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Aussies were outplayed in vital aspects of the game

Test cricket tests one’s judgment of the prevailing conditions, writes Makarand Waingankar

Each victory whether in first class or Test cricket has some strategical points that stand out against the opposition. Even more important than the batting and bowling conditions is the players’ ability to turn them to their advantage.

At Perth, Indians outplayed the Aussies in these vital aspects of the game using the Fremantle Doctor wind which is very strong in December and January, to their advantage.

The beauty of Test cricket is it tests your skills for a longer period. It tests your judgment of the prevailing conditions. It tests your approach in handling those conditions. It’s all very well to judge the conditions and have proper approach. But at the international level on a foreign soil, it’s the collective degree of adaptability that counts, and here the Indians outclassed the overconfident Aussies.

Psychological advantage

All the Indians playing and non-playing were none too confident at WACA, going by the nature of the pitch. Most adverse conditions can be handled in a 50-over or Twenty20 match by using the team’s experience. But in a 450-overs Test match, the changing conditions keep posing problems and the Indians for once not only looked technically equipped to withstand those conditions but also won the psychological advantage over Aussies by putting the strategies of playing four-prong pace attack on a burner.

To a most inexperienced medium-pace attack of Irfan Pathan (Baroda), Rudra Pratap Singh (Rai Bareilly) and Ishant Sharma (Delhi), these conditions must have been a test of skill levels and nerves. To bowl effectively in conducive conditions is an art. To perfect it, requires the self-belief, “yes, I can do it”.

Analysing the history of the matches played at the WACA, one observes not many could adapt to the conditions against the Aussies and hence lost badly.

Indians, not known to shake the confidence of Aussie batsmen in the conditions conducive to fast bowling, were definitely not expected to slice through the Aussie batting which is used to handling the local conditions.

Venkatesh Prasad’s role

It’s to the credit of the bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, a studious person always willing to learn, who picked the brains of the great Dennis Lillee on the second morning of the Test and worked on a solution that the Fremantle Doctor wind could be used to advantage if the length and line could be altered. The most important fact is that while handling the wind, the bowlers needed to control the swing more than speed.

To all the fast and medium-pacers, this is a lesson. No modern batsman gets terrified with pace unless the bowler is consistently accurate as the West Indians used to be in 70s. It’s the controlled swing and the length using the breeze that creates a problem for the batsmen. Either the Aussies’ strategy to blow away the Indians with four fast bowlers was wrong or they underestimated the quality of the Indian pace attack.

Biggest mistake

Experienced bowling coaches too can be complacent. When the strategy is to knock off the batsmen with speed, one tends to forget the advantage local conditions offer to bowlers. This is the biggest mistake the Aussies made at the WACA. The Indians, because of their none-too-happy controversies/experiences in Sydney, must have perhaps appeared not very well equipped to handle the situation.

All that the Indian bowlers were hoping to do was for the batsmen to get enough runs so that the bowlers got a decent time to adapt themselves. It clicked.

The most important factor was the need to add every run, and it was a valuable partnership between V.V.S. Laxman and R.P. Singh that gave the psychological advantage.

Too late

To short-circuit the plan of the opposition, enough runs were required to be put on the board. The Indians never forgot that. The Aussies remembered that fundamental point only when they were 150 runs away while chasing. That made the big difference.

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