India's pedestrian performance with the ball on the first day at Lord's has come in for plenty of flak. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes bemoans the lack of spinners, and wonders if it's the result of too much coaching.
There is an intolerance of maverick slow bowlers, who are obviously regarded as an expensive luxury. The tender loving care that all spinners need is scant and unique idiosyncracies are smoothed out. Reliability is valued above sleight of hand. The obsession with quick bowlers - symbolised by the Dennis Lillee foundation in Madras - may be denying India traditional raw material.
The Indian fielding wasn't much better than their bowling, as Mike Selvey points out in The Guardian.
On days such as this, damage limitation can come in the form of inspirational fielding but sadly that of India yesterday can best be described as quaint: leaden-footed and cumbersome, the domain of portly amateurs with a club tie holding up the Daks. In this regard, oddly, they do have a coach in Robin Singh and on yesterday's evidence he will have a hard time convincing his troops that fielding is not just the bloke who wrote Tom Jones.
