Inconsistency

Editor's note: Recently, the Rediff Team helped put together several dossiers, on select topics, regarding India's performance in one-day internationals.

These dossiers were intended to help underline key points for the benefit of the team's think tank, with a view to fine-tuning performances as the side builds up to the 2003 World Cup.

Here, we reproduce one such -- relating to the most important, and easily the most neglected, aspect, of the way we play the one day game.

Ajit Agarkar

Match one: 1/54 in eight overs.
Match two: 3/38 in eight overs
Match three: 1/63 in nine overs
Match four: 0/45 in six overs.

See a pattern? One match winning spell, and three disastrous ones. On each of the three occasions, the bowler proves so expensive that you can’t even ask him to complete his spell. In those three games, he takes a total of 2 wickets for 162 runs, bowling 23 of his possible 30 overs.

Now consider this sequence:

3/50 in 9
1/46 in 8
4/34 in 9
0/40 in 5
2/61 in 10
0/47 in 5.

Again, one match winning spell (the 3/50 was not one). And several disasters. To the tune of giving away 148 runs in 20 overs in the last three games for 2 wickets.

The first sequence is Agarkar against Australia in the beginning of 2001, the second is Agarkar against England in the beginning of 2002. One year passes, but nothing changes.

Time and again, we are solemnly assured by the pundits that Agarkar is a match-winning bowler.

Care to check, see how many matches he has LOST?

His statistics over the past 12 months - or 24, whatever - will make even worse reading if you check out the first spells. Wherein, time and again, Srinath has begun brilliantly, only for Agarkar to immediately give it away with spectacular prodigality.

Once the pressure is eased, where lies the big gain in his coming back and taking two tailenders out?

What is worse than the figures is the manner of bowling. Again, check out the figures - India’s fastest bowler has never, once, turned in a decent performance on a quick track in the last two years. The sight of a quick deck, in fact, brings out the worst in him. Bombay was merely the latest example - 10 in his third over, when Srinath has created enormous pressure at one end, of those ten two being fours to Hussain to deliveries drifting on the pads; 17 in his fourth over, again two fours through the on side among those runs; and 10 more in the fifth over, inclusive of the mandatory leg side boundary.

The same has been true in Tests as well - time and again, when the pressure has been on the opposition and the need was for steady, rock solid bowling, what we have got is a bowler who bowls six different deliveries in an over, rather in the manner of a cow pissing on a rock.

How do you set a field for this stuff? More to the point - if a bowler gives away 47 inside five overs at the start of an innings, then the spinners come in with their offensive weapons blunted, because their primary job is to put the brakes on batsmen with the bit well and truly between their teeth.

Further: India, because it doesn’t trust its batting, goes in with four regular bowlers, in Tests or ODIs. Stick to the latter for now, and examine this question: if you have only four regulars, you expect part-timers to finagle 10 overs, and budget for 50-60 runs to go off those. What happens in that situation, if one of those four bowlers is too expensive to be used for more than half his quota?

You lose matches. Period.

And yet, a Harbhajan Singh can be "rested" - while an Agarkar plays on and on and a Zahir Khan brings out the drinks?

How many more matches will we lose, and how many more Mohantys, Zahirs, Nehras et al will we destroy through want of consistent opportunities, before someone wises up?