It was as though the recent sins were all cleansed in just a few hours. Cleansed, ironically, by the dust of the dirty pitch at the Wankhede Stadium. And all it required to bring about the miracle at Mumbai was 30-odd minutes of brilliant belligerence of Sachin Tendulkar's willow.
That razzle-dazzle first rubbed off on Laxman whose bat and legs suddenly looked as lubricated as they were at the Eden Garden three years ago.
With this dual magic ignited in the morning, Kartik and Harbhajan Singh became infected with invincibility after tea; the fielders closed in, literally, and closed their hands on the prey.
It was now the mighty Australians who suddenly became human, feeble, and India squeezed out a remarkable triumph. The multiple disasters of Bangalore and Nagpur were forgotten in a jiffy; the public's abuse returned to the adulation mode. Worship and vituperation are truly fickle in the world of Indian cricket.
But it would be a grievous error if the wicked ways of the last few weeks were forgotten in the latest bath of the bubbly.
Parthiv Patel was the first mistake. The lad's wicket-keeping was shoddy even earlier and his batting tenacity gave him no right really to that most crucial position behind the stumps in the first three Tests against the Aussies. Just because our string of statisticians do not compile figures on what a bad 'keeper costs to a team, it was Patel's batting that became the choice of the skipper, Ganguly, and the selectors who bent to his view.
Dinesh Karthick at Mumbai showed that the big gloves play a big role in a team's performance. He claimed but two victims in the match but who has calculated the number of byes he saved on a pitch on which our spinners produced so many spitting cobras and flying saucers? Those byes saved were surely more than the runs India won by. And there was no way Patel could have batted for those runs on that torrid turning track.
Yes, Patel at the Wankhede would probably have lost us the match.
And make no mistake, Karthick will do well in front of the stumps as well; his two on-drives in the Mumbai Test reveal high talent, for a straight drive speaks of technique that doesn't come to a commoner.
The unwillingness of our batsmen to hit in front of the wicket, in the V area, was in fact India's second mistake. Tendulkar has been the guiltiest on this count. For a couple of seasons now, for reasons perhaps linked to the connection between his back and his heavy bat, he has consistently used his wrists to turn even the balls on his middle stump towards the leg side; his rock solid thumping drives to mid-off, mid-on and past the bowler have not only dried up thereby, but made him vulnerable to lbw.
When he rediscovered those strokes, however briefly, on Friday last in Mumbai, he looked the old Atlas once again.
Laxman too had overdone his wristiness. He should remember that there's nothing like the drives in front -- oh, he plays them so silkily! -- to unnerve the marauding fast bowlers.
Added to this reluctance (diffidence?) to take the battle to the bowler, was our batsmen's inadequate imagination to tackle the unerring accuracy of McGrath, Gillespie and Kasprowicz on the off-stump with nine out of ten balls coming in to the right-handed batsman.
None of our batsmen chose to take a stance closer to the off-stump and a foot or so outside the popping crease in order to be enabled to reach those balls, invariable a little short of the good length that forced the batsmen to play back and get out bowled or lbw or caught in the slips from the bounce generated by the sheer height of McGrath or Gillespie or Kasprowicz.
Missing in Action: Our 'Great' Batsmen!
The scene was once more changed, for some ten overs or so, when Tendulkar chose to stand nearly a foot outside his popping crease. It should have been Dravid, so studious about technique, who should have the way. But the man is perhaps too gentle and orthodox to try non-Brahmin methods.
Our batting has long suffered from sub-standard running between running between the wickets though the advent of Yuvraj and Kaif has certainly perked up matters. On the whole, though, quick singles with soft pushes have been rarely used in a manner sustained enough to raise the hair of the fielding side.
Ganguly and Laxman are the main offenders in this area and, unless they are beyond repair, the coach must quickly initiate special net practice for it before the South Africans arrive town.
The Australian bowlers' spot on precision was what our bowlers lacked. Be they speed merchants or spinners, our bowlers just can't create the nagging Chinese-torture type accuracy of McGrath. Inherent talent is part of the secret; the more important part is the ceaseless practice, the meditation required to be accurate all the time, six balls in an over, six hours in the day. Remember, McGrath doesn't have a computerised programme installed in his bowling arm.
A reasonably reliable opening pair of batsmen is Indian cricket's last problem. Sehwag's position is fixed despite his frequent flirtations. It's his partner for which a search is required after Akash Chopra flattered to deceive. Gautam Gambhir in Mumbai failed but needs more chances to prove whether he's good or bad. In any case, an opener's slot is a big chunk in our armour.
Come to think of it, even the core of our batting needs watching. The present lot of current stars is not growing younger, what with the quantum they play throughout the year. Those on the bench, the Badanis and the Mongias and the Srirams must be given the chance they deserve when the South Africans come here soon enough.
