Why is Laxman being made a scapegoat?

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

India’s disastrous Test tour of Australia has prompted an outrage and a call for heads to roll.

Normally, my articles are purely analytical and I stay away from the more common opinionated articles. However, the time is right for me to do something different in the light of what is happening in Indian Cricket. A great player and gentleman is being made a scapegoat for other’s (and, granted, his own) failures. However, I will say what I want to say based on analysis.

First some facts, to be accepted without any doubt or arguments.

Indian Cricket is going through a major crisis. Their Test Performance Index for the past 7 away Tests reads 139-561 which works out to around 20-80. I have already explained this methodology in an earlier article. This is approximately the equivalent of 7 losses by an innings and 1 run.

The bowlers are blowing hot and cold. One day they look great, the next day they go through the motions. But this is to be expected considering that, barring Zaheer and Ishant, they have captured below 100 Test wickets. And the experienced bowlers blow cold and hot.

The batting has been poor, to say the least. Dravid stood head and shoulders above the rest in England. In Australia, no one has done that. Tendulkar is the only one who has been playing well. Unfortunately, the huge albatross around his neck is weighing him down on many a crucial moment. Dravid is showing hitherto-unheard-of technical deficiencies. Laxman is completely unsure of himself. Sehwag seems to be always in a hurry. Gambhir has amnesia. He has forgotten 2008/09.

But why is that everyone, the media, former players, and the general public and all and sundry seem to pick on Laxman and to a lesser extent, Dravid?

Let me first put down some figures.

This is a concise summary of the Indian Top-5 from 1 January 2011.

Looking at what has happened over the last 12+ months, Dravid has been way above the others. Even with his current loss of form and confidence, he averages well over 55 overall and 48 in tough away matches. I was one of the guys who felt that he should have retired, while on top, at the end of the England tour. Having said that, how can anyone ask for his removal? Would Pujara move in to no.3 and settle down comfortably. Yes, certainly at home, but away???

However, Laxman’s predicament is inexplicable. Granted he is playing poorly; granted he averages 29 overseas during the past year; granted he is short of confidence. However, to say that he should be dropped from Adelaide and shown the door with a well-placed kick on his backside is amazing. It should be noted that Laxman played a significant part in three of the four wins against West Indies. He played one of the all-time great innings, 96, on a nightmare of pitch at Durban just before 2011 dawned. India would have lost badly but for that innings. And not to mention Mohali and Colombo.

If we look at the numbers, Laxman and Tendulkar are almost identical, but for the fact that the home/away performances are at variance.

Let us look at Sehwag’s performances. No one seems to be asking for the removal of Sehwag. Why? Because he is younger or that one day he could wake up and score 195 in a day. Or that the 200 in ODIs is indicative of his good form. All possibly true. But give the same concession to others also. Gambhir has only done marginally better. They average either side of 30.

Now for the Australian tour. Nothing great for anyone, not even Tendulkar.


I had a lot of respect for Sanjay Manjrekar. However, he seems to be going overboard, specifically targeting Laxman. It is one thing to say that the juniors should have been tried in the home Tests against West Indies. That is fine. But to insist on that in a crucial third Test at Australia seems silly and hare-brained. I certainly like Ganguly’s very balanced approach. He says that Laxman should be evaluated on his loss of form and recent poor performances. However, he adds that the same yardstick should apply to all. He should know. In the 15 Tests before his exit, he had scored 1344 runs at an average of almost 50, well above his career average.

If one has to rank these on recent form, it would be Dravid, Tendulkar (on better current form), Laxman, Gambhir and Sehwag.

Now for the conclusion. I think both Dravid and Laxman should retire at the end of the Australian tour, but on their own terms. They have earned that. If for nothing but those 8 glorious hours in Calcutta in 2001. And many times after that. To talk about dropping them abruptly is churlish and small-minded and indicates a memory blank-out of great history in favour of an imagined wonderful but dubious future.

They should also realize that any continuation would invite the lesser players, screeching media and the ignorant public to shout at the top of their collective voices. They are both gentlemen and should take the gentleman’s way to the exit. 

Tests: The innings which woke up the dead and put watchers to sleep

Monday, January 09, 2012

In a follow-up to his previous column, Anantha Narayanan delves into Test batting performances with quick and even super slow scoring rates. Think you know any?

I went back over the CastrolCricket folder and suddenly realized that I had not covered the important measure of innings scoring rates in both Tests and ODIs. In ODIs, I have the complete ‘Balls Played’ data and it is not very difficult to extract the same. Last week, I had come out with an article covering the ODI innings. This article covers the Test arena.

Because the ‘Balls Played’ data is available only for about 1370 matches, about 68%, this is not a complete report. However, it is good enough to draw some insights.

As the tongue-in-cheek title says, these are innings which would have got the cemeteries come alive. When someone scores at the rate of around 10+ runs per over, that is what is likely to happen. The cut-off is that the innings should have reached the half-century mark. This is needed to separate the cameos.

Kallis’s innings was against Zimbabwe which was not a poor attack with the availability of Streak. He helped South Africa reach 340 in 50 overs, the fastest Test innings on record. Southee’s brave effort was in a losing cause, that too on his debut. Richards’s hundred is the fastest on record. Cairns’s innings was in the first innings of a lost Test. After two rather low first innings scores, Gilchrist ignited Perth with the second fastest century of all time and took Australia to a series win.

Southee’s was a miniature version of Astle’s unbelievable 222 off 168 balls a few years earlier. This was also in a losing cause. Both were made with New Zealand chasing over 500 runs. And New Zealand finished about 100 runs short each time.
 
Now for those innings which make us wonder why the batsmen walked in at all. However, unlike in ODIs, some of these slow scoring innings have been effective in that these have allowed the teams to forge useful partnerships. The criteria is that the innings should be 50 balls or more. Then the scoring rate takes over.

Three batsmen who faced in excess of 50 balls without troubling the scorer: Allott, Ellison, and Such. All bowlers, batting late in the order. Allott hung on for nearly 90 minutes, helped Harris add 32 for the last wicket and save the Test. Such hung on for a valuable ninth wicket stand of 31 with Ramprakash and again helped England draw the Test.

For the aggressive fast bowler he was, Croft was a dour batsman and features in two of the top-10 positions in this table. The first was a 53-ball single which helped West Indies win a low-scoring match. He came in as a night-watchman at 22 for 1 and hung on for well over an hour next day. The other innings of 2 off 73 balls was played in his usual position of no.11. The match was drawn.