Having decided too early that it was not possible to get England out a second time, India decided to focus on individual records - the bane of Indian cricket © AFP

It is easy - and tempting - to be harsh on the two captains and their teams for the way the series ended, with a giggle preceded by a yawn. But these same teams had given us in Chennai one of the finest Test matches of recent years, and anyway, the series was never going to be about the cricket alone.

To begin with, India and England have probably altered the meaning of the word ‘series’. Do two Tests constitute a series? Is this the precursor to the one-Test series?

Captains have a responsibility towards Test cricket, especially at a time when interest in this form of the game is waning worldwide. But it cannot be the captains alone. Administrators have an even greater responsibility. The Indian cricket board pays lip service to Test cricket, but shows by its actions that its real interest is the shortest form of the game. Senior board members, who ought to be concerned with the big picture, run private IPL teams - and in this clash of interests, it is Test cricket which loses out.

It is easy to criticise Mahendra Singh Dhoni for his apparent negative tactics in Mohali, but the fact remains that this is no time to play Test cricket in that part of the country at this time of the year. A Test match was reduced to a virtual four-day affair, and it was difficult to shake away the impression that India were only going through the motions.

True, it was up to the 0-1 down England to do all the running, yet it was a trifle disconcerting to see the attacking, positive, cheerful, imaginative captain Dhoni do a Sunil Gavaskar by taking the early lead in a contest and then sitting on it.

Once Virender Sehwag was run out in the second innings, India simply shut shop. It would have been good to see at least an attempt to win the Test. If safety first was the theme, then England would not have returned to India after the terror attacks. There is a time for clinging to safety and a time for taking on a challenge head on.

Having decided early (too early, in fact) that it was not possible to get England out a second time, Dhoni decided to focus on individual records - the bane of Indian cricket. Perhaps had the full quota of play been available over the five days, this might not have happened. Playing under lights is an answer. Where lights are available, they must be used. Playing in Mohali was bad enough, but fobbing off spectators with a 50% contest is criminal. Especially when Test cricket needs special looking after.

England came, they came back, and they gave us a good first Test. It meant that Indian cricket was able to send out a message to the rest of the world. All this was to the good.

But two-match series where one match is a washout after three days’ play cannot be good for Test cricket. One of the arguments for Twenty20 cricket is that it will attract new fans to Test cricket. But when a ‘series’ is handled thus, it will do the reverse - frighten away genuine fans of Test cricket and drive them towards Twenty20. Or was that the plan all along?

	It has been torture watching this pillar of Indian cricket go through a phase when he couldn’t do anything right © Getty Images

After his successful Test debut following the car accident that cost him his right eye, Tiger Pataudi was asked when he thought he could make runs with only one eye. “When I saw the English bowling,” replied the player who was then not yet 21.

Whether Rahul Dravid thought he could make a century when he saw this English team and climb out of the hole he had been inhabiting in recent weeks is difficult to tell. After scores of 3 and 4 in the previous Test, he was probably among only a handful of people who thought that a century was round the corner.

Luckily that handful included his captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who made the pertinent point that Dravid would continue to bat at No. 3 in Mohali because shifting him to No. 5 would mean India had already lost three wickets. It also included the selection committee, four of whose members had played for India and were thus able to empathise with a player of proven ability struggling to find his touch.

His fans can heave a sigh of relief. It has been torture watching this pillar of Indian cricket go through a phase when he couldn’t do anything right. But it has been inspiring to watch him get out of the slump using the same methods that have got him over 10,000 runs in Tests. The temptation to change your game is strongest when things are not going right, but Dravid had to bat like Dravid and rediscover his touch. Anything else would have lacked authenticity.

All of India seems to have been praying for him - not just his parents who, if newspaper reports are to be believed, visited a shrine in Mangalore to offer prayers. Soon after he completed his century, I got a phone call from a friend taking credit for the turnaround. “I didn’t move from my seat from the first ball he played till the last. I wore the same clothes, did everything in the same order over the two days,” he said in all seriousness. This is one of fandom’s oldest superstitions. By the same token, I am sure there were those who missed his century because they didn’t watch the first day’s play and so couldn’t watch the second day in case they brought their hero bad luck.

It is not true that only the media were on Dravid’s case; those who were most vicious in their criticism will point out that few batsmen have been given as many chances to come good as Dravid has. But 800-plus runs in the calendar year is not the worst batting performance in international cricket. Dravid was being judged by the standards he has set himself, and by that reckoning he fell short. More to the point, with every failure, he seemed to withdraw deeper into himself, and go to areas that he ought not to have revisited. The dark areas where failures, shortcomings and bad days in the office make their opposites seem like mirages.

Following the debacle in Sri Lanka, the so-called Fabulous Four have now reasserted themselves. Ganguly, Laxman and Tendulkar had already shaken off the horrors of that tour ... Dravid has finally got there, but what a heart-wrenching trip it has been!

	He needs to dine at the high table with the captain, planning strategy and ensuring that India’s pre-eminent position as the home of spin is retained © Getty Images

During the Chennai Test, Harbhajan Singh went past Lance Gibbs’ aggregate to become the second most successful offspinner in the game behind Muttiah Muralitharan. For his 309 wickets, Gibbs played 79 Tests over 18 years; Harbhajan’s 310 have come in ten years and 73 Tests. He is only 28 and given different circumstances might have been pushing for the captaincy. That question does not arise now, with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a younger man in charge and inspiring the team to famous victories.

But on the evidence of the Chennai Test, the question that needs to be asked is this: Is Harbhajan suffering from the No. 1 syndrome, the pressure of being the top spinner in the side? He is trying too hard, bowling too fast and too flat and on a track he should have thrived on, he finished with just four wickets in the match.

India’s victory and yet another failure by Rahul Dravid will ensure that the focus will be elsewhere, but India’s leading spinner needs to introspect. He needs to play the kind of mentoring role to the younger spinners that Anil Kumble did when Harbhajan himself was making his debut. He needs to dine at the high table with the captain, planning strategy and ensuring that India’s pre-eminent position as the home of spin is retained. But none of the big picture contribution will be forthcoming if the bowler lacks the confidence that comes from having wickets in the bag.

With Kumble, Harbhajan formed one of the most successful partnerships - in the 54 Tests they played together, they claimed 501 wickets and helped India to 21 victories. That is a terrific record.

Yet Harbhajan did not bowl in Chennai like a bowler with over 300 wickets in his bag. Traditionally English batsmen, unlike the Australians, have played offspin better than they have legspin. This, far from acting as a spur to the main spinner seems to have discouraged him, and the focus has been on keeping down the runs.

When the teams reassemble for the Mohali Test on Friday, they might decide to replace a spinner with a medium pacer if the track promises more for the seamer. Ironically, the respective spinners heading for the chopping block then might be the two leading men – India’s Harbhajan and England’s Monty Panesar. Both spinners seemed to forget in Chennai that they were in the team to take wickets, not just to keep down the runs.

Spin bowling is about taking chances, about challenging the batsman into making mistakes, drawing them forward to drive the ball that doesn’t get there or tricking them into misreading the spin. Harbhajan’s predictability does not augur well for the Indian team. He is an attacking bowler by temperament and technique. And he needs to rediscover the touch that has made him so successful so far. He is the country’s number one spinner - he must bowl like one.

	Can Rahul Dravid work his way out of a slump? © AFP

One of the saddest sights in sport is the ageing, once-great player struggling to come to terms with his game in full public glare. Struggling architects who have run out of ideas can repeat themselves or rely on their juniors, struggling politicians can hire a PR agency and bluff their way back into power. But struggling sportsmen have no such cushion: when the goals dry up or the runs stop coming there is no place to hide. The past is no guide to the future. The present is all. Sport is cruel.

And right now Rahul Dravid, one of the few players of his generation both loved and respected, finds himself facing the question that two of his contemporaries, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, thought had only one answer. Ganguly gave himself a tension-free Australia series by announcing at the start of it that it would be his last. Kumble’s end was hastened by injury.

Even his worst critics, however, hope that over the next two days, as India begin a fourth-innings chase, Dravid rediscovers his old form. He might still decide to quit, but at least that will be out of choice and not because of circumstances. In the recent past, he has been a piece of classical music played at the wrong speed. Even when he has looked good, every note in place, he has suddenly faltered, and even when he hasn’t faltered he has looked like going off key any moment.

At 35, Dravid cannot look outside his natural game for answers. He is not likely to change his game and hit himself out of trouble as he sees the light at the end of the tunnel begin to flicker ominously.

Dravid needs to find the solutions playing like Dravid, and time is running out. His catching is beginning to let him down too. It was strange to see him field on the leg-side boundary today.

He will be the first to admit that he has had the support of the selectors and his captain. The slide began in England a year ago, with whatever went wrong causing him to give up captaincy. The man who consistently averaged above 55 averages around 30 this year. The thoroughbred - to change our analogy - is turning into a cart-horse. It is not a pretty sight.

Does he have one final match-winning (or match-saving) innings in him? The romantics will hope he does. One good innings is all he needs, say friend and foe alike, but with every failure hope is beginning to recede.

Not for the first time, a visiting team written off before the start of the series is about to upset all calculations. Seldom can a fourth innings have been so important - for country and individual - as the one that is about to unfold before us.

	The players are putting on a show to help us regain our poise, we must respond by allowing them to find their own peace © AFP

Cricket often stands for something beyond itself. It has been the symbol of an empire and the symbol of the colonies striking back. Cricket matches are seldom bereft of symbolic content; the baggage of history ensures that. No India-Pakistan series, for example, can ever be about the cricket alone. The game takes the shape of the vessel it is poured into - the vessel made from the prevailing political and social thinking of the period. Today in India it stands for anti-terrorism. It is a heavy responsibility.

Few matches in recent years have had as much symbolic power as the one set to commence in Chennai. It will be seen, at the very least, as a match between England’s bulldog spirit and India’s resilience. Cliché, yes, but clichés become clichés because they happen to be true. And before we are through, other symbols are bound to be imposed on the game. Sport is convenient that way.

Chennai, a city which knows both its history and its cricket, is bound to give the English captain a roar of approval and gratitude when he goes out to toss. Merely by turning up England have won many hearts. Some even think they have won a victory already regardless of what happens in the two-match series.

Still, before the umpire shouts ‘Play’, we need to dust the game of its excessive symbolism and drag it back to its slot as a competitive sport between two countries.

So far the focus has been on the English team - their generosity, their sacrifice, their spirit - but the Indian team has had to deal with its demons too. Some of the players have lost people they knew in the terrorist attacks; like the rest of us, all of them will have experienced a sickening feeling in the pits of their stomachs while watching the events unfold on television.

They too will have problems concentrating on the job at hand. Sachin Tendulkar might have played 154 Test matches, but even he will have to make a mighty effort to push the events that paralysed his city and the country into the back of his mind and focus on doing what he does best. It is a tough call. The players are putting on a show to help us regain our poise, we must respond by allowing them to find their own peace on the cricket field.

Will the return of the England team herald normalcy or endorse it? Or is that question no longer relevant, for terrorists, like Macbeth, have murdered sleep and normalcy forever? Will normalcy follow cricket or should cricket follow normalcy?




England have another 5000 or so kilometres to travel before they land in Chennai and hopefully someone will get close enough to the team to recognise the players and confirm that they have indeed arrived. Security is bound to be a bigger bugbear than the traditional Indian welcome which comprises confusion and noise in equal measure, but the players are not likely to complain.

The Indian captain, we must remember, has an entourage of 22 policemen protecting him and an escort car every time he drives out of his home - so we can understand the scale of these things. According to newspaper reports, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is unhappy with this meagre protection, and expressed his unhappiness by ditching his security and riding to the airport on his own. Kevin Pietersen is unlikely to do likewise.

The reactions to England’s return have ranged from the cynical to the upbeat. On the sceptical side of the ledger are such reasons as money, bargaining chips at the IPL, ensuring that the Champions League is not affected, while on the positive side are support for a country which has suffered, a way to tell the terrorists off and belief that whatever happens, the show must go on.

Pessimists have been quick to point out that a cancellation might have split the cricket world along racial lines, a line of argument one has been hearing for sometime now, whether the sticking point is yet another Indian being hauled up for misbehaviour or an occasional protest about the way India is running world cricket.

Perhaps there is no single reason for England’s return. Even those who honestly believe they are going ahead with the series in order to cock a snook at terrorists cannot be unaware of the business advantages of such a stand. And those who hope this will mean the IPL will look kindly upon a short-term individual contract would be just as pleased to be lauded for seeing the larger picture.

Yet, whatever the reason or combination of reasons, India have reason to be grateful to the players for coming back. It is not yet official - that will happen when Reg Dickason gives the all-clear - but when they do, sacrificing quality time with the family at home for the uncertainty in a foreign country, the Indian board must acknowledge the enormity of the decision.

It will be the first step towards showing the world that neither the Commonwealth Games nor the World Cup in 2011 needs to be in danger of being taken away from India. Perhaps mixed with the relief will be somewhat warmer feelings towards a neighbour whose cricket has suffered because no one wants to go there.

If India understand the frustration of being an outcast and the joy that comes with acceptance, then they have a responsibility to tour Pakistan next month. Things might change between now and then, but in principle at least India must accept that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.