Vikram Rathore should never have been picked for this match, not because he is a bad player but because he was so completely short of runs. With two failures in the match, that mistake looks unlikely to be repeated in the immediate future.
Though Nayan Mongia played the innings of his life, there has also to be a question mark against the number of times he can be asked to do the role. He told me after the second day, when he was 137 not out, that he was willing to do it as long as the team management wanted him to but added, significantly, that should he have to keep wickets for more than a hundred overs, it would leave him a very tired man.
Ian Chappell made the point too that Mongia's great century had now created a problem for the selectors. You can't change the batting position of a man who has played a match winning innings. And yet it is patently obvious that this was a short term measure.
It will be tempting to continue with him for it allows India the luxury of playing five bowlers. From that point of view, he is playing the role that Manoj Prabhakar played so successfully for three years. The alternative, which Chappell suggested too, was to repose enough confidence in Mongia to allow him to bat at number six. It was, remember, something that India regularly did when Prabhakar batted at that position. But then, following Prabhakar in the order then were Kapil Dev and Kiran More and so five pure batsmen were good enough.
Today Indian cricket has no allrounders, except Mongia, and so that is a luxury that India are not likely to allow themselves.
Geoffrey Boycott made it clear that he did not think India could win matches on more demanding surfaces than this one unless they had a pair of openers. That situation may not surface for another couple of months while Indian play three Test matches against South Africa at home. Sadly, it will appear alarmingly over the five months after that as India play three Tests in South Africa and five in the West Indies.
That much for the worries. There was much in the Delhi Test to be proud of. Nayan Mongia's innings obviously rates number one on that list but Anil Kumble was not far behind. And in smaller meas- ure, Ganguly, Dravid and Kapoor enhanced reputations.
I had always known Mongia to be a fighter rather than a dasher. The big difference between him and earlier wicketkeepers like More or Kirmani is that he is a top order batsman in his own right having played there all his life. There is a theory that cricketers live to propound which states that a batsman tends to play according to the number he is batting at. Thus More and Kirmani were always number sevens or eights.
Mongia, even when he batted there brought the approach of top order batsman and now that he was given the chance to become one showed the difference in his batting approach.
It was very interesting talking to Kumble at the end of day one of this Test. He is normally a very shy man, especially when the cameras are turned on. But this time, the happiness came through and he spoke his mind. He had been very upset by his performances in England because he is a very proud man and hates failure.
Ironically, he said, the one-dayers in Toronto helped him regain top form because he picked up some wickets there and the confidence returned. Here, at the Kotla, on a wicket that might have been designed for him, he was about as unplayable as he has ever been.
Allan Border was saying on the commentary that he had spoken to Mark Waugh about playing Kumble on tracks like these and the biggest problem according to Waugh was that you cannot go down the wicket to him. One of the classic ways of disturbing a spinner's rhythm is to use the feet to go down the wicket to him and then wait for the ball to be dropped short to pick up runs square of the wicket. Because Kumble is so quick through the air, it is virtually impossible to charge him and so a batsman is literally creasebound while facing him. That means that the moment a ball bounces or turns more than a batsman budgets for, he will be in trouble.
What Waugh said was obvious from the way they tackled Aashish Kapoor and Sunil Joshi who have greater variations in flight but don't quite hit the deck as quickly as Kumble does. Well as they bowled, they could not produce the same feeling of helplessness that Kumble did.
It is tempting to think of the turn this match would have taken had Shane Warne been around. Needless to say an Indian first innings total of 361 may not have been possible and with a smaller deficit, Australia's batsmen might have approached the second innings better. I think it is also pretty safe to conclude that had Warne been around, the wicket would have looked a bit different!
Just as India face chronic problems at the top of the order, Australia are facing a complete drought of spinners Every time McIntyre and Hogg were hit for four, Ian Chappell would shake his head. At the end of the second day, he suddenly announced, ``I hope the surgeon does a good job. We look pretty stuffed otherwise!'' The reference being to Warne's delicate finger surgery.
India's selectors had a lot of thinking to do after the Test as they sat down to pick the side of the one-dayers. To my mind the most important issue they had to address was whether or not to pick Navjot Sidhu. I suspect their mind was made up and in an effort to justify it, they found an appropriate reason. Sidhu did not bat in the second innings of the Irani Trophy and missed the Challenger and so, according to the selectors, he hadn't played enough cricket to be picked.
So out goes Sidhu but that was, by no means, the most unusual decision they took. The dropping of Johnson and Laxman were, to my mind, the more disturbing because they would have sent out the wrong signals to two talented cricketers. Johnson was picked for two one-day tournaments, didn't get a game, played a Test match and when it came to playing one-dayers again suddenly acquired the label of a 'Test bowler.'
It is unlikely that he will get a place in the Test side after Srinath returns from injury and so that next time he will, presumably, play for India is in South Africa towards the end of December! His replacement though has done everything right. Salil Ankola deserved to be picked after another very good performance in the Challenger though his presence in the final eleven might well depend on the quality of wickets available for the one-dayers.
Ajay Jadeja's return was expected and was fitting and the moment the decision to leave out Sidhu was taken, it had to be a toss up between Laxman and Dharmani, given that the selectors seem to think they have seen enough of Kambli. By picking Laxman, the selectors had given him just the confidence the young man needed. He is a lovely player, so full of class in the Azharuddin-Dravid mould. He has played a lot of one-day cricket and has some very good innings against decent opposition.
The logical thing would have been to carry the process of encouragement further and pick him for the one-dayers. But hang on, Laxman is now a 'Test batsman' and so, cannot find a place in the one-dayers. So what does he do? Goes back home and watches the one-day internationals on television.
Indeed there could have been a case because there were seven batting places available in addition to Mongia. But I suspect the selectors were on the look out for a proper opening batsman given that the experiments in that area hadn't worked. And so in comes Sujith Somasunder who got a lot of runs last year.
The funny thing though is that India had used Ganguly as an opener in the Challenger and it seemed to have worked. And given that this side has been picked only for the first three one-day internationals they could have tried him out and had the move failed, they could have picked Somasunder for the rest of the games. Or for that matter, Woorkeri Raman who batted so beautifully in the Challenger.
My team would have been Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Azharuddin, Laxman, Jadeja, Mongia, Joshi, Kapoor, Kumble, Srinath, Prasad, Johnson and Ankola.