The Indian cricketers are modest and are not above learning from the Australians, wrote JACK FINGLETON in Sport and Pastime (January 10, 1948) during the Indian cricket team's first-ever tour Down Under in 1947-48. As Dhoni's men go into the Boxing Day Test 2-0 down, perhaps the learning continues.
Have the Indian cricketers learned much on their tour of Australia? Early on a Monday morning at the Melbourne cricket ground before the game began, I was chatting to a group of Indians and asked them this question. Vigorously they all nodded their heads and it may be surprising to many in India to know that. What they have learned most, they say, is about fielding.
I was delighted to hear this because it fully bore out the point which I have often tried to impress upon my Indian readers and this possibly to the point of tediousness. No international side can aspire to greatness until its fielding is watertight and thus many Australians had qualms about the success of Indians here when they read, before the tour began, that fielding was not a strong characteristic of the Indians. In 1931, when the South Africans toured Australia, they dropped Bradman thrice in the slips before he was 20 and they never recovered on the tour from the double century he then scored.
Bad lapsesAn international side, to be good, must not only take all the chances that come along but must also create chances and so it is magnificent to know that this tour has given the Indians a sharp lesson on real cricketing values. In the series, so far, the Indians have had two very bad fielding lapses. One was that eventful morning when the Australians were caught on a sticky pitch at Brisbane and Mankad, Hazare and Sarwate put chances to the earth.
The other was in the Test at Melbourne on Saturday when the fieldsmen offset Amarnath’s closure by spilling at least three chances in 40 minutes’ play, though some of these admittedly were not easy. That is not the point, however. A Test cricketer should catch easy chances on his ear, so to speak, and should hold most of the difficult ones.
It would be impossible to estimate how much brilliant fieldsmen have contributed to the greatness of many individual Australian bowlers. As a child I remember seeing Jack Gregory in a Test at Sydney, anticipate a ‘ bosie ’ from Mailey and move from first slip to the leg side in a trice to catch the batsman.
This is not only intelligent fielding, it is brilliant fielding and is the type of stuff that gives the bowler great heart. On the contrary, it is not difficult to imagine how a bowler loses heart when, trying to angle successfully, for a batsman’s downfall, he sees some fieldsman make a mull if it—and making a mull of it simply because he does not take chances at practice to become efficient in catching.
Over-anxiety loses many catches because a catch is not approached with confidence and loose hands in which the ball stays put.
In Brisbane, the Indians dropped catches mainly because they did not go out to practice catches in glaring sunlight before the play began. Miller was missed from a skier, by Mankad off the first ball of the day and then , soon afterwards, by Hazare from a high catch.
When the ball soared up to into sunlight, the glare beat the Indians, catches were dropped and in no time the side had lost advantages and morale. A simple explanation, but it is the simple things that count in cricket and it is good to know that the Indians have learnt much from the Australians’ examples of how to approach fielding from a proper angle.
No backing-upOne other glaring example of poor team work prevalent in the Indian side was the failure of both bowlers and fieldsmen to back up. The bowlers did not get behind their wickets for a return nor did the fieldsmen on the opposite side of the pitch get behind stumps for that return in backing up.
All this may seem critical but it prepares a path for me to go on and observe that never have I seen apter pupils than the Indians nor ones more willing to seek or digest cricket information.
And that leads me on to a further observation that, in this matter, if the Indians do not win a single Test or lose some thousands financially, I think this tour will do Indian cricket a power of good and will more than compensate for any other likely disappointments.
The Indians approached this tour with what I thought was an inferiority complex. That perhaps was understandable as the Australians had soundly whipped England here last season and it was early obvious that the Indians, for want of a better team, were greatly scared of Bradman — and with justification, as many others have been before them.
They began the tour somewhat apologetically with their officials stressing everywhere that they came here to learn. This was, if nothing else, at least modest but the Indians now are beginning to realise that the Australians are not the cricket superhumans as they would imagine; in fact they are merely flesh and blood, the same as themselves and it is good to know that this impression is becoming deep-rooted in the side despite defeat in this Test. The other day I was shown a cable from India to one in my newspaper profession.
Asking for very critical stuff to be forwarded to India, it said the Australian commentators were too sympathetic to the Indians without giving Australians any praise. This is much moonshine. The Australian commentators have given Indians praise because they like their approach to the game and they keenly admire their sportsmanship and their courage in not crying in the fact of a superior team and soul-shattering succession of rain-damaged pitches.
Spirit of enjoymentThough the Indians have come to learn as they said, the very stark truth is that they have brought a spirit of enjoyment into Test cricket which I certainly have never observed in my cricketing lifetime.
There were countless thousands of Australians last season who never wanted to see Test cricket again after seeing Bradman and Hammond not concede each other even a kind look and watching the players sit on the splice for hour after hour in the typical Test match fashion of not taking the slightest risk. I have played many such Test innings and I look back on them in horror because the truth is that we got no individual enjoyment out of the game apart from a sense of achievement of a good score.
Well, let me say that many of the sceptics have come back to watch the Indians this season in Melbourne at least because the Sydney weather did not give the Test there much of a chance. And many Australian admirers of the Indians did much grumbling when Bradman declared his innings instead of taking a turn on the sticky pitch himself.
Critical of the DonThere is much criticism of Bradman in the Australian newspapers today because he is such a relentless captain and one indignant correspondent, in a Melbourne paper asks, “Does Bradman think his batsmen so good on wet pitches that he should twice refuse in this Test to take the chance of practice against worthy foes?” The truth is that Bradman shies, like a horse, at wet pitches but I have covered this theme on many occasions.
I began this article to tell of how the Indians are learning much on this tour. A little more balance and judgment at times in their batting and more concentration to force home an advantage when it is once secured, particularly a batting advantage—we will yet see Amarnath’s men score heavily in a Test here. They had Bradman’s bowlers well and truly on the run on the second day of the Melbourne Test but they did not force it.
