Eye on India: Shreyas Iyer the h’orderve before India serve up main course against Australia

Dileep Premachandran looks back at the halcyon days of Mumbai cricket practice matches against visiting Australia teams.

India A cricketer Shreyas Iyer celebrates after scoring a century on the final day of a three-day practice cricket match against Australia at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on February 19, 2017. AustShow more

Unless you are a Mumbai-cricket fanatic, the chances are that you would not have heard of Amit Pagnis or Rajesh Sutar.

But on the eve of another home Test series against Australia, it is time to dust off the old scorebooks and recall their place in Indian cricket lore.

In February 1998, Sutar was a 30-year-old journeyman, who would commute 100km from his village to play in Mumbai. Pagnis was only 19, but whom big things were expected.

Mark Taylor’s Australians were the dominant Test side, having defeated South Africa on their own soil a year earlier.

These days, tour games against visiting sides are played out to a BB King soundtrack: The Thrill is Gone. Back then, it wasn't that way.

Sachin Tendulkar led a Mumbai team that also featured Vinod Kambli, his accomplice while smashing school-cricket records, and Sanjay Manjrekar, the middle-order stalwart who was playing his final first-class game. There was also Amol Muzumdar, one of only two men to top 9,000 runs in the Ranji Trophy.

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With Michael Slater stroking 98, and Ricky Ponting making 53, Australia declared on their first-day score of 305 for eight.

When the Mumbai openers came out, it was with strict instructions from Tendulkar and Manjrekar – the gist being “go after them”.

Pagnis did, racing to a 60-ball 50 during the course of which he twice lofted Shane Warne over mid-on. But the star of the show was, who else but, Tendulkar.

By lunch, he had 35 in a total of 135 for three. Between lunch and tea, he added a further 99. After that, he took Warne and Australia apart as he continued to shine.

Sutar, whose first-class career spanned just seven games, joined in the final-session fun. He tonked 45 off just 43 balls, and of the six fours he hit, five were off Warne.

Mumbai declared on 410 for six, with Tendulkar 204 not out off just 192 balls. Warne went for 111 in his 16 overs.

It was hard not to think of Mumbai cricket’s halcyon years as Shreyas Iyer, one of the city’s brightest young hopefuls, went after the Australian spinners on the second day of their warm-up match against India A on Saturday.

Australia’s batsmen had piled up 469 for seven against a pedestrian attack, with Steven Smith and Shaun Marsh scoring centuries, but it was Iyer’s belligerence that provided a teaser for the upcoming four-Test series.

A hamstring injury prevented Karnataka’s K Gowtham, an off-spinner who once modelled his action on Harbhajan Singh, from bowling, and it meant that Australia would go into the Pune Test, which starts on Thursday, without having faced any quality off-spin in their build-up.

Their own slow bowlers, Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe, both went at more than four an over, with Iyer finishing the day on a 93-ball 85.

With Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood rested, Australia were not about to reveal their strength of their bowling attack just yet.

You have to go all the way back to October 2004 for the last Australia Test win on Indian soil, and no matter how well they bowl, the series will be decided by the manner in which their batsmen cope against the Indian spin threat.

In recent home Tests, it has been a case of if Ravichandran Ashwin does not get you Ravindra Jadeja will in terms of the spin attack, but that is to ignore the skill India’s pace bowlers, especially Umesh Yadav, have shown in unhelpful conditions.

It allows Virat Kohli to keep attacking constantly, knowing that he can afford to give his front-line spinners the odd breather.

Starc enjoyed spectacular success in Sri Lanka last year, and will need to replicate that if Australia are to have any chance.

India will likely start with the same XI that overcame Bangladesh – Mohammed Shami could feature later in the series – as they bid to extend an unbeaten run that now stretches to 19 Tests.

After that Mumbai mauling, Warne finished the three-Test series with 10 wickets at 54.

Lyon and O’Keefe will be clear-eyed about the reception they can expect from Kohli and company.

Like Pagnis, Iyer was merely the opening salvo.

India women desperate for one last hurrah from Raj and Goswami

If you ask Mithali Raj about February 5, 2013, the chances are that she might wince. That was the day unfancied Sri Lanka knocked India out of the Women’s World Cup at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.

Instead of emulating what the men had done on home soil two years earlier, Raj’s team exited with a whimper. When the Super Sixes began, the Indian players were back home on their couches.

Raj was 30 then, and a veteran of 145 one-day internationals (ODIs). Her scores in the three group matches were one not out, eight and 20.

On the eve of the Super Sixes, she made an unbeaten 103 to seal seventh place against Pakistan. Her fellow Indians, however, had long since switched off.

That disappointment was repeated at the World Twenty20 in India last year. Again, Raj and India stumbled at the first hurdle and then watched as vibrant West Indies and Australia teams contested a memorable final at Eden Gardens.

At 34, there will not be too many more global events for Raj. When she made her debut in 1999, two of her teammates, Deepti Sharma and Devika Vaidya, were still infants. But all these years later, her work ethic and skill remain the benchmark for India’s women cricketers.

At the World Cup qualifier in Colombo, where India have swept all before them to seal a place in the tournament proper, she has scored 70 not out (v Sri Lanka), 64 (v South Africa) and 73 not out (v Bangladesh).

A Super Sixes encounter against Pakistan, who beat them in a rain-affected match at the World T20, remains before they play South Africa again in the final.

But with qualification for England in the summer secured, India will focus more on their weaknesses than bragging rights.

Several of the players still struggle to rotate the strike, especially early in the innings, and the fielding and catching have also left much to be desired.

Success in England will depend so much on the return to fitness of Jhulan Goswami, the workhorse pace bowler who has ploughed a fairly lonely furrow for 15 years.

Shikha Pandey has come on well, but the challenges of an English summer demand experienced hands.

Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana (currently injured) may represent the future, but India are desperate for a last hurrah from Raj and Goswami.

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