not-so-tacit admission of this mistake wasevident in the fact that the three bowled just 20 overs among them whileHarbhajan, Tendulkar and Sehwag managed 10 each. None of the quicker bowlerswent close to bowling his quota of 10 overs. And when India chased 229 forvictory, Sri Lanka chose four slower bowlers to deliver as many as 33 overs.

Isn't the lesson too obvious? Need I say more? Or does India's think tank notwant to learn from its mistakes? Nothing else can explain the choice of a bagfulof quick bowlers for a series in Sri Lanka.