Sometimes, the dividing line between strength and weakness blurs.
Take two names - Shane Bond, and Virender Sehwag.
The latter's big strength - apart of course from the fact that he is an apostle of the minimalist see ball, hit ball style of cricket - is that he leaves it very late before deciding what he wants to do to the ball. This gives him that bit of extra time to pick an aggressive shot - a huge strength that, in the prevailing conditions, proved his weakness as well.
The way he played, it was evident that he wasn't quite sure what the pitch would do, thanks to the grass and the moisture. Not knowing whether it would rear at him or zip through at speed, he waited that heartbeat too long before committing to the front foot. On an Indian track, with the ball slowing after it hits the deck, the shot he played would have resulted in a push back down the line. Here, the ball was through before the foot was positioned and the bat came down. What is interesting is to see what lesson he takes away from the early dismissal.
Bond, meanwhile, is another story - early on, he bowled the fastest delivery of the first hour, a 142k scorcher. But that is as far as it goes - he was too short, or too wide, too often to really live up to his reputation, and that's the pity of the morning. We've heard much about him, thanks to his exploits in Australia and against the West Indies, and there was much interest in seeing how he led this attack.
As it turned out, he got a touch too carried away. Notice how often this happens, with pacemen bowling on helpful conditions against the Indians? The tribe's tom-toms have spread, around the world, the story that Indian batsmen scurry away from pace - the result being that more often than not, a bowler with a good turn of speed sees an Indian batsman confronting him and reckons, ah, right, now here is where I come steaming in and sling it down and cart wickets away by the bagful.
Doesn't work that way, though - you have to get it at the batsman, or in the corridor, before you can get the wicket. It is at times like this that you truly appreciate a Glenn McGrath, say - put that guy on the fastest pitch in the world, and he will still focus on the basics of bowling to get his man.
In passing - watching the dismissal of Sanjay Bangar makes you wonder: Is umpire Asoka D'Silva the albatross to India's Ancient Mariner?
Sachin Tendulkar was on the forward stride, the ball hits above the knee roll, and there was at least a meter still go to before ball and stump met - how D'Silva could gauge, and so quickly at that, whether the ball with clip the bail or sail over is a mystery. But it is not the point. The real mystery is Sachin Tendulkar himself, and his insistence on pre-planning his batting before he even takes strike. Time and again, you see him do this - walk out saying, ah, I am going to smash these blokes out of the park; or oh, I think I'll block and block till the cows and their offspring come home. You saw Tendulkar in block(head) mode, here - a predetermined insistence that he just wouldn't play shots. Twice, he decided to put bat to ball in anger; both times, the ball disappeared with a minimum of fuss. The rest of the time, though, there was something mulish about his determination not to touch the ball, that made you wonder. What makes this style of batting mystifying, whenever he wheels it out, is that he of all batsmen has no reason to resort to this. He has the technique to put bat to ball in both offense and defense. More, he is the kind of bloke who can sit down with you are recount, in pitiless detail, every facet of every single innings and dismissal he has been involved in. Surely, then, he would by now have realized that whenever he decides to play the situation rather than the ball, he tends to get out? Surely the way to go, against the bowling of the time, was to work it around, rotate, not let bowlers settle down at their respective ends? Whatever - India are in familiar territory, with three of the top six creamed away for a cost of just around 10 runs apiece. And the best part of the morning has been watching the two less heralded Kiwi seamers in operation. Darryl Tuffey, who swept away the openers, is your genuine, honest fast-medium bowler with a compact action and good control, plus enough variation in conditions like this to keep the batsman from playing by rote. Jacob Oram is the surprise package, though - his run up is almost lazy, at no point during his approach or gather does he look like he can generate any real momentum with the ball - but he is picture perfect at release, and he's been doing all but make the ball talk Esperanto. He swings it away, he seams it in, he makes it hold its line and just occasionally, he makes it kick from fractionally short of good length - in my book, easily the pick of the bowlers of the morning session. At that speed, it is tough for the bowler bowling into it - and it is no picnic for the bowler running in with the breeze at his back, either. For the former, there is the challenge of running in against a headwind and trying to generate pace in the teeth of the resistance; the bowler who has it at his back needs to be able to control it and not let the wind carry it further up than it should be, and having done that, he then has to walk into the headwind as he goes back to his bowling mark, which is typically when he is trying to get his breath back. The pitch will likely ease off a bit as the moisture dries and the grass gets less fresh - but these winds, we are told, are a constant. So you begin to wonder just how the Indians will cope - adjusting to adverse conditions is not exactly their collective forte. 4/51 off 25 overs is fair comment on the way India played the first session - without a clue. Bangar was definitely unlucky, Tendulkar was probably so too. But they, and the others, seemed to play as if they knew that demise was as inevitable as it was imminent. Dravid alone played with a measure of comfort, though even he was a far cry from the assured performer of the England tour. Bond was considerably better in his second spell - fuller in length, with the short ball used more as a weapon than as a nervous tic. And that helped - Ganguly got a snorter that he fended to his opposite number at second slip, but Fleming obligingly put it down. Then Bond went for the fuller length, and the Indian captain, like others before him, seemed unsure whether front foot, or back, was the place to be. The inevitable edge went to ground, thanks to Astle - but the next ball saw both bowler and batsman in action replay mode and this time, Lou Vincent at third slip held on. And so, at lunch, it is deja view. India, in the first session of day one of a Test abroad, on the back foot. Typically, each time we tour, we lost the first Test easily - and that spells curtains for the team's chances of pulling off a series win. England was a prime example - that capitulation in ideal batting conditions was completely inexplicable. This time, it is far worse - unlike in England, India just does not have the leeway to pull back after a bad start, given that it is a two-Test series. Against this backdrop, John Wright's comments to the team, shortly before they left for the West Indies tour earlier this year, ring ironic: `Boys, if you look around you, barring Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, the three teams you are capable of beating away from home are the West Indies, England and New Zealand. And those are the three teams you will be playing this year - if you don't do it this time, you never will." A while back, when there was some debate on the relative merits of Rahul Dravid versus VVS Laxman in the number three slot, the Indian vice captain remarked: 'One foreign tour - that is all I need to prove number three is mine!' On the face of it, that statement smacks of arrogance - but that is not a character trait you generally associate with Dravid. On the other hand, self-confidence is - and a sure knowledge, at all times, of exactly what he is doing. When Faisal Shariff asked him recently about his sedate style of batting, Dravid remarked that flash was all the rage today, and the strokemakers were the superstars, but for his part, he would much rather play the game his way, and prize consistency as a virtue. He has certainly lived up to those words, throughout the year. Watching him bat, you would think he was playing on a different track, against different bowlers, than the rest of his mates. On display, right now, is a master-class of controlled Test batting against hostile bowling in helpful conditions. And the Shane Bond of the afternoon session was hostile. Quick yes, but it's a controlled pace, always intense, occasionally venomous. The delivery that did Laxman had to be the best ball bowled today - a snorter from just short of length, the key to it being the fact that it jagged back even as it was climbing. Laxman swayed back, the ball followed him as though laser-guided. And finally, check out Parthiv Patel - the kid doing a man-size job. He's faced 26 deliveries at the time of writing this, and it is a measure of the confidence his vice captain has in him that Dravid has made no attempt to shield him, to farm the strike. And Parthiv for his part looks like a guy who knows his job - hang in there, weather the storm, ensure that Dravid only has the bowling to worry about, not the procession at the other end. At the 35 overs mark, it is a test within a Test, at the Basin Reserve - the Kiwi quicks, versus a `wall' that appears to have received a few extra coats of concrete. This is the kind of thing that puts the word `test' in Test cricket.
Today provides more examples.
The most noticeable thing about the man is the fact that there is no fuss, no flap, no nothing. If Bond seems off color, he quietly changes the bowling around, then brings his main strike bowler back. The field changes are spot on, and done in such understated fashion you almost don't notice.
And the fall of Agarkar and Harbhajan Singh were tributes to his skill. Seeing Agarkar in a mood to play shots, he brings in a second slip. The very next ball, the bowler, Scott Styris, bowls just that touch more outside off, Agarkar drives and is caught, guess where?
In comes Harbhajan Singh - and out goes a man into the deep. The first ball to the tailender is your regulation bouncer on off stump line - the length inviting the hook, the line cramping the shot. Bajji hooks anyway - if he were a fish, you could throw a line into the sea with the word bait written on a piece of paper in large letters and he would still bite.
Here, he bit. And was caught by the man posted there for just that.
Stephen Fleming, from his position in slips, smiles - a smile that speaks a volume.
