Indian cricket's perennial problem

Take any of the great cricketing squads in history and one of the reasons behind their success has been a pair of sound opening batsmen. Unfortunately the lack of such players has been the bane of Indian cricket. Go through the list of great Indian cricketers and you will find any number of outstanding middle order batsmen. But the hunt for natural opening batsmen will probably stop at about half a dozen.

I am here talking of batsmen who seemed born for the slot and not of players who were forced to open the innings because of circumstances. The history of Indian cricket is littered with examples of predominantly middle order batsmen who were pushed, some quite reluctantly, into the specialist position. They might have enjoyed some success - mostly against amiable bowlers or featherbed pitches - but there is little doubt that they would have served the cause of Indian cricket better had they stayed in the middle order.

In the formative years, it did not seem that the problem would become an acute one for Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali were undoubtedly an outstanding pair. Arguably they remain the country's best ever opening pair. When they were not available in the forties, or after they had called it a day in the fifties, Vinoo Mankad did a commendable job. But despite his success in the opening slot - centuries against Lindwall, Miller, Trueman and Bedser and a share in the world Test record of 413 runs - Mankad was better suited to the middle order and was certainly not a natural opening batsman.

It was not until the early 50s that India discovered a natural opening batsman in Pankaj Roy. Throughout the fifties, with his partners changing almost every season, he remained the ideal player for job, despite certain shortcomings in his technique late in his career. One of his partners towards the end of his career, left handed Nari Contractor seemed to be shaping well in the specialist slot but his career was cruelly cut short by that Griffith delivery at Bridgetown in March 1962.

The sixties were a rather unhappy period. Dilip Sardesai seemed to be an obvious successor to Roy and Contractor but he did not exactly fit the bill. Wicketkeepers Farokh Engineer and Budhi Kunderan, despite the success they enjoyed, were certainly not ideal opening batsmen and their style and approach were better suited to the middle order. Jaisimha too had some credentials as well the scores to back him up but he was made to shift up and down the order with the result that he could not be classed as a natural opening batsman.

It was not until Sunil Gavaskar's entry in 1971 that a great opening batsman was unearthed. But at the other end, the position still seemed vacant. In fairly quick succession, players like Abid Ali, Ashok Mankad, Chetan Chauhan, Ramnath Parkar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Parthasarathy Sharma, Anshuman Gaekwad, K Srikkanth, Ghulam Parkar, Pronob Roy, Ravi Shastri and Arun Lal were tried out. Of these, the only players who lasted for some time were Gaekwad, Chauhan and Srikkanth. Apart from Gaekwad, who started out in the middle order and was pushed as a desperate measure into the opening slot, the others were natural opening batsmen. The Gavaskar-Chauhan pairing was statistically the most successful Indian opening pair. They were certainly one reason why India enjoyed a rather triumphant period in the late 70s and early 80s. The Gavaskar-Srikkanth pairing, reminiscent in some ways of Merchant and Mushtaq, also met with some success.

The opening problem, as only to be expected, returned with Gavaskar's retirement. For some time Srikkanth and Arun lal soldiered on. In the late eighties, Navjot Sidhu, who like so many others before him had started out in the middle order, was pushed, because of circumstances, into the opening slot. He made a success of his new job but the other end seemed open. Ravi Shastri who had already been up and down the batting order fitted the bill admirably in the early 90s. But the situation became really problematic after Srikkanth and Shastri retired in the mid 90s.

Indeed in the last few years, any number of combinations have been tried out and innumerable players - certainly not natural opening batsman by any yardstick - have been pushed up the order. The list of such players include Manoj Prabhakar, Woorkheri Raman, Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia, Vikram Rathour, Sanjay Manjrekar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sadagopan Ramesh, Devang Gandhi, MSK Prasad and Wasim Jaffer.

Of the above, Prabhakar, Raman, Jadeja, Manjrekar, Dravid, Laxman and Gandhi were basically batsmen who had enjoyed greater success in the middle order. Mongia and Prasad were wicketkeepers who were pushed up as a last resort. That leaves just Jaffer, Ramesh and Rathour as natural opening batsmen. Of the trio, only Ramesh has so far enjoyed some semblance of success. So it has been a pretty depressing scenario particularly in the last few years.

Admittedly, there have very few outstanding openers around and perhaps some of the piecemeal measures resorted to by the selectors has come about because of this. Unfortunately too, some of the despairing gestures have unexpectedly resulted in a fair degree of success. Makeshift openers like Prabhakar, Jadeja, Gandhi and even Mongia made some good scores - even hundreds - and figured in century partnerships against weak bowling or on featherbed wickets. This made the selectors feel the problem had been solved but the moment these players have come up against better bowlers and on faster, bouncier tracks, they have come up a cropper and so it has been a case of going back to the drawing board again.

Aware that piecemeal solutions were not the answer, the selectors announced to the cricketing world that a new natural opening pair had been found in Ramesh and Laxman at the start of the India-Pakistan Test series in Chennai in January last year. Unfortunately some 18 months later, we are back to square one, back to the drawing board again with a pair of reliable opening batsmen still a mirage. And as long as the `oasis' is not found, Indian cricket will continue to flounder in the desert.