India face trial by pace

The last time India played at the WACA, Kapil Dev - in his last great series - went past 400 wickets and an 18-year-old Sachin Tendulkar scripted a century for the ages. They still lost by 300 runs, with Mike Whitney, the supposed weak link in a four-man pace attack, picking up 11 for the match. That match, like sepia-tinted photographs, belongs to another era, a time before Australian invincibility when loose-limbed fast bowlers and dashing batsmen in maroon caps still ruled the game.

RedAnd while so many of us lament the decline of West Indies cricket, you can't but give Australia credit for replacing one all-powerful dynasty with another. During their years at the top, the West Indies had but one blip, a 1-0 defeat in New Zealand (1980) that was marred by some horribly one-eyed umpiring and churlish behaviour from the players.

Australia have had two this decade, thwarted by the artistry of VVS Laxman in 2001 and the ferocity of a wonderfully varied and four-pronged English attack in 2005. But if they win in Perth over the next four or five days, it will set a mark that surpasses even the legendary teams led by Lloyd, Richards and Waugh. Given their recent record at the ground - eight wins and two draws since 1997 - there's no reason to believe that they won't do it.

Only a New Zealand team frustrated by some dodgy umpiring, and a South African rearguard action led by Jacques Rudolph and Justin Kemp, have denied Australia at Perth in recent times, and the decision to go with four pace bowlers for the first times since 1991-92 [against India] is a sure sign that the pitch is very different from the sluggish one on which South Africa saved face.

If India do defy the odds and pull this one out of the bag, it will far surpass anything that they have ever done on a cricket field. Adelaide 2003 was magnificent, but the attack they face in this Test match is markedly superior to that Australian one, and perhaps the quickest assembled since the West Indies' heyday.

Shaun Tait is probably even quicker than Brett Lee and his nickname, The Wild Thing, isn't inaccurate. At the World Cup, he was frequently pasted in his first spell, only to return with devastating effect later in the innings. Pure pace is hard enough to combat, but combined with reverse swing, it's almost unplayable.

Mitchell Johnson had a poor game in Sydney, but will also relish the extra bounce here, and while Lee has been tremendous all series, the biggest threat will be Stuart Clark. He makes the batsman play more often than even McGrath did, and his dismissals of Laxman and Tendulkar on the final day in Sydney were evidence of a bowler who has mastered the most intricate nuances of his art.

India's attack is ordinary by comparison, especially in the speed stakes, but hopefully they've been watching videos of Ambrose, Bishop and Walsh from 1993 and '97. It wasn't the pace that did Australia in then, but the impeccable length that drew batsmen into the drive. With his height, Ishant Sharma could certainly be a factor if he gets it right. As for RP Singh and Irfan Pathan, they must bowl with the Fremantle Doctor behind them, and hope to control the swing.

It'll help that the imposing figure of Matthew Hayden won't be there to take on the new ball. Chris Rogers, who is both myopic and colour-blind, is a proven player at Pura Cup and county level, but will undoubedly feel more than a frisson of nervous excitement when he walks out to bat in a Test for the first time on home turf.

All logic points to a comfortable Australian win inside four days, but this is an Indian team with nothing to lose. And if they need any inspiration, they'd do well to remember that Imran Khan's cornered tigers of 1992 first started to roar and bite at Perth. The opposition? Australia.

Comments

[steve mcalpine]

Reoback is priceless! Make him a permanent fixture in this paper - I demand it.

[Oscar the Grouch]

Dileep - Mr Peter Reoback, the eminent cricketing authority, has graciously consented for me to send you this early copy of his comments part way through the first day. They certainly make for interesting reading!

Peter Reoback writes from Perth:

The Madness Must Stop Now

One could have hoped, following my inspirational articles in the Slyly Roaming Hairoiled of last week, that this Australian Cricket Team might take stock and act to try to redeem itself from the perdition which it has not just embraced but indeed striven to achieve. If not for its own sake, then at least to avert the end of cricket as we know it. For make no mistake, the every action of this team has been calculated to destroy every vestige of sportsmanship, fair play and excellence that cricket ennobles.

Unfortunately for the future of civilisation, I have been unsuccessful. From the first moment of this Test in the (insert gratuitous waffle) city of Perth, the underlying ugliness of not only this team but every living, breathing Australian bar those few who agree with me, has once again bubbled forth from the foul cauldron that is Australians at cricket matches.

From the onset of play, no fewer than eleven – I counted them, lest there be any mistake – Australians tormented and abused two fine Indian warriors who are responsible for an unknown number of hopefully firm-buttocked children. The inequality of numbers says everything about the lack of fairness of the Australians. Although not actually playing in this match, Hayden – who so openly brandishes his faith in the face if his opponents but in whose private life, to the disgust of many of the world's finest cricketers from other nations, has failed to have as many children as he might, stood on the sidelines. It is time for him to go from the game.

The relentless Australian team battered the noble and fearless Indians, bowling balls at them and running quite quickly in a despicable attempt to smother every possible run they might make. In a display of ugliness the like of which I have never seen, they sought and unfortunately succeeded in negating the brave actions of India in finally standing up to the cheating Australian practice of making their team selections for them by removing both the plucky Sehwag and the supremely talented Jaffer before lunch. To be expected, the reprobate Gilchrist was involved in both displays of underhanded, questionable practice which would not have succeeded had the umpires not been so biased and under the Australian team's influence as to watch and listen to the play. He has to be replaced.

Symonds once again appeared in the offensive display of faux Afro-Caribbean descent that has become his trademark. That the third umpire does not demand that he discontinue the use of zinc cream is proof positive of the bullying tactics that the Australian team uses with the ICC, and yet the Australian team just does not get it. He must, for the good of the game, be beheaded. Clarke blatantly dropped Dravid, reigniting their conflict in the second Test, and yet he continued to not claim it. It is sad to see that one with such promise has descended into the general morass of Australian team behaviour. No right-thinking person would argue that it is not now the case that he must be drawn and quartered.

The mighty Sachin Tendulkar was removed by a terrible decision by umpire Rauf, proving once again how cruelly sub-continental teams suffer at the hands of sub-continental umpires. No doubt but the Australian team was behind that one. Then, as if that were not enough punishment for the gallant Indians, Hussey claimed a catch he took no more than 12 inches above the ground when he would have known the ball would bounce several yards behind his hands. Hussey is by no means the most vile of this Australian team but it appears even he has been infected with the 'only winning by cheating is acceptable' ethos that pervades the blot on the face of humanity that this team now comprises.

Of Ponting's actions on the field I have no comment, which I feel says it all. There is no other course of action left for Cricket Australia, if it is to regain the respect of the cricketing world, other than to publicly boil him in hot tallow.

India has every right to feel they have been cheated. If there were a vestige of honour in the Australian team, they would ritually disembowel themselves with rusty ring-pulls, but that is not going to happen under the captaincy of the rightly reviled Ponting, who is the worst of them all. Caveat Emptor, as those with a smattering of classical education might say at a party.

Nor can opprobrium be taken from the behaviour of the crowd, who continually taunted the Indians with polite clapping of every good piece of strokeplay. That they were never going to allow the Indians to even feel remotely accepted was at no time more evident than in the shameful display at the appearance of Tendulkar, when they stood and applauded. I even heard whistles of appreciation, the like of which I had hoped I would never hear on a cricket field.

There is no alternative left to the Indian team but to pack their bags and return to India, for no good can come of their staying on in Australia. Some might say that this is too drastic, but at least they will show the world that this sort of behaviour is intolerable in cricket and no price is too great to pay to return to the game some shreds of decency.

(Peter Reoback lives in South Africa but graciously visits Australia at times to provide the disgraceful convict-bred nationals with his peerless writing and commentating skills. Universally acknowledged as the finest cricketer of the last (or indeed any) century, he now divides his time between writing on cricket for the Indian buying public and maintaining his fine collection of working classical disciplinary memorabilia in his garage at home.)

[Homer]

Mr Premachandran,

Why the defeatist tone in the article? On a Sydney wicket with some bounce on the first day, India had Australia at 134/6.

And if the ball swings, do the Aussies have the technique to adjust?

Cheers

[Phil]

I can't wait for the match to start! Perhaps I can steal a march on the excuses for an inevitable Indian defeat and offer up some up in advance. Bad umpiring is a favorite so that will be because Bowden is white and Rauf is a Pakistani; both anti-Indian of course. Bad sportsmanship from the Aussies because they bowled too short and in an intimidating fashion. Heaven help us if Tait cleans an Indian batsman's clock and blood is spilt; bouncers are against the 'spirit' of the game too! The pitch was 'doctored' to suit the home team; far too bouncy for sub-continental types and something no Indian curator would ever do! Cynical yes, but don't bet against it.