Tail bite

India couldn’t have penned a better script on the penultimate day of the Chittagong Test. Then followed the ineluctable part of Indian cricket’s tragedy: the old hoodoo of the tail.

Forget about the time lost owing to rain. Could India have still pulled it off?

When in doubt, go to Sachin Tendulkar. The present Indian captain’s predecessors used this as a maha mantra. And the little master hardly let them down.

Yes, times and changed. The nimbus around him may have faded briefly, or perhaps a string of tall scores will set it aglow. Tendulkar is still doing his bit as a batsman, but without the ball, without emoting his role as a crisis manager, he appears isolated.

Team India needed him in the frame with his queer leg-spinners and teasers when the ninth-wicket stand started to pick up a steady head of steam. With Anil Kumble laid up, and both Ramesh Powar and VRV Singh dishing out all that is unremarkable, a chance could have been taken.

By the time Tendulkar got the ball and plotted the breakthrough with the most innocuous delivery, the game had slipped by.

Rahul Dravid will cop a hard time for his second gaffe in five months. It happened in the Cape Town Test against South Africa; it happened again in Chittagong. In the both the Tests he over attacked. If India’s interim coach doesn’t address this, winning an away series this season will continue to be wishful thinking.

It is strange that India can do almost everything right till they run into the number eight bat. Scan the last fifteen years: you may not throw all the darts at the present crop.

Not many Indian captains in the past could crack the lower order resistance and seize the big moments.

In a quick flash one recounts the Sydney Test against Australia (1992), the Johannesburg Test against South Africa (1997), the Chennai Test against the Baggy Greens in 2004, the Bangalore Test against Pakistan that season – one can dig more.

Mashrafe Mortaza has showed that against this Indian side, the tail can not only wag frantically but also laugh and bully.

India may struggle to get over this; one could sense from the start in the second innings that they were still smarting from the hurt put on them by the 77-run stand.

Mortaza signifies the mindset of this-generation tail-enders who believe that in Test cricket wickets should not be gifted like freebies. Perhaps India’s lower order, too, could cultivate this new lingo. Maybe put a high price tag on their numbers next time they take guard.

Like their less-illustrious neighbours they could well save a few Tests in future if not win one.