Jimmy Anderson booed at Trent Bridge and the "unselectable" Steven Finn

While England were demonstrating their ineptitude in the one day match at Trent Bridge, and India were completing a fairly clinical win, a couple of weird things caught my attention during the match.

A large partisan crowd at the stadium, mostly of Indian origin, roundly booed James Anderson throughout the match. Anderson was involved in an ugly on and off the field brawl with India's Ravindra Jadeja at Trent Bridge a few weeks ago. Amidst a volley of charges and counter-charges from both sides, the inquest by the ICC found no evidence to punish or reprimand either player, though there was general consensus that Anderson stepped over the line and got away with one, primarily because a CCTV camera at the site of the incident wasn't working. It follows therefore that Indian supporters would hurl a lot of abuse at James Anderson, right? So far so good.

The weird thing was that most of the folks abusing Anderson were Brits of Indian origin, watching the match being played in Britain. These people have Indian roots, so it is perfectly natural for them to support the Indian team against Australia, South Africa, Pakistan and so on. But when the Indian team is playing against England, THEIR national team, in England, it is a slightly different situation. Or so it seems to me. Therefore I found it very surprising that Anderson was booed so heavily, at his home ground, by his own compatriots. I hate Anderson's guts, but felt sorry for him yesterday and wouldn't be surprised if he, and many Brits who watched the spectacle, feel antagonistic towards the Indian community in Britain.

The other weird thing I heard during the match was about Steven Finn being sent back from the last tour to Australia because he was deemed "unselectable". Think about it for a moment - "unselectable" conjures up a lot of images in our minds, none of them very complimentary to the player being spoken about. The first thing that occurred to me when I heard this was, perhaps Finn suffered from a mental breakdown or depression - we have had a few of these in the recent past with blokes like Jonathan Trott. The other possibility, I figured, was that he had punched someone in a bar, called an "escort" to his room, or did something equally stupid to become "unselectable" after making the trip with the team. I don't know why I have this impression about Finn, but I do - that he is a somewhat sensitive and fragile bloke. The ECB could have discreetly called him back from Australia with an announcement that he is unable to take further part on the tour due to an injury, or a personal matter. To publicly hang the tag of "unselectable" on him as they did, was not the smartest thing to do. They have perhaps destroyed a promising career.

It is the wives and girlfriends stupid!

I was quite amused by an article I saw in yesterday's print edition of The Indian Express. It quoted a BCCI official who said that the board has determined that the England Test series disaster was a result of too much time being spent by the players with their wives and girlfriends and that in the future such interaction would need to be severely curtailed.

There has obviously been a lot of noise in India about the sorry capitulation of the team, and it is necessary to nail a person for the disaster or at the very least find a reason that is plausible, and that keeps all the important officials free of blame so they may continue unhindered in their cosy positions.

So the theory behind the disaster is slowly emerging. Duncan Fletcher and his support staff are the primary villains, and swift action has been taken to clip Fletcher's wings, and make his position untenable and humiliating. The other major reason is the wives and girlfriend angle. Sounds very plausible, and (even better) it is juicy as hell! Whether a clear causal relationship can be established between cause and effect is irrelevant. Causes have been identified and swift action taken. The patient has cancer and is running low grade fever. We believe the fever is the cause of the cancer. Let us give the patient a paracetamol tablet every 6 hours, and the cancer should clear up in a few days. Case closed.

I am really in awe of our brilliant cricket administrators.

A perfect Test series

India concluded a near perfect Test series against England. Just about the only desirable thing missing was a few umpiring howlers going against the Indians, howlers that would have been obvious on TV, and could have been overturned by the use of DRS, but would not have been because India's cricket establishment is the only one enlightened enough to know that DRS is bullshit.

Other than that everything else was just about perfect. Sample this:

• Someone needed to tell the selectors how incredibly stupid it was to pick Gautam Gambhir and Stuart Binny for this tour. The series could not have provided a clearer message. Gambhir's pedigree (or lack thereof) as a Test batsman in seamer friendly conditions is well known, but he was selected on the strength of a few decent, but less than stellar domestic performances. His dismissals in the final Test have (hopefully) provided enough embarrassment to his supporters in the cricket establishment to leave him alone now. Poor Binny was picked on the basis of one outlandish bowling spell in a ODI in seamer friendly conditions against the might of the Bangladeshi batting line up! Talk about dumb decisions.

• I couldn't have scripted a better way to expose the folly of playing Ravindra Jadeja as our only spinner and number 7 batsman in these conditions. It was unfortunate that he scored a highly unlikely 68 at Lords that helped us win, but everything was back to normal in the next two Test matches, and the batting exploits of Bhuvaneshwar and Ashwin further exposed the limitations of Jadeja as a lower order batsman.

• Before the last Test match Dhoni made a very insightful statement - "Process is more important that the result. We have to make sure we do not repeat the mistakes of the last Test". Lo and behold, Dhoni's team followed the same process, and achieved the same result, which didn't matter of course. As long as you follow the same process, it doesn't matter if you get bundled out for 148 and 94 while your opposition clobbers you for 486 in their only innings. It was heartening to see the captain of the Indian team make such an important statement and live by it - so what if the rest of the world thought it was not a very smart thing to say?

• Confidence and humility are strange bedfellows, but they are both important for success in sports, as long as they are deployed in the right proportion. Kohli had to understand that his precocious talent in the limited overs game did not guarantee him automatic success in Tests, and there could not have been a better lesson for him than an average of 13 over 5 Tests. Kohli is as mentally tough as they come, and he is sure to bounce back from his disastrous performance which will be good for India in the long term.

• The series has provided further evidence, if there was any required, that a serious rethink is needed on how the game should be run in the country to fundamentally change our ability to compete with the toughest teams in all conditions around the world. This is a tough one. I expect to see the familiar outrage but no tangible long term action. We will have to pray for several more debacles of this magnitude to take place, in order to see useful action on the ground.

• Finally it is clear that Dhoni has outlived his role as the Test leader. India's astonishing collapse and lack of spine will perhaps force some thinking on a change of leadership, which would not have happened with a 1-1, or even a 1-2 result.

All in all I am delighted with how this series went. You can't have everything, but if only the umpires had made some costly blunders negatively affecting the Indian team, I would have been in heaven...

Told you so...

Day two of the third Test match between Indian and England is almost over, and things have gone exactly as I had expected. The euphoria of the Lords win has faded as a few things have gone right for England here and some of their off form players have struck form.

India are exactly one batting collapse away from losing their 1-0 advantage in the series.

Cook and Bell have too much pedigree to keep getting out for low scores, and the addition of Jos Buttler has made a big difference to England. My hope is that the young Indian batting line up will rise to the challenge. Like Cook and Bell, Kohli and Dhawan are due for big scores, and one of them will probably deliver in this innings.

The point I have been making is that India are a mediocre Test side overseas, and they will continue to be mediocre unless they can get a pair of consistent wicket taking fast bowlers. And I mean FAST bowlers. Pankaj Singh looks like he is 6'5" tall and could knock a few people over with pace, but the speed gun shows him bowling at no more than 130 kmph. We need a few guys bowling at 147+.

I hope India can go to Manchester 1-0 up, but suspect that they will go there 1-1.

There we go overboard again

"The Lords win is a turning point for Indian cricket" proclaimed one established cricket pundit. Another Indian ex-captain rejoiced in the fact that "now India can bounce out the opposition as well".

These guys made it sound like India have begun to beat good teams, consistently, and that they now have one of the most feared pace attacks in the world. Unfortunately nothing of that sort has happened, and these pronouncements are the usual sign of folks going overboard when India posts an unlikely win.

Such sentiment would make sense if India win the current series 3-0 or even 3-1, and do it with an effective fast bowling attack. History suggests that is not going to happen.What is more likely is that India will go down in the third Test match, and then either lose or draw the series from there.

This is not the first time India have gone up early in an overseas Test series. It has happened in even in Australia and South Africa in the not too distant past. However, the team has struggled to close the deal and win the series, primarily because of our batsmen's inability to handle the moving ball, and our bowlers' inability to be penetrative in difficult conditions. Unfortunately nothing has changed to suggest that things will be any different this time.

India did not run England into the ground in the Lords Test. The match turned on a couple of little things, like the two lower order Indian partnerships on day one, helped largely by some very poor bowling from England, and some spineless middle order batting by England in both innings. England will bowl better from here on. If Broad and Anderson pick up their bowling, and one of the key English batsmen like Cook or Bell strike form, the tone of this series will change. Jos Butler coming in for Matt Prior can only help.

India did well to win a tight Test match. I hope they find a way to beat England again, and then win consistently overseas. However on current evidence all they have done is beat a mediocre and jaded side in ONE Test match. Let us hold our horses, and stay away from euphoric pronouncements for a little bit longer. We may be in for a pleasant surprise, but past history suggests otherwise.

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