“What is Morne Morkel’s qualification to be India’s bowling coach,” a Mumbai cricket old-hand remarked with some asperity. “Just that he served as Lucknow Super Giants’ bowling coach in the IPL when Gautam Gambhir was the team mentor? If he is that good, why did no one in South Africa go for him?
The former Mumbai Cricket Association functionary pointed out Mohammed Siraj’s downturn in form and how the fast bowler is missing someone like Bharat Arun to guide him.
The conversation happened after India’s home Test series loss against New Zealand and the gentleman probably let his emotion cloud his judgment a bit. This is only India’s second red-ball assignment under the new coaching team, a little too early to judge the new coaches. But make no mistake, the upcoming Australia tour will be the litmus test and Gambhir & Co will have little margin for error.
India’s previous tour of Australia, in 2020-21, was a masterclass in planning, masterminded by the then head coach Ravi Shastri and was given shape by Arun, the then bowling coach. What did they do? Arun gave the lowdown after India’s memorable 2-1 triumph.
“Ravi called me sometime in July (2020) and we were discussing the Australia tour, that we needed to take the off side out of the Australians,” Arun told reporters after the series win. “So, we had our own analysis and we felt most of the runs (Steve) Smith and (Marnus) Labuschagne scored and most of the Aussie batsmen, they had got lots of runs out of the cut, pull and on the off side.”
The plan was not to allow the Australian batsmen score runs on the off side freely. “So, Ravi called up and said ‘I want you to make a plan where you eliminate the off side out of the Australians’,” Arun had said. “He said we will attack straighter lines and have an on-side field so it is very difficult for batsmen to be consistently clearing the on-side fields. That really worked for us.”
The plan was duly communicated to Virat Kohli, who implemented it in the first Test before Ajinkya Rahane took over and did even better as a stand-in captain. The Indian bowlers attacked the stumps with a packed leg-side field and the Australian batsmen fell into the trap.
Smith’s average dropped to 44.71 in that series. David Warner played two Tests and scored just 67 runs at 16.75. Only Labuschagne managed to crack the code to an extent, scoring 426 runs at 53.25. But he failed to dominate.
Australia had succumbed to Douglas Jardine’s ‘leg theory’ in 1932-33 that was brutal. They fell to Shastri and Arun’s ‘leg trap’ in 2020-21 that was clinical.
The Gambhir-Morkel duo will have to come up with something innovative this time to get the better of Australia in their lair. Can they do a Shastri-Arun? The tactical battle has to be won to pull off a series win. The onus is on India’s new coaching team.
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