While Australia have come for the series well prepared, India seem to have gone in with the belief that winning the series would only require their players to repeat the same processes that have won them so much in the recent past
Karthik Krishnaswamy in Bengaluru04-Mar-2017On the eve of the Bengaluru Test, Virat Kohli had said three times, in response to three separate questions during his pre-match press conference, that India lost the first Test in Pune because of a “lack of intent”.”Showing intent” is Kohli’s go-to stock phrase, used indiscriminately, almost to the point of meaninglessness. What does “intent” mean anyway?In this particular context, Kohli was referring to India’s two batting displays in Pune, which brought totals of 105 and 107. He probably meant India’s batsmen, faced with the task of negotiating Australia’s spinners on a difficult pitch, failed to come up with clear plans, and, as a result, were caught out by Steve O’Keefe’s accuracy and natural variation.Kohli ended that press conference by saying Pune wouldn’t repeat itself in the rest of the series. “You will not get to see a performance like that again,” he said. “That I can assure you.”Day one in Bengaluru wasn’t quite Pune. But it wasn’t entirely different. And of all the dismissals that made up India’s journey to 189 all out, it was perhaps Kohli’s that most looked like stemming from a “lack of intent”. What could be less intentful than playing no shot to a ball headed right towards the stumps? That too for the second innings in a row?It may have looked the picture of confusion and indecision, but there were mitigating circumstances to Kohli’s lbw against Nathan Lyon. The first ball of the same over had jumped out of the rough and hit the batsman on the thigh pad. Turn and bounce had been a regular feature of Lyon’s spell. The ball that dismissed Kohli, pitching roughly in the same area, neither turned nor bounced as much. There was a leg slip waiting too, for the momentarily airborne flick behind square, and this too may have played some part in Kohli choosing not to play the ball.What happened next, however, was straight out of Kohli’s book of non-intentful moments. Kohli consulted with his partner KL Rahul and reviewed what must have seemed the plumbest of lbws to anyone at the stadium. Did this stem from the importance of Kohli’s wicket to Australia, his place in the hierarchy of the Indian team, a lack of belief that the batsmen to follow could deal with Lyon and his bowling colleagues, or just plain muddled thinking?Whatever it was, it was a moment that encapsulated a largely muted and indecisive batting performance from India. This didn’t look like the batting team that had piled up three 600-plus first-innings totals, on the bounce, before the start of this series.Cheteshwar Pujara was the first wicket to fall to Nathan Lyon•AFPNone of the three previous bowling groups that toured India this season were close to being as good as this Australian attack, of course. And the pitches for this season’s Tests before Australia’s arrival were far better to bat on. But if India were surprised by the potency of Australia’s attack in Pune, they should have known what to expect here. Little about their batting, however, suggested they had specific plans to survive and score runs against Lyon and O’Keefe on a first-day pitch that provided far more turn and bounce than is the norm in Bengaluru.They were, yet again, taken apart clinically by an Australian bowling performance that was close to perfect in terms of executing well-designed plans. Their bowlers didn’t give an inch, put the batsmen under immense run-scoring pressure, and set fields that didn’t allow them any release shots. Moeen Ali bowled with three fielders on the leg-side boundary to minimise the damage arising from bad balls. Lyon bowled with three fielders on the leg-side boundary to narrow India’s scoring options and disincentivise the risk of sweeping out of the rough or hitting over the top.If one moment summed up how well Australia strangled India’s run-scoring, it came during the last hour of the day, when their bowlers had their feet up and their opening batsmen were in the middle. Umesh Yadav’s first ball was short and wide and David Warner slapped it to the point boundary. His first ball.In the 71.2 overs Australia bowled, they didn’t send down one ball that could be described as short and wide. India played one square cut – Karun Nair against O’Keefe – and it was a piece of opportunism and skill against a fractionally short ball that was only a couple of inches outside off stump.For large parts of their innings, India looked dazed and diffident, and batted in a manner Kohli would describe as lacking in intent. Mostly, they were made to look this way by Australia’s bowlers. But some part of it also seemed to stem from not knowing – and not being able to figure out, on the fly – how to solve the puzzles they were being posed.Australia came into this series having prepared as well as they could have to deal with the specific challenges of bowling and playing against spin in Indian conditions. India, on the other hand, seem to have gone in with the belief that winning the series would only require their players to repeat the same processes that have won them so much in the recent past.
