Forget l’affaire Anderson, get on with game

Team India allowed the James Anderson-Ravindra Jadeja spat to drive them to distraction. The drift in focus alone could not, however, be held responsible for the heavy defeat in the third Test. The high of Lord’s was achieved when l’affaire Anderson was very much in the air, but, throughout the second Test, Team India seemed driven by the feeling that they would win the arguments in the inquiry rooms.

The cricketing reason why they lost the Southampton Test was the absence of Ishant Sharma. He may not be the brainiest fast bowler around, but there is a workhorse mentality in him that seems to drive him on into making the effort regardless of the final result. That by itself is a great attitude to have. On a fast bowlers’ pitch at Southampton, Ishant may have been the tipping factor in taking 20 wickets in a reasonable runs-to-time framework.

India lost control to a wicket-keeper batsman who played in the swashbuckling Dhoni manner to let England run away to a mammoth total that is never easily matched by Indian batsmen of the current team. Time was when the opposition were 325-5 at stumps on the opening day and went on to 550-plus before declaring on the second day and India could still win the Test thanks to the ‘bataholic’ Rahul Dravid.

It is a reflection of the technical state of today’s batting line-ups that collapses are as common as the quick scoring of the era once the upper hand is established. England, as well as India are prone to collapses, so too many others in the fray in most modern cricket because they are technically not qualified to pass the test on wickets favouring bowlers of all types as the Southampton pitch did. Modern batting line-ups are as easily opened as a can with a well designed can opener.

The debate will go on as to whether India can take 20 wickets in a Test to win abroad. As we saw at Lord’s, Indian bowling picks up enormously in seam-friendly conditions, which is the reason why it is such a surprise that Team India did not win more than just the Lord’s Test in so many foreign outings since the disastrous summer of 2012 began with the first of the 8-0 results in England and Australia.

Team India have had plenty of opportunities to win abroad since the Test in the Caribbean in 2012. It was the inability of the bowlers to go through the opposition down to taking the 10th wicket in an innings in time enough to make a difference that told in the end after so many openings were created early. The clichetic ‘lack of killer instinct’ was always drawn out of the cupboard each time the team failed to go through.

Team India cannot boast of batting depth in world cricket at a time when all teams appear capable of batting down to No. 11. If India could run up a big stand for the last wicket, England could retaliate with a world record stand on the dead Trent Bridge surface. It was only the lively wicket of Lord’s that saw Dhoni’s men wake up to the possibility of the opportunity of winning a Test away from the designer pitches of India.

Regardless of the state of the pitches, the task in the remaining two Tests will be that much harder as India have lost the momentum and the mood after the Anderson affair. More than anyone else, Dhoni, who has been acting for a couple of weeks more like a political leader than a cricket captain, was to blame. He now faces the onerous task of addressing the cricket questions, that too without his start fast bowler and a suddenly stuttering batting combination, which needed a sixth specialist to be brought in to bolster it at Southampton, but to no avail.

It is not only a matter of strategy from here but also one of attitude and much would hinge on how quickly India and Dhoni can put away the memories of the Anderson affair behind them. No off-field event is that important for any international cricket team.