Kandy Test preview
Tuesday, August 21, 2001

My first thought on the Indian approach for the second Test, a suggestion if you will, is that Sourav Ganguly and John Wright keep cool and not bother too much about the media overreaction to one loss. They must accept that the team has played badly, but the series is still alive. The less they read and hear about Galle, the better it is for them.

Some of the criticism of Ganguly the captain has been most unfair. It would be foolish to ignore the handicap that he started with – he has had to do without Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble, Ashish Nehra and now Javagal Srinath.

It was barely five months ago that he defeated the world champions to give India one of her most historic series wins. He followed that with a Test victory in Zimbabwe – India's first outside the subcontinent in 15 years. India lost the following Test, but finished the tour with five wins in seven international matches. In Sri Lanka, they started off on the wrong foot, but the comeback in the triangular was a fine effort.

Criticism of Ganguly as a batsman is justified. Even when he was scoring heavily, I wondered how he would react to a bad patch. He was unique in that, till now, he never really had an extended loss of form. The ability to bounce back from a slump is one of the biggest tests of a batsman's character. Getting past it also makes him a more complete cricketer. It will be interesting to see how Ganguly reacts.

In choosing the XI for Kandy, the team management must be careful not to overreact to the loss at Galle. Jacob Martin is a tempting prospect at No. 6, but I would stick to Hemang Badani. I believe that once you hand someone a Test cap, you give him a fair trial. Badani has had exactly one and half Tests, because it's not worth considering the innings he was forced to open in. He has had some success in the one-day game and we've all been impressed with his temperament. Dropping him would be a classic case of succumbing to media pressure.

The more important thing is for the senior players to take responsibility and put themselves in the firing line. Rahul Dravid, the best batsman in this team, must bat at No. 3. Following him must be Ganguly himself. Mohammad Kaif may bat at No. 3 for his state, but the pressures of international cricket are vastly different.

It has been suggested that a second spinner be included in place of the injured Srinath. I am wary of playing a spinner for a spinner's sake. I would let the pitch dictate this decision. I do not think Rahul Sanghvi or Sairaj Bahutule are likely to cause too much trouble to Sri Lanka on a surface that has nothing for them. Harvinder Singh was impressive in the few one-dayers he played in Zimbabwe, so on a hard pitch I would certainly use him.

If it did come down to playing a spinner, I would pick Bahutule ahead of Sanghvi. For a captain, the legspinning option has always been very attractive to me. Besides, his batting will certainly provide depth. Of course, the captain and coach have the benefit of seeing them in the nets where a lot can be inferred about a bowler's form and mental state, so they will have to trust their judgment.

Cricketers are known to be superstitious. India need to look at Sri Lanka's performance in the last two Tests at Kandy – losing to both South Africa and England when 1-0 up in the series – and believe that it will happen again.

My team for Kandy 1 Shiv Sunder Das, 2 Sadagoppan Ramesh, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 5 Mohammad Kaif, 6 Hemang Badani, 7 Sameer Dighe (wkt), 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Harvinder Singh or Sairaj Bahutule (who would bat at No. 8), 11 Venkatesh Prasad.

Sanjay Manjrekar played 37 Tests for India as a specialist batsman between 1987 and 1996. His comments on every session for the rest of the Sri Lanka series will be appearing exclusively at Wisden.com. He was speaking to Rahul Bhattacharya.

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