Singles - the sequel

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.

Where singles are concerned, we lose coming and going: when batting we don’t take them, when fielding we give them away with a carefree prodigality.

In the final one dayer - to quote just the latest in an unending stream of examples - it was amazing to see that once Harbhajan Singh completed his spell, the field spread out. A stranger would have assumed, judging purely by field placing, that Ian Botham and Imran Khan were at the crease, with Chris Cairns, Shaun Pollock to follow.

Simple math: a batsman covers a distance of about 19 yards to complete a single. Ergo, a fielder placed on the rim of the 30-yard circle (especially Indian fielders, who do not run in with the bowler) has no chance of preventing me from pushing the ball anywhere off the deck and running the single with ease.

So what is he doing there? Stopping the big hits? Not a chance - you can’t, not unless they are hit straight to you. So the fielder becomes merely ornamental, being unable to stop either the single, or the four.

10 yards in - and walking in a few paces with the bowler - and he becomes a weapon, an inhibiting factor for batsmen looking to keep the board ticking over and turn the pressure onto the bowler (assuming that the right fielders are placed, that is - Srinath at point to Nasser Hussain inside the 15 overs was the work of an inspired madman).

Here are some stats relating to the final one dayer, with India in the field:

Marcus Trescothick:

Vs Srinath, 7 dot balls and 10 singles; vs Agarkar 5 dot balls 4 singles (plus a single that became a five); vs Kumble six dot balls four singles; vs Ganguly 7 dots 9 singles; vs Harbhajan Singh 6 dots 4 singles. A sum total of 31 dot balls and 31 singles - which, allied to his 9 fours, one six and one five, gave him 95 off 80.

If Trescothick had played as Indians do, scoring one single for three dot balls, his score would have dipped by about 10, 11 - to under a run a ball.

Nasser Hussain 17 dot balls and 13 singles in 41 off 38; Michael Vaughan who could only hit one of 27 balls faced to the fence still does decently to score 9 singles to his 16 dot balls; even a mayhem artist like Flintoff goes 29 dot balls and 14 singles.

After India had England at 174/7, here is how the tail goes: Foster 10 singles to 16 dot balls; and Gough 8 singles to 13 dot balls. Cumulatively, between Flintoff, Gough, Foster and Caddick, England picks up 35 - which underlines the uselessness of deep field settings, and explains how England were let out of jail and allowed to pile up 255.

Amazingly, even the television pundits, during this phase when the tail was batting sensibly, with a view to playing out the overs and keeping the board ticking over, went "At this stage, India won’t mind the singles too much, it is the fours they will be worried about."

Typical - these pundits (it is always the Indian commentators who say this, never the imports) never "minded" the singles during their playing days, and now their successors don’t mind them either.

In the final analysis, though, we lost by five lousy runs! Despite having hit more fours and sixes than the Brits.

If the point needs more underlining, take the case of Javagal Srinath with the ball - a classic case of field placings, and unathletic fielders, blunting a bowler’s edge:

Srinath bowled 43 deliveries, and was taken for 37 runs - on a day when he bowled with sustained incisiveness and skill. Only three fours are hit - that is 12 runs in boundaries (which is all the more laudable given that his bowling partner was taken for 7 fours and a five in 30 balls).

But against that, there are 18 dot balls, 20 singles, a two and a three off Srinath’s bowling: a total of 25 runs taken by batsmen willing to run, and by fielders badly placed and unable to stop those runs from being taken. The greatest bowler in the world would have his effectiveness reduced if 20 singles were taken off him in 43 deliveries.

Incidentally - when India fielded, there were 5 threes taken. When India batted, only one three was possible.

‘Nuff said?

Incidentally, while on field setting - why would an off spinner require a fine leg? And when will Indian captains learn that the sight of a batsman hitting a four is not the signal for a mid-wicket conference followed by a change in field placing? If, as a bowler, you kept changing the field on me, how on earth am I expected to work to a plan, work on a line and length and use variations to beat the batsman?

A smart captain would, at the start of a spell, ask the bowler how he read the conditions and what he thought he could do on the day. And set a field depending on the bowler’s take. And once set, allow the bowler to settle in - interfering only if matters got desperately out of hand, as for example in the Agarkar spell (amusingly, while Agarkar was giving away fours down the leg side, midwicket stayed inside the circle, when the simple option was to remove third man, thus freeing up one out-of-the-circle position, push midwicket into the sweeping position on the line, and bring in square leg and mid off closer to block the singles).

But no - our captains follow the batsman, who in turn leads them a merry dance.