After India had won the third Test, Jason Holder looked a tired man. After all, there are only so many times the same answers can be repeated to oft-repeated questions. Among them, a pertinent one has been regarding the hosts’ floundering batting line-up.
“The batsmen at the top simply have to come to the party and be a lot more consistent,” he said, reflecting on his side being demolished by India for 108 all-out in the second innings. They hadn’t fared better in the first innings either, collapsing from 194-3 at lunch on day four to 225 all-out, turning the game in the tourists’ favour.
“We haven’t been able to put up reasonable first innings’ totals, which has hampered us in the recent past. If you don’t put up a good first total, they you are chasing the game,” Holder added. “We need to knuckle down as batsmen, and we need to be accountable for our actions.
WINDIES’ DISASTROUS BATTING
Any and every Test side looks its best when their batsmen come up with the goods. In that respect, this inexperienced West Indies line-up has been let down by its senior batsmen. Putting it mildly, Darren Bravo (129 runs in six innings at 21.50) and Marlon Samuels (148 runs at 24.66) have been inconsistent at best. The former has been beset with problems against the short ball and the latter looking as nonchalant as ever in his batting approach, too much so against a side gunning for the top of the world rankings.
Two of Bravo’s six dismissals have come courtesy of the short ball and it is a problem he must address. He has failed to pick up length, pulling and hooking when he shouldn’t and too often being caught in his crease. This has resulted in Bravo driving without moving his feet and playing shots when he should be leaving the ball well alone.
Samuels’ woes are of a different kind. Throughout the series he has been hounded by rumours of his impending Test retirement, and he has done nothing to quash them. And with the runs not forthcoming, he has played like a man already done with the format. His dismissal against Ishant Sharma on day five in St. Lucia – attempting a wild slash from an inswinger offering nowhere near as much width as he anticipated – was inexcusable given the match situation. The off-stump went cartwheeling, much like the West Indies’ innings thereafter.
Together, faced by a rampant five-pronged Indian attack, the pair have contributed just two half-centuries in the series. This has put the onus on other batsmen, too inexperienced to cater to the demands of the longer format. In the third Test, they were simply forced into submission. It was a marked difference in Indian bowling from day five of the second Test.
Windies miserably let down by their experienced bats Bravo/Samuels this series. Drop them and give someone else a chance. #IndvsWI #WIvInd
— Chetan Narula (@chetannarula) August 13, 2016
The underlying wonderment herein is whether Holder will be able to inspire his troops to rally for the fourth Test, and forget that this series has already been lost. India’s inspiration at Queen’s Park Oval is to cement their newly found status as the the world’s No1 Test team.
INDIA OUT TO SHOW THEY’RE NO1
To say that India have all bases covered, however, would be far from the truth. They made the necessary changes in St. Lucia, keeping in mind the liveliest pitch in the Caribbean at present. The inclusion of Ravindra Jadeja gave their attack the sort of balance that earlier was perhaps missing. More often than not, the left-arm spinner makes batsmen play, building non-scoring pressure on the opposition and allowing skipper Virat Kohli to go on the offensive with his bowlers from the other end. Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s incisive spell of 5-19 from 10.4 overs post lunch on day four is a case in point.
Thus, it will be the Indian batting that will be under spotlight in Port of Spain. The inclusion of Rohit Sharma destabilised their whole line-up. Just how he managed to get ahead of both Cheteshwar Pujara and a fully fit Murali Vijay remains a mystery and while that debate has still not thawed, it is obvious that they will be going into this fourth Test with the same middle-order combination.
It was brave of Kohli to move up to three and shuffle Ajinkya Rahane one spot ahead as well. It would be stupid not to do the same after just one Test. Quite clearly, India are looking for enforcers; batsmen who can go on the offensive at the slightest advantage even if it means temporary disruption of a fixed order.
Kohli, Rahane and Rohit are in that mould, Pujara is not, and they need to get this new formula bedded in. “We would like to win 3-0. We have dominated every day of this series, and every match as well. We would like to continue that domination in the fourth Test as well,” said Rahane on Tuesday.
The question that remains is of intent. One team is already beaten and is at best looking to salvage some pride. The other is on the cusp of a major breakthrough ahead of a long season on home soil and still looking to further improve.
