Silly Point: The UPI cricket column

This is the first in an occasional series on what, in our opinion, is the world's second most-watched sport. UPI Editors Martin Hutchinson and Krishnadev Calamur look at the upcoming India-England cricket test match series.

Cricket: England/India should be close

By Martin Hutchinson

When I was a lad, one could look forward to Indian tours of England because of the chance of some easy wins, and maybe some heroic deeds by one's favorite players. In the 1990s, while England won the short 1996 series, it swung the other way; there were some England sides one wouldn't have backed against an Australian or Indian under-19 team. Today, maybe it's about even.

The 1952 series, for example, slightly before my time, saw England fast bowler Freddie Trueman knock back the flower of Indian batting at Old Trafford -- four wickets, without India putting a run on the board. The following series, 1959, was the only Test series England have ever won 5-0, with India's most successful batsman, Abbas Ali Baig, being added to the party in mid-tour at the end of his Cambridge University term. Even as late as 1979, it was the fairly gentle Indian attack against which the young David Gower eased to the first of his exquisite Test double centuries.

Already by 1979, however, the Indian touring side was expected to provide a serious challenge, because of the strong sides earlier in the 1970s, with the four great spinners Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan making batting against India a great deal more difficult than it had been a decade earlier. By 1979, the Indian side included two world class players, Sunil Gavaskar, an opening batsman who combined considerable style with a Bradman-like thirst for runs, and Kapil Dev, a fine forcing batsman and world class medium-fast bowler.

By the 1990s, dominance was with India. England had won its last Test series in India in 1984-5, when double centuries by the unheralded Chris Broad and Graham Fowler took a rebuilding Indian side by surprise. England's last convincing series win at home was in 1990, when Graham Gooch's annus mirabilis (333 at Lords) combined with David Gower's last great innings in England (157 not out at the Oval) to restore a semblance of England dominance in a high-scoring series won by England 1-0. That series also saw the Test debut of the incomparable Indian stylist Sachin Tendulkar.

English Test cricket was already in serious trouble in 1990, having lost the Ashes to Australia 4-0 in the previous year. You can argue which of opening batsman Graham Gooch, middle order stylist David Gower, or pulverizing fast bowling all rounder Ian Botham was the greatest England player of their generation (they all entered Test cricket in the three year period 1975-78.) What you can't deny is that since Gower's arrival 24 years ago, with an audacious hook shot for four off his first ball in Test cricket, there had until at least the middle 1990s been no other new England players of anything like their quality.

You can tell it by the batting averages. Gower, blue socks, bad attitude and all, scored 8,231 Test runs at an average of 44. Gooch, less ethereally talented, scored 8,900 Test runs at an average of just below 43 (VERY few fans, or indeed England selectors, would have guessed that the final averages would have come out THAT way round.) Botham scored 5,300 runs at an average of 34, but also took 383 Test wickets.

The 1990s stalwarts were nothing like as prolific. Mike Atherton has scored 7,769 runs, at an average just under 38, while Alec Stewart has scored 7,632 at 39 -- both batting averages, in other words, being 10 percent below the Gooch/Gower duo at a time when global Test batting averages have increased. Stewart's ability to keep wicket competent of course adds substantially to his value to the side. Current Captain Nasser Hussain has 4,169 runs at an average of 36 -- yet he is 34, the age David Gower was when he played his last Test.

On the bowling side, the comparison is even starker. Since Botham declined as a bowler late in his career, the last really good pair of bowlers England had were in 1978-83 -- Botham and Bob Willis (325 test wickets before his retirement in 1984.)

In a period when the increasing number of Tests played has raised the record of Test wickets taken to 519, by West Indies' Courtney Walsh (1984 to 2001), England's mainline bowlers have been feeble indeed. Darren Gough and Andy Caddick have just become the first England bowlers since Botham to reach even 200 wickets (Gough currently leads, at 228) -- that is a gap of 18 years, by my calculation. Angus Fraser made it to 177, but no other England bowler born between 1955 and 1970 made it past 150.

One can debate endlessly the reason for this, discussing the decline of the grammar schools, which had cricket pitches, and their replacement by comprehensive schools, which didn't. However, for England to claim that it had fewer resources to devote to cricket than India or Pakistan (or, indeed, New Zealand) is simply ludicrous.

The real problem, in my view, has been the unattractive inverted snobbery, both intellectual and social, that regarded Gower as having an attitude problem, and exalted simple athletic training above the artistry that makes a great batsman or bowler. That attitude came into the England side with the appointment as Manager of Michael Stewart in 1987, and became dominant with Gower's firing from the captaincy at the end of the 1989 season. It regarded even captaincy, that most cerebral of activities -- cricket being a highly complex game -- as a matter of exhortation and mere physical example. Atherton (England captain 1993-98) was just as much a Cambridge graduate as the great Mike Brearley (1977-81) but his approach was utterly pedestrian by comparison, and he never brought the inspirational flair that was the hallmark of Brearley, Douglas Jardine (1932-34) or C.B. Fry (1912.)

In recent years, things have shifted somewhat back in the right direction. Nasser Hussain is only a mediocre Test batsman -- though better than was Brearley -- but he at least understands the need for flair in captaincy, and is prepared to encourage cricketing artistry when he sees it. Two left-handed batsmen, Graham Thorpe (5,104 runs at 43) and, more recently, Marcus Trescothick (1,837 runs at 42) have at last produced England players with batting averages above 40 and, together with Gough (if fit) and Caddick, appear to form the nucleus of a more worthy side.

Nevertheless, England's other front line batsmen, apart from Hussain and Stewart, are Michael Vaughan (Test batting average 36) and Mark Butcher (32) so the line-up is still not impressive. England's pace bowling, if Gough is fit, is better than it was, but with Phil Tufnell apparently no longer under consideration the spin bowling, led by Robert Croft (49 Test wickets) and Ashley Giles (44) is also not a strong point.

India, their opponents, are by the statistics a much more impressive lot. Tendulkar has 8,004 Test runs at an average of nearly 58, far above any English player since Herbert Sutcliffe in the 1930s. He seems to have been around forever, yet is still only 29, less than three years older than Trescothick, and five years younger than Thorpe. The supporting cast includes Rahul Dravid (4,733 Test runs at 51) Sourav Ganguly (3,671 Test runs at 42), VVS Laxman (2,190 runs at 42) and Virendar Sehwag (only 309 runs, but averaging 51). India's bowling resources, too appear more impressive than England's with two superb spinners in Anil Kumble (319 test wickets) and Harbhajan Singh (107 wickets, but he's not yet 22 years old!) India's pace attack is however on paper weaker than England's, with Zaheer Khan (43 wickets, at the age of 23) being the most experienced pace bowler.

So, how can England win? Well, the groundsmen are English, so presumably a dry spinners' wicket favoring Kumble will not be their first preference -- something bright green, with the ball moving rapidly off the seam, may be rather more likely. A traditional cold wet English summer, with the brilliant Indian batsmen shivering under three sweaters, and dashing in and out of the pavilion between rain delays, may also help -- it seems to have put paid satisfactorily to Sri Lanka, after all.

India has not won a series in England since 1986. If conditions are against them, it will be difficult for them to win this time. Yet England too is only a moderate team, and five sunny days and a wicket taking spin in the match's later stages could well send the Indian tourists home happy.

Indian summer may prove to be hot

By Krishnadev Calamur

The bookies don't give India much of a chance in this summer's series against England, but the promise of an incentive-based pay scale ahead of next year's World Cup, a newfound national confidence and a man called Sachin Tendulkar may take the Indian farther than most people think.

India is the outsider in both the one-day triangulars, involving Sri Lanka, and the four-test series against England. The bookmaking firm Bet365 has them outsiders for the triangulars at 9/4. England is tipped to win at 11/8. In the tests, England is tipped to win 4/5; the odds for India are 7/2 against. The odds for a draw are 9/4.

Being a partisan, I'd want India to win both series convincingly, but looking at the line-ups and India's past record, especially overseas, I'm going to tap India for the one-dayers and England for a 1-0 test win.

The reasons are simple. First, the Board of Control for Cricket in India said last week it wanted the team to focus on one-day internationals before next year's World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Second, the BCCI's announcement of a contract system for players that would pay them according to their performances. And third, and in my opinion significant, a newfound national self-confidence brought on by a more-visible prosperity, and by closer ties to the United States whose attention Indians have secretly craved for the past 30 years.

First, the World Cup.

"India's focus will be on playing more one-dayers to prepare the team for next year's World Cup," BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya said last week.

Although those plans involve the series against New Zealand and the West Indies, it is clear the real test is England. A win against the English side, currently one of those stronger ones in the world, would provide a major fillip to World Cup preparations.

Second, the pay scale, which until now gave them $830 for each day of a five-day test and $520 for each One Day International (they also get sponsorship fees), becomes graded, though only after the England series. Still, this is significant because a good performance in England will probably influence what each player can bargain with.

Under the new plan, the players will be grouped into four categories. The first will get $156,000, the second $125,000, the third $62,500, and the fourth, $31,200. Players will also earn a 100 percent bonus for beating a better team and a 50 percent bonus against a weaker one.

Here comes the kicker -- match fees will be reduced by 50 percent in case of a loss.

Measly though these may seem to the world of NBA and NFL, they're a king's ransom in the cricketing world. The BCCI is the richest cricketing body in the world.

Third, there is a surge of nationalist pride and self-confidence that is apparent to most visitors to India. This was not the case 10 or even five years ago when Indians viewed themselves as citizens of a second-rung nation ignored by the great powers. A slow but steady economic liberalization program and the perception, right or wrong, that the country is finally being given its due as a global superpower has made Indians, especially the urban kind that makes up the bulk of the Indian team, more self assured. This, hopefully, will translate well on the field.

But the most important reason India is likely to do better than expected is Tendulkar (96 tests at an average of 57.58; 288 ODIs at 44.14), to whom (to borrow a phrase from Neville Cardus) every blade of grass bows when he goes out to bat.

Much has been said of Tendulkar's genius, and a lot more about India's over-reliance on him, but by focusing on one man, opposing teams have made the mistake of allowing three key players to flower -- solid Rahul Dravid, Captain Saurav Ganguly and the stylish V.V.S. Laxman.

The weakness in the bowling following spearhead Javagal Srinath's retirement is deceptive. Leg spinner Anil Kumble is still a fighter and relishes English conditions, which he mastered during his stint in the mid-1990s as Northamptonshire's overseas player, taking more than 100 wickets in the season. Then there's Harbahajan Singh, the young Sikh, whom the Australian media have dubbed "The Turbanotor" for his performances against their team. Admittedly, the fast bowling department looks weak, but for possibly the first time ever, India has three young medium-fast bowlers -- Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Tinu Yohannan -- who aren't afraid to go all out. Ajit Agarkar should prove valuable in the ODIs. Watch for the batting of young Mohammad Kaif, 22, who has been seen as a potential pick for the past five years.

The English players to watch out for are the steady Marcus Trescothick and the unflappable Graham Thorpe. Among the bowlers -- fast bowler Alex Tudor and spinner Ashley Giles, who during England's tour of India earlier this year frustrated Tendulkar with his controversial, but effective bowling tactics.

The ODIs start July 27 with India making its first appearance June 29. The first test starts July 25.

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