India face a Hobson's choice
© CricInfo Rarely has a young cricketer's continued presence in the Indian team attracted such heated discussion
V Ramnarayan
17-Apr-2002
While Dasgupta's wicket-keeping has been poor overall, I agree
with Sourav Ganguly's assertion that Carl Hooper's snick in the
Guyana Test would have taken some catching. It seems unfair to
judge the young man on the basis of his first Test duck and the
half-chance that might have stopped Hooper on his march to 233.
In his short career, Dasgupta has batted with character and
consistency. The moment the selectors picked him and Ajay Ratra
for this tour, it became quite clear Dasgupta was first choice
because he could also open the innings; further, Ratra's keeping
is as yet an unproven quantity, at least in Sunil Gavaskar's
opinion. If Ratra has to come in, then the only logical course
open to the selectors for the next Test is to make Sanjay Bangar
open the innings - unless, of course, they decide to replace the
skipper with a regular opener like Wasim Jaffer.
The Dasgupta controversy has, however, served to distract
attention from the listless Indian bowling performance. Javagal
Srinath was the only bowler to make any impact in the match. The
old warhorse was admirably hostile on a wicket that apparently
offered nothing to the other Indian bowlers, prepared as he was
to bend his back. Sarandeep Singh looked the part of a friendly
neighbourhood off-spinner, and Anil Kumble was about as dangerous
as Geoffrey Boycott's grandmother's lollipops.
Ravi Shastri has openly stated his preference for a mediumpacer to replace Kumble unless the playing surfaces in the coming
Tests promise to aid spinners. The question is whether our spin
attack without Harbhajan Singh is capable of inducing snicks and
stumpings and, if so, whether we have a wicket-keeper to latch on
to them. Unfortunately, the answer to both questions seems to be
a sad "No." The strengthening of the pace department with the
inclusion of Ashish Nehra seems unavoidable under the
circumstances.
India have generally been lucky in the wicket-keeping department,
right from the time Syed Kirmani took over as number one stumper,
although we have had trouble replacing Nayan Mongia, the subject
of a completely different controversy. Before Kirmani, except for
five Tests in the West Indies when P Krishnamurti donned the
gloves, one of two flamboyant batsmen usually did duty behind the
stumps for India.
In the days before television coverage of India's Tests, many of
us were under the impression that Farokh Engineer was a top class
wicket-keeper, if you overlooked one bad day at the office when
he let Australia off the hook at Chepauk from a precarious 24 for
six. However, according to some not-so-charitable stories, the
Bombay and Lancashire stumper went round to the Press Box in the
evenings to nip in the bud any attempt to report chances he had
missed! With his not-inconsiderable charm, he would proceed to
convince the reporters that those had not been chances at all, or
if they had been, they were first slip's and not his.