Mind Games – How the Australians Play It And We Don’t!

Sourav Ganguly is known to dish out as hard as he gets

In 1993, when Graham Gooch led the English side for a three-Test series in India, in the only warm-up fixture before the first Test at Calcutta, two North Zone batsmen Navjyot Siddhu and Ajay Sharma went after the two frontline English spinners in the touring party, Phil Edmonds and John Emburey.

The experienced duo of Emburey and Edmonds were savagely taken apart by Siddhu and Sharma. The attack was so brutal that a nervous English management drafted into the squad at the last minute, Ian Salisbury, a rookie leg spinner who plied his trade in the county circuit.

The day before the first Test began in Calcutta’s hallowed Eden Gardens, was one of the most special days of my life. I was covering a Test match for the first time in my life. After I managed to file the curtain-raiser to the Test, as my somewhat jangled nerves were beginning to calm, I found two veteran English cricket writers approach Sunny Gavaskar and ask his comments on the inclusion of Salisbury.

Gavaskar sagely explained: “The move to include Salisbury is a brilliant one. It has taken the Indians completely by surprise. He is an unknown quantity for them, and by the time this series is over, he could well be their trump card.” As I heard those words, my heart sank. Just an hour before Gavaskar spoke those words, I had sent my first despatch from a cricket ground in which I had stated, rather unequivocally, that the move to include Salisbury betrayed the panic in the English camp.

I quickly visualised how the words spoken by Gavaskar would make headlines the next day across the cricketing world, even as the readers of my newspaper would be appalled by the observations of this newbie cricket writer. I had half a mind to call my editor and request him to stop the publication of my piece.

I nervously walked up to Gavaskar, a man with whom I had never spoken before that day, a man whose game I had worshipped since my childhood. Understandably nervous, I was at my inarticulate best as I explained to a most patient and very polite Gavaskar about what I had written and what I just heard him say.

He nodded a few times as I spoke, then suddenly his face broke into an impish grin. He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me away out of the earshot of others in the press box. Then he whispered in my ears : “Apna Sachin us se (Salisbury) achha ball karta hai, yaar.” (Our Sachin bowls better than Salisbury, my friend.)

“But..but…but…you just told those two English journalists that Salisbury could well be their trump card”, I spluttered, now thoroughly confused.

The wicked grin was back on the great man’s face. And then seeing my nervous state, he explained : “What I said there, to the two journalists, was part of the mind games that go on during a series like this. Cricket, he went on, is played as much on the cricket ground, as off it.

Mental games aren’t new to cricket. Former Aussie skipper Steve Waugh, who always played his cricket hard but square, used to call it “mental disintegration”. You launch an assault against your opponents well before the first ball is bowled. Carefully made comments to the media by the side’s top players or even ex-players are all part of a cleverly-designed strategy to destabilise the opposition.

That is why, before the beginning of any series the great Glen McGrath would inevitably announce in the media, that he was targeting the opposition’s best batsman. That is why, Shane Warne, not exactly known for his restraint to get in a word or two against his opponents, told the Aussie media before the Indian tour to Australia in 2004, that the Indians should get ready to face some “chin music”.

Warne was referring to the known Indian weakness against the short ball. Specifically the then Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was being targeted. It was not the most well kept secret in international cricket that the man once described by his team mate Rahul Dravid as the ‘God of offside’ didn’t exactly relish the short pitched stuff.

When it comes to mental games, Ganguly of course is no pilgrim himself and is known to dish out his own version of mental disintegration. He got under Steve Waugh’s skin when the Australians toured India in 2001 by making the Aussie skipper wait out in the middle during the toss. Ganguly knew Waugh didn’t like to be kept waiting, so he would inevitably show up late for the toss.

Also Warne’s “chin music” threat against Ganguly backfired spectacularly. In the opening Test of the series, on a lively Brisbane track Ganguly put the Aussie bowling attack to the sword. His swashbuckling knock set the tone for perhaps the finest Indian batting display in a series outside India. All the top Indian batsmen, Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar, scored heavily and by the end of the series which was Steve Waugh’s swansong, the Australians were relieved to have escaped with a drawn series.

As far as this series is concerned though, the first round in the mental battle, it appears, has gone the Australians’ way.

They arrived in India a week before the scheduled start of the series to get a hang of the Indian conditions. To the chagrin of many, including a few officials of the Indian cricket board, world class facilities at the Rajasthan Cricket Academy were put at the service of the Australians. This, after the Indians in their last tour to Australia in more than one venue had struggled to find local bowlers to bowl to them at the nets.

What has galled the Indians even more was the sight of the Australians strutting around with Greg Chappell, India’s erstwhile coach. Chappell isn’t the most popular cricketing figure in this country, the pain he inflicted upon Indian cricket is still fresh in the minds of many. A number of cricket writers have commented how Chappell might pass on secrets about the Indian team to the Australians.

To be honest, though, I personally think it is not such a bad idea that Guru Greg is advising the Aussies. He is undoubtedly one of the best batsmen the game has ever seen, the same can’t be said about the man’s coaching abilities though. I would rather have Chappell coaching the Aussies, than be on the side of the Indians.

Far more than Chappell’s presence in the Australian camp, what might hurt Indians seriously is the choice of venues for this series, which has been somewhat baffling to say the least. Given the visitors’ known weakness against slow bowling, you would think the Indians would have opted for Test centres which are known to be spin-friendly. Instead, Indians kick off the series in Bangalore where they have a dismal record. The second Test is to be played in Mohali, which sports one of the more livelier tracks in India.

You mention Nagpur, the venue for the last Test of the series, to the Indians in general and Sourav Ganguly in particular, and you would get to hear some very interesting things, interspersed with several invectives. The last time the Australians toured India, the curator at Nagpur prepared a green top. Despite the request by the Indian team management to shave off the grass, the curator refused. An angry Sourav Ganguly walked off from the match in a huff, citing a non-existent injury. On what the curator claimed was a sporting wicket, the Australian pace battery demolished India and recorded a famous, and rare, Test series victory in India.

The official explanation for the choice of venues is the rotation policy followed by the Indian cricket board in choosing venues. It is a policy mired in board politics and devised to keep voting state units happy. It is a policy that has little cricketing logic.

India has lost six (two of them to Australia) of the last eight Test matches they have played in Bangalore. The last time India won a Test match in Bangalore was against New Zealand, way back in 1995 – that is, even before either Sourav Ganguly or Rahul Dravid had made their Test debuts. Dravid and VVS Laxman average in 20s on this ground. Yet this is the venue chosen by the mandarins of Indian cricket to take on the world’s best Test side for the first Test.

Off hand, it is difficult to think of a more generous way of squandering the home advantage.