Batting has to compensate for India's bowling

BANGALORE: There has been a lot of talk about the bowling combination that India requires on a track like the one at the Chinnaswamy stadium. Three seamers and one spinner or two and two were doing the rounds as the hosts prepared for their crucial clash against England on Sunday but the more one looks at the Indian practice sessions, it is clear that more than the bowlers it is the batting that the hosts look up to as their main weapon.The fielding sessions have been few and not very intense. At the nets, the local bowlers bowled longer spells, thus putting the entire onus on the batsmen.
Blame it on the super powerful line-up that the team possesses. A perfect mix of experience and youth and belligerent minds, the batting has class written all over it. With the same batting order employed in the matches followed at the nets, the sight of batsman after batsman turning on the magic has been awe-inspiring. It also underlined why the line-up is one of the most feared in world cricket.
When Sachin Tendulkar batted against the innumerable throw downs from coach Gary Kirsten or when Virender Sehwag deliberately chose to play the local spinners with a dead bat and then treated the spinners with disdain, there was one message that this line-up was comparable with the best in world cricket history; and it got reiterated when Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh showed their wares. Add to this the brutal power of Mahendra Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan and the package is complete.
The burden of expectations has been known to take many a man down but in this case the weight can only increase as the tournament moves forward, for the flatter the tracks, the flatter the Indian bowling will get. There is no raw pace that can come to the party even on dead tracks and much will depend on the craftiness of Zaheer Khan and the guile of Harbhajan Singh. And fielding has not been of any standard, dangling between the ordinary and the poor which will add to the burden of the batsmen.Quite often, the batsmen have to make 20 runs extra in the big matches to make up for the fielding (with Zaheer and Harbhajan around, the bowling is comparatively better), something that is not easy always.
No wonder the Indian team management has pinned its hopes on Sachin Tendulkar to overcome these pressures. In a manual titled 'Let's Make Our Dream Come True', Gary Kirsten and Co have stated: "Mental strength of the Little Master would be the pillar of the current team."