Last week, we saw how India overcame the challenge to its reign and made short work of the potential threats which did indeed loom large for brief perior. In the world cricket scenario, apart from the draws in the Ashes and Sri Lanka-West Indies contests, nothing interesting has happened. Australia pushed their luck too far and met with resistance from England’s top order, ending up thereby with a tame draw. After two draws, Chris Gayle’s triple ton in the first Test was the only commendable feature in the SL-WI series. It was only to be expected that Indians would finish the Test series against NZ with their no. 1 Test ranking intact. However, the challenge from hereon lies in battling those jitters of uncertainty, if any, in South Africa. But, is the current formidable Indian Test line-up the best in the world? Let us run through an analysis of the Indian line-up with the others in the top-five – South Africa, Sri Lanka, England and Australia.
Virendar Sehwag – Gautham Gambhir, arguably the best opening pair in the world today in any format of the game, are closely followed by the England pair of Andrew Strauss – Alastair Cook. While South Africa still struggles to find a dependable partner for opener Graeme Smith, Sri Lanka has trouble with the inconsistency of Tillakaratne Dilshan at the top of the batting order. With Shane Watson proving his destructive versatility, something is lacking in Simon Katich for the pair to make it to the top league of Australian openers. Considering all this, India enjoys a humungous advantage over any other team as far as the opening pair is concerned.
The middle order slots of 3, 4 and 5 look very formidable, occupied as they are by Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S Laxman. The weak link is the No.6 slot, which is being juggled between Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh after the departure of the great Sourav Ganguly. While the middle order boasts of 34000 runs between them in Test cricket alone, does any other middle order come even close to matching the credibility of this trio? Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB De Villiers and Ashwell Prince of South Africa are consistent enough, while Sri Lankans Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera and Angelo Mathews have only performed well enough to put some decent scores on board. England’s middle order comprising Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell hold the key for a potential England win in the ongoing Ashes series; and the rejuvenated Michael Hussey led Australian middle order consisting of Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Marcus North need more stability right now. India is way ahead even in this aspect.
MS Dhoni, the deadly unorthodox player, complements his work behind the wicket with scintillating batting in the lower middle order. He takes the slot all for himself, with no competition from any other wicket-keeper batsman. Although Australian Brad Haddin has made his comeback from injury, he needs time to prove his worth. South Africa’s Mark Boucher, England’s Matt Prior and Sri Lanka’s Prassanna Jayawardene are spent forces now, included in their respective sides only as specialist batsmen and not as all-rounders.
The second weak link of the Indian team is their bowling. Although Indian bowlers have proved their ability to take 20 wickets in a Test time and again, they are not at the apex, the only exception being Zaheer Khan. Pragyan Ojha and Ishant Sharma have been performing decently. Harbhajan Singh seems to enjoy working with the bat more than bowling. South Africans Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Johan Botha and Paul Harris seem to be in excellent shape. England’s James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn, and Graeme Swann need more fire in their performance to rout Australia, whereas Australia’s Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle and Xavier Doherty are totally out of synchronization. Sri Lanka’s bowling combo keeps changing with every match, but the absence of Lasith Malinga has hurt them badly.
India taking top place in three out of the four aspects discussed above can only mean that India is also very strong in terms of their reserve players like Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara and S Sreesanth. The other teams are clearly lacking bench strength. And they are in no way a threat to India’s current dominance. With South Africa performing as befits to their second position, they can bully India and it will be a good contest between Indian batsmen and South Africa’s bowlers performing under favourable conditions. With Ashes followed by the India-SA series later this month, it will not be long before Test cricket commands the highest TRP ratings – and this is what a true fan is waiting for!
