Saturday, July 27, 2002 There's much to admire about Sourav Ganguly's leadership, the most remarkable aspect being his ability to spot and nurture talent. He is tough, combative and commands the loyalty of his young charges like no Indian captain has done in the last 15 years. But what stands between him being a mere leader of men and a truly outstanding cricket captain is a lack of sharp cricketing intellect and tactical awareness.

Ganguly might already be India's most successful captain abroad, never mind that two of his four overseas wins have come in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but he is unlikely to win the approval of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, unarguably India's finest-ever captain. Pataudi's first commandment for captaincy read: no matter what the conditions are, always play your best team.

Most cricketers grudge the luxury of hindsight that cricket writers enjoy in the comforts of the press box, and indeed it is easy to be wise after the event. But even before a ball had been bowled in this match, a man whose cricketing expertise extends no further than square-cutting a sponge ball to the hands of slip in office cricket would have picked Harbhajan Singh in the first XI. That even Sunil Gavaskar would have done the same is not a mere coincidence. You didn't need Gavaskar's foresight and acumen to do this - just plain common sense.

Between them, Ajit Agarkar and Anil Kumble took five English wickets, and one of them was playing at Harbhajan's expense. Kumble bowled 42.2 overs and Agarkar about half of that. They took four of the six wickets to fall, yet only once did Kumble look genuinely capable of taking a wicket – and that was in his first over of the day. Nasser Hussain, with a century behind him already, had made his intentions clear by charging down the wicket to the first ball he received from Kumble, yet Kumble gave the ball more air than he normally does, the ball turned, took Hussain's outside edge, passed the keeper's gloves and an unmoved Rahul Dravid at slip, and down the slope to the fence. He followed this up with two outrageous long hops which Hussain gratefully sent away either sides of the wicket.

Agarkar is an honest trier, but the most crucial component in his armoury is luck. At the beginning of his international career, he raced away to the fastest fifty wickets in the history of one-day cricket, picking up a large number of those with a curious mixture of wide balls, full tosses and long hops. He has come a long way since then, acquiring skills that enable him to bowl at the death.

As a Test bowler however, Agarkar is severely limited and it showed on a superb batting pitch where his friendly pace, inability to swing and lack of control was mercilessly punished. An outrageous slice of good luck got him his first wicket when Andrew Flintoff chased a wildly wide ball to Ratra's hands, and Hussain followed next ball, snicking another widish delivery to the keeper. Never before or never after did he come within sniffing distance of a wicket, and he conceded almost five runs an over in 21.

England would perhaps have scored the same number of runs – or even more – had Harbhajan been playing. But by not playing him, India had limited their wicket-taking options. Harbhajan's record outside India is by no means impressive, but in England where they use the Dukes ball, with a seam similar to his favourite SG, and on a pitch that had been baked dry, he had the potential to produce wicket-taking balls, which Test bowling is all about.

With Ashish Nehra strangely off-colour and Kumble looking, predictably, no better than a containing bowler, India were left only one attacking bowler in Zaheer Khan. And no matter how well he bowled, it was never going to be enough.

Sambit Bal is editor of Wisden.com India and Wisden Asia Cricket magazine.

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