It was shortly after John Wright began his tenure with the Indian cricket team that we got a call one day. Wright had read a match report on our site that took issue with the team's inability to take their singles; the report had pointed out that results would have been different had this basic been given more attention.
Following the call, Wright came to our office and spent half a day, working with us on a presentation he intended to make to the Indian team. (This is the story)
Wright worked on this -- and on other little, non-glamorous aspects of the game, like cutting down on extras -- and the results began showing. It was around the 2003 World Cup that this Indian team reached its peak in terms of on-field awareness, of the building blocks of a good ODI effort.
Is the team now retrogressing? Could it be that with Wright's exit just days away, the team thinks it can afford to ignore his advice? Such questions are in the realm of speculation -- the fact though is that the side is slipping, especially in its basics, and this is beginning to cost the team dearly, as witness Pakistan's fightback in the ongoing ODI series.
A closer look at the four matches played so far in the series reveals an interesting statistic:
In the first ODI, India ran 127 singles and Pakistan, 69. In the second ODI, India maintained the advantage, scoring 100 singles against 88 by Pakistan.
Then came the turnaround, first in Jamshedpur, then in Ahmedabad. In the third ODI, Pakistan had 100 singles batting first and building up a huge score, against just 66 by India in the chase. In the fourth ODI, India batting first took 110 singles but Pakistan, by all indications batting in tougher conditions on a crumbling pitch, took an amazing 125 singles.
The key to Pakistan's first ever successful chase of a 300-plus target was the methodical play between the 15th and 35th overs, in which they scored 123 runs out of which just four were boundaries. In other words, while taking the score from 107/1 in the 15th over to 230/3 in the 35 -- 123 runs off 120 legitimate deliveries -- Pakistan needed to find the boundary just four times.
In that phase -- when India gave away singles all around the park -- lay the key to the win. When chasing 300-plus, the team batting second goes in needing to score 6 an over or more, every over for the duration of the innings. Each over that weighs in under six runs adds to the ask rate and, thus, to the pressure on the batting side.
In Ahmedabad, though the Pakistan batsmen were able to keep in touch with that ask rate without having to manufacture shots, without taking risks, without any effort at all (a lot of those singles were in fact walked, an indication of how deep the field was set).
Obviously, the influence of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer is beginning to show. Woolmer, like Wright, is a nuts and bolts kind of guy. He -- like Wright -- believes there is no dearth of talent in the side; what is missing is attention to the little details; he has, as a result, been drilling into his side the need to pay attention to these basics. And the results are already beginning to show -- a team of flashy, flamboyant, but inconsistent strokemakers is now learning to put its head down to the task, to build an innings whether batting first or second, to time its acceleration to a T.
But is all this Woolmer's doing, or did India contribute to its own downfall? Check this out: during the first two ODIs, as videos of those games will tell you, India consistently kept a slip in place, throughout the game, irrespective of whether fast bowlers were operating or spinners. At best, if the slip were taken off, it was merely to move the fielder to a wide gully, or a very short third man.
The reason for this field placement was obvious -- in ODIs, the most productive shot for a batsman is the open faced glide down to third man. If placed well, it fetches four; if played even fractionally wide of the fielder, it is two or more; if played straight to the fielder, it is a certain single.
In other words, a ball just outside off -- in the corridor of uncertainty, as it is called -- does not tie a batsman down; instead, it gives him runs for the taking. Put a slip in place, though, and immediately, the batsman is hampered; he is not as confident of opening his bat face, for fear the ball will carry to the slip. The fielder, thus, shuts down a productive area.
India employed this tactic to advantage in the first two ODIs; it kept a slip in place for long periods of the game and had the bowlers bowl on the off side; thus making the dab to third man risky, and also preventing the glance to fine leg.
The result? In the first ODI, Pakistan scored 26 -- of which 15 were singles -- in the third man region. The second ODI saw a marginal increase - 32 runs, with 17 singles in that region.
In the third ODI, India removed the slip early, even before the field restrictions were taken off. Pakistan milked the bowling for 55 runs in the arc between third man and point -- of which 24 were singles. In the fourth ODI, the slip was removed as early as the sixth over (a short cover and short midwicket were placed instead) and Pakistan scored 66 runs behind the wicket on the off, including 26 singles.
It's a little thing, a basic field placement. Attending to it paid dividends for India; ignoring it, for no visible reason, cost them big time.
In post-match comments, India skipper Sourav Ganguly remarked that Pakistan took too many easy singles during its record-breaking chase. The question though is, did Pakistan take -- or did India give?
Keep an eye on this factor in the coming two games. The key to the team's fortunes will lie not in whether Sehwag, Sachin and others fire with the bat, but in how well it thinks through its game in the field.