In January, after India had lost the first two of three Tests in South Africa, their coach, Ravi Shastri, reflected on the reasons for their failure. “Conditions back home, we are familiar with. Here, conditions are different,” he said. “In hindsight, I would say another 10 days of practice here would have made a difference.” Seven months later they are two down in a Test series in England.
Given the clarity of his hindsight in January, Shastri’s subsequent lack of foresight seems startling: no touring team in history have done less red-ball practice before a five-Test series in England than this India side, who arranged a single four-day match against Essex, reduced at the last minute to three days because it was a bit hot, and decided that would do.
“There will be more than enough time to get used to the conditions,” the former bowler Zaheer Khan said in April. “The kind of squad we have, most of them have played in England and are aware of what kind of conditions will be on offer.” It has not really worked out that way.
“Practice makes a man perfect,” Kapil Dev said in March, as he looked ahead to this series and Virat Kohli’s chances of shining in it. “One has to practise for these conditions. The bar which we as cricketers set for these people is that you have to be good in all conditions. Virat Kohli, the question mark in front of him, it’s there. He has to get runs where it is considered to be the toughest conditions in the world. If he can play a season or two in English county cricket there would be nothing wrong, because if you want to be the best player in the world you have to get runs everywhere.”
As captain of the India team who won a Test series in England in 1986 – and the World Cup three years earlier – Kapil knows what he is talking about. England had won the Ashes at home the previous summer – and their previous four Test series at home, including against India in 1982 – but went into the series having just been thumped 5-0 in the West Indies, with David Gower’s captaincy hanging by a thread, and following the publication in the Mail on Sunday a few days before the first Test of Ian Botham’s confession to recreational drug use, for which he received a two-month ban.
But for all that India’s situation seemed even less promising. They had, after all, won one of 40 Tests since Kapil, bowling despite injury, took five for 28 to skittle Australia for 60 runs short of their meagre target of 143 and steal a ludicrously unlikely victory in Melbourne in February 1981. Before arriving in England Kapil had captained his side in 20 Tests, without winning any. Their 33 previous Tests in England had brought a solitary victory. And Kapil’s side had drawn all five of their three-day warm-up matches before the first Test.
Though the two ODIs were played before the Tests in 1986, as was the limited-overs series this year, the squad nevertheless filled their time with meaningful long-form practice. In addition Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Maninder Singh and Kapil himself all had experience with English counties. Though born and raised in India Roger Binny, who produced prodigious swing on his way to figures of five for 40 at Headingley and six for 56 at Edgbaston, was the first Anglo-Indian to play Test cricket for the country. By the time the first Test began India had scored 1,027 runs and taken 36 wickets in their five three-day matches, many of them rain-affected, and they squeezed additional games between each Test.
Even that would have been considered insufficient preparation for some. In 1959 the India touring party arrived in England on 17 April and left on 17 September. In between they scheduled 36 games, playing some counties on multiple occasions, and when they left – having been whitewashed in the five Tests but otherwise acquitted themselves well – their manager, the Maharaja of Baroda, said it had been “an extremely happy tour” that could only have improved if his players had even more knowledge of local conditions. “We had two main failings: our fielding, especially in the air, and our dislike of bowling above medium pace,” he said. “We must encourage our youngsters to become interested in being fast bowlers. I am recommending to the Indian board that we send our youngsters on minor tours of England to gain experience under varying conditions.”
Conditions at Lord’s during this year’s second Test could scarcely have been more typically English. Given the weather at the time Kohli would have been little more accustomed to the frustration of constant rain breaks had he, as intended, spent June at Surrey, a plan ruined by injury.
His has hardly been a terrible tour, with a half-century and first-innings 149 at Edgbaston a fortnight ago, but at 26.71 his average in England remains massively inferior to the 57.66 he manages elsewhere. This may dent his pride and stain his statistics but many would consider him the best batsman in the world anyway.
Some will say there is scarcely enough space in the schedule to squeeze in more preparation but it’s there if you want it. By the time the third Test gets under way at Trent Bridge on Saturday India will have had 37 days without any scheduled cricket since arriving in England on 23 June; in the entire five months they spent in the country in 1959, that India team had 38. Practice is an investment of time and effort in the hope of a return down the line. India have had the time and they wanted the return but it seems they lacked the inclination.
• This is an extract taken from The Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket email. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
