Searching for an Identity

On the front cover of Christian Ryan's book Australia: Story of a Cricket Country there is a photograph taken by Patrick Eagar at Edgbaston in 1975. It shows the Australian side after the dismissal of one of the England batsmen in a match which Australia won easily. Both the Chappell brothers are there, as are Lillee, Walker, Mallett and Edwards. Thomson and Marsh are out of shot but the implicit message is clear. We are Australia, we hunt as a pack and we mean business. Most of us may be smiling but we don't mess around. We are as one, and, if you're Mike Denness's England, we will crush you into the ground as quickly as we will look at you.

Almost thirty-eight years later Cricinfo carries a photo of the Australian fielders during their recent match against India A. The effect isn't quite so intimidating. Cowan is there, and Watson, and Lyon and Wade, but they don't look as hard. Like their 1975 forebears they are happy, as they have just claimed a wicket, but they also look younger and more fragile. Partly this is because we know what the 1975 side was capable of, but it is also because it is a realistic appraisal of where the Australian team is at this moment in time.

It is a side in transition and it is searching for an identity. And their current opponents, India, are doing just the same.

These are similarities, but there are also differences. The Australian team identity tends towards the collective: there are stars, whether they be the Chappells, or Lillee, or Thomson, or Warne, or Ponting, or Gilchrist, but the team is the thing. Get above yourself and you will quickly be dragged back into the pack.

This works. No team in Test history has won as many Test matches as Australia. At times - and those of us who've followed international cricket over the last fifteen years remember the best of these - Australian teams have strode the world like a colossus.

For a range of reasons, India has never done this, and the best Indian sides have relied far more on the brilliance of a few individuals than collective competence and iron competitive will puctuated with excellence.

In Chennai, India's victory was founded on the rediscovery of Tendulkar's equlibrium, the savage elegance of Kohli and the dominant brilliance of Dhoni, while Ashwin issued a reminder that he can bowl as well as bat like a clone of another man of the Indian south who preferred to be known by his initials alone.

Australia still have the same collective desire and competitive edge they always had - indeed it is hard-wired into their players' DNA - but they lack the experience of the particular challenges which sub-continental Test cricket presents, and they lack real era-defining quality of the type which India have in spades, even if the eras being defined have, in at least two cases, passed. Clarke is a very, very good - possibly great - batsman. If he can overcome his fitness problems there is every chance that James Pattinson could become a great fast bowler. Mitchell Starc, too, will have plenty of days in the sun if he sticks around. David Warner, you suspect, has a few more surprises up his sleeve. Perhaps Philip Hughes does too. But the majority of the side will finish their career as footnotes in their country's rich cricket lineage in a way that Tendulkar, and Dhoni, and Sehwag, and almost certainly Kohli and Pujara (though their greatest days lie ahead), simply won't.

However, there is no blueprint for success in Test cricket. In some matches and circumstances collective endeavour will triumph over sporadic brilliance. At other times the reverse will be true. This series is fascinating for many reasons; prior to its start the perception was that the sides were quite evenly matched and this idea shouldn't be abandoned completely.

India, playing at home and one up, appear to hold all the cards. However, people said that after the first Test of their last home series just three short months ago, and look what happened then.

Fulfilled Expectations

It's not easy to be original or profound about what happened yesterday.

I'll settle for saying that India's win was the culmination of a lot of work, by Gary Kirsten and his players, to change them from being a side that tended to crumble under duress to one that was able to withstand the crushing pressure of the expectations of a billion breathless people and ease their way to victory from a difficult position.

Central to this were the coolness, bravado and power of Dhoni - who receives his due praise at greater length elsewhere - and Gambhir, who showed again, despite his ill-judged dismissal, that he will be one of the players to carry the baton on after Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman have gone.

Another will be Virat Kohli, who's rightly winning plaudits for the modesty and timing of his words, but bats with a hard-edged fluency and style which should take him a long way.

I go back a long way with Indian cricket. To the 1979 England tour, in fact, and I remember the 1983 final well. But I haven't lived the years of expectation and frustration like many an Indian has.

This, by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, sums up what yesterday meant from a young Indian's perspective.

And it's a bloody great piece of writing.

Dead Game

When I left the house this morning, just after Dhoni had failed to declare at lunch for no obvious reason apart from allowing his two batsmen to chase hundreds, I had a feeling that the second Test was heading down the pan.

It clearly did exactly that, and, as so often, Andrew Miller sums things up very well here.

Regardless of Dhoni's tactics, which will (or should) have put his previously unquestioned reputation as an innovative captain at risk for a few days at least, the fact is that two Test 'series' stink, and I hope to God they don't catch on.

I'm going away for Christmas tomorrow, and I'll be keeping a close eye on events in the southern hemisphere. See you in 2009.

Batting with Attitude

With Australia out of the way and England yet to offer themselves up for humiliation (although they got most of the way there yesterday), the obvious thing might be to write a valedictory piece about Sourav Ganguly. I'm not going to do that, although, like everybody, I recognize the contribution which he made to Indian cricket over more than a decade. I saw his debut century at Lord's in 1996 and always enjoyed watching him, with a representative memory being the sight of him in one-day mode, taking a couple of steps down the pitch and one back before thrashing a seamer high over the offside. That was the essence of Ganguly; aggression, attitude, and plenty of style.

No, I'll write about Dhoni. The Dhoni who, when he came to England with India for the first time last year, had acquired a reputation as an unsophisticated if dangerous hitter but who showed straight away that he could do more, much more, and has shown since, most recently in Nagpur last weekend, that he can play with patience and selectivity when necessary while never losing touch with the fact that bad balls are there to be dispatched. Throw in serviceable keeping, which will improve, and his astute captaincy, and you have a really impressive figure who looks at the moment like just the man to guide his team through the choppy waters which are bound to accompany its inevitable reshaping. Indeed, Dhoni's apparently effortless ability to hit the right tone was encapsulated in his decision to allow Ganguly to captain the side for the last few overs of his final game. He didn't have to do it, but he did, and it looked and felt absolutely right.

India's future is firmly based around Dhoni as batsman, as wicket-keeper and as captain.

And it's bright.

Done and Dusted

With a decent Test series done and dusted and Australia, ultimately, well beaten, India appear well-placed to challenge for the world number one spot.

However, any assessment of where they stand now has to be coloured by the fact that they're on the verge of having to rebuild. Kumble and Ganguly are no more, and, while the early signs from Amit Mishra have been good, I'm less than convinced about his future in the side, with Chawla probably a better bet in the long run. Dravid's future must be uncertain, with runs needed against England to prolong his career, and Tendulkar and VVS clearly can't go on for ever. For India, over the next 3-5 years, everything depends on how their replacements shape up, but, with the brilliant Ishant Sharma there and the hugely impressive Dhoni pulling the strings, the future looks relatively bright.

For Australia, on the other hand, the future looks rocky. While the batting still appears strong, too many of the major players are the wrong side of thirty, Haddin is no Gilchrist (who is?) and the attack, for all the individual merits of Lee, Clark, Johnson and, well, Krejza, isn't what it was (how could it be?). Seeing them slide to defeat this morning one had the first inkling for a very, very long time that this was just another side, with strengths, sure, but a number of clear weaknesses which better teams, like India, will exploit.

At this stage England will fancy their chances for next summer too, and, while there's a lot of water left to flow under a number of bridges before then, at the present moment I'd probably back them.

Contenders

Of course, with Dravid barely out of the door, the discussions start about the relative merits of his possible successors. Off the top of my head Tendulkar seems unlikely and Dhoni perhaps a little premature; there might just be some mileage in the selectors taking a proper look at Laxman or Kumble.

Anand Vasu sums the situation up well at Cricinfo.

Lord's Thoughts

I'm off to London for the Test in the morning, so there's not much time to produce any very profound thoughts about the game.

However, taking into account the benign nature of recent Lord's pitches, I'd expect the side winning the toss to bat first, although England could be tempted to bowl given the relative fragility of the Indian top order.

There's talk about the possibility of Dinesh Karthik getting the gloves for India, which would be a pity from my point of view as I'd like to see Dhoni play for the first time. It'd be nice to see Yuvraj as well, though, and it could be a case of one or the other.

England are certain to be without Steve Harmison for the whole series and it looks likely that Stuart Broad will make his debut. I hope so.

I also hope that the weather doesn't ruin the game, but there's a better than even chance that it will.

See you next week.

Today's News

With only four overs possible at Taunton today, my attention was drawn to events at Chelmsford, where the three day game between England Lions and India ended in a predictable draw.

Whle India can take plenty from Tendulkar's 171 - and valuable contributions from Yuvraj, Dhoni and Karthik - the profligacy of their bowlers will worry them as they go to Lord's.

From an England (and Middlesex) standpoint it was good to see Andrew Strauss and Owais Shah pass fifty, although only one will be back at their home ground come Thursday, unlike Stuart Broad, who heads in the direction of a probable first Test cap with a five-for under his belt.