Speaking to the Durban-based Sunday Tribune, Vengsarkar said, ''It was quite pathetic. I felt embarrassed witnessing the way we buckled to a team who do not possess fast bowlers like the West Indies and Australia did when I played Test cricket.

''When we faced Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts and Colin Croft of the West Indies, and Australians like Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, the Indian Test side never buckled under the pressure.

''We didn't win many test matches against those teams, but we never really capitulated against them,'' the former Test star told the paper.

Vengsarkar also said the time had come for India to prepare different Test pitches at home to improve batting quality.

''How can you be a top Test-playing nation if the (Indian) Board continually prepares dusty spinners' wickets for our home series in the sub-continent?

''It's time the Board took a closer look at the situation at home. Preparing wickets which always suit our bowlers does not produce quality Test players. It's time for our batsmen to adapt and to start applying themselves to different conditions.''

Officially, the Indian side has chosen not to respond to the criticism. Skipper Sachin Tendulkar, asked for comment, would only say, ``We have no excuses for the defeat at Durban, the truth is we batted without any application. We can only promise that we will work on our defects, and perform better in the two Tests to follow.''

When Tendulkar was asked specifically if the fact that the Indian team went into the game with too little time to acclimatise - the side landed in South Africa late evening on the 19th, and played the Test with just one three-day game in between, the Indian skipper said, ``It is true that any touring side likes to play a few warm up games before starting the Tests, but we are not offering that as an excuse. We played badly, that is all.''

Privately, however, the Indians make no secret of the fact that they are miffed. Speaking off the record, the Indian players make no bones of the fact that they find this attitude, by a respected past player, very hurtful.

While the team members prefer not to add to the controversy by going public with their disagreement, they make several points arising from Vengsarkar's comments that, in all fairness, merits mention. The points run thus:

When South Africa recently toured India, manager Bob Woolmer and captain Hansie Cronje were very critical of the fact that the Indian board did not provide them ``enough'' local bowlers to bowl to the South African batsmen at the nets. This, despite the fact that media reports of the time talked of how a couple of dozen enthusiastic youngsters turned up, from various clubs, and bowled tirelessly through the day.

When the Indian side landed in South Africa, coach Madan Lal and captain Sachin Tendulkar made a request for local bowlers to help with the nets. What they got was one youngster, who bowled a few overs and then vanished. The excuse given was that it was the holiday season and local bowlers were not available - despite the fact that there was no dearth of bowlers when the South African team arrived for nets.

``The Indian media headlined Woolmer's and Cronje's allegations, but nobody bothers to mention the problems we have faced,'' said one senior player. ``The result has been that Srinath and Prasad, who already do the bulk of the bowling in the matches, are forced to overwork and bowl long spells in the nets as well. And even our coach Madan Lal has been forced to bowl to us, because there are not enough bowlers to go around.''

While the players refute the allegations one after another, an underlying thread appears to be that the Indian media delights in lambasting them, even as it bends over backwards to play up every little grouse aired by a visiting side. ``Garry Kirsten tells the media that when he was in India he ran out of distilled water to brush his teeth with. And that makes the news. We are not given even basic practise facilities, but nobody is interested in writing about that,'' complained the player.

The umpiring, again, came in for some muted criticism. Indian players point out that during the South African tour of India, each umpiring error received glaring mention in newspaper headlines. ``There were at least seven, maybe eight dubious decisions in the first Test. And the umpire most responsible was Steve Dunne - an official against who, earlier, the BCCI itself had complained and requested that he be dropped. Does anybody mention this in their reports?'' asks the player, even while admitting that the team wasn't excusing its performance on the basis of those errors.

But what appears to have hurt the most, where Vengsarkar's comments are concerned, is that he has restricted himself to mere distructive criticism, without offering help or solutions.

Members of the Indian side now on tour tend to contrast this with the behaviour of Sunil Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath, both contemporaries of Vengsarkar's, and both in South Africa as part of the Star Sports commentary team.

When it became obvious that the Indian side would lose inside of three days, Gavaskar ran around using his considerable influence to arrange a practise match for the Indians against a scratch Natal outfit. For the Indian team, desperately short of practise in alien conditions, this has come as a godsend, as it allows their batsmen to get some time in the middle even as it permits the over-worked Srinath and Prasad to rest ahead of the second Test.

Amarnath, meanwhile, hurried to the Indian dressing room and offered his services in the nets, whether in bowling or in helping the younger team members hone their technique against pace bowling.

``Former Test stars have a lot of experience and wisdom they have gained in course of their careers,'' said a noted cricket commentator. ``Whether they want to use their experience to criticise, or help, is of course up to them.''

Meanwhile, a certain sense of frustration is also creeping into the Indian dressing room.

It is all very well, it is pointed out, for Sachin to talk about going back to the drawing room and reworking the composition of the playing eleven. But the fact remains that thanks to a very lop-sided selection, the Indians find themselves not exactly spoilt for choice.

The arithmetic is simple. Of 16 players, three are wicketkeepers. Obviously, only one can play. So the number of players available to chose from has been reduced, right there, to 14.

Of this 14, six are bowlers. And only five, at best, can play. So effectively, the field of choice has been reduced to 13 players.

In other words, Sachin Tendulkar and Madan Lal find themselves in the peculiar position of having to chose 11 players, and a 12th man, from an available pool of 13 - so where lies the question of ``going back to the drawing board'' and making changes in the side?

The only obvious change is the dropping of David Johnson, and the trying out of D Ganesh as backup to the Prasad-Srinath combine. Another interesting choice would be the inclusion of Venkatapathy Raju in the playing eleven for the second Test, as fifth bowler.

The reason is obvious - the Newlands pitch is likely to be slower, and more spin-friendly, than the Durban one was. And an indicator to this effect came when chairman of the South African selectors Peter Pollock indicated that Paul Adams would definite- ly play at Newlands.

``We always intended Adams to play at Newlands,'' Pollock told the media without, however, indicating who would be dropped. The ob- vious choice for the axe, however, remains the young pace bowler Lance Klusener, who despite favourable conditions at Durban failed to impress with either bat or ball.

But back to Vengsarkar, who concluded his diatribe with a note of optimism. ``India has some very good players like Tendulkar and Azharuddin,'' said Vengsarkar in the interview. ``I believe that they will show the way in the remaining two Tests.''