Record against India Warne’s Achilles Heel by Partab Ramchand

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Player:

SK Warne

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DateLine: 22nd December 2006

 

Even a champion can have an Achilles Heel. Shane Warne’s chink in the armour was his record against India. His career average was 25.49 and his strike rate 57.67. But against India Warne’s figures are nowhere as impressive clearly underlining the fact that Indian cricketers played him with comparative ease and that his deadly cocktail of leg breaks and googlies, flippers and sliders held no terrors for them.

 

Let’s get some tell tale statistics out of the way. In 14 Tests against India Warne took 43 wickets at 47.18 apiece. His strike rate was a pathetic 91.27. He did not fare well against the Indian batsmen whether playing at home or in the sub continent. At home in five Tests he had just nine wickets at 62.55 apiece. In India he had 34 scalps from nine matches at an average of 43.11. And while he had 36 five-wicket hauls in 143 Tests he just had one against India, at Chennai in 2004.

 

There is some truth in the argument that the Indians being the best players of spin bowling had no trouble in handling Warne’s assorted tricks that they laid bare. It was against India that Warne played his first Test in 1991-92. It was anything but a memorable debut as Ravi Shastri and Sachin Tendulkar carted him all over the Sydney Cricket Ground and Warne had the nightmarish figures of one for 150 from 45 overs. A further 23 overs in the next Adelaide Test saw him concede 78 runs and finish without a wicket. Whoever would have thought at this stage that the bowler would be a legend, the greatest wicket taker in Tests and one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the century?

 

But while he teased and tormented the best batsmen in the world for a decade and a half he always found the Indians playing him with ease. This has its genesis in the 1997-98 series in India. By the time the Aussies landed Warne was the finest spin bowler in the world while Tendulkar was the leading batsman. What better way to hype the contest up than ``Tendulkar vs Warne’’ and the Indian champion realizing that his duel with the leg spinner could be vital to his team’s chances in the Tests took care to plan things accordingly. He first served enough notice in the pre series match for Mumbai when he hammered his maiden first class double hundred his innings of 204 not out being scored off just 192 balls and inclusive of 25 fours and two sixes. The warning signals were hoisted for Warne who finished with the unbelievably ragged figures of 16-1-111-0. But Tendulkar was not finished. In fact the lop-sided contest was just beginning. At the nets before the first Test at Chennai he had former Indian leg spinner L Sivaramakrishnan bowling to him. Tendulkar asked Siva to bowl in certain areas and hours of hard practice and deep concentration paid off. When the Test got underway Tendulkar was ready. He had already gained a massive psychological advantage with the massacre at Mumbai. Now he proceeded to finish off Warne and by the end of the three Tests he had amassed 446 runs at a strike rate of 80.65 and at a Bradmanesque average of 111.50 with two big hundreds and a 70. Warne’s ten wickets cost him 54 apiece; his average on landing in India was 23.81. Tendulkar fell to Warne only once in six innings.

 

Tendulkar’s treatment of Warne was sheer genius and taking the cue from the master the other Indians with adroit footwork played Warne with utmost ease. Navjot Singh Sidhu never afraid to dart yards forward and loft the ball high and hard made it that much easier for Tendulkar. A peerless player of spin bowling Sidhu repeatedly hit Warne for straight sixes, softening him up for Tendulkar to treat him with further disdain. Of course Warne had a lustrous batting line up to contend with for others in the middle order included Azharuddin, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

 

Three years later it was the same story. This time there was no Sidhu and Azharuddin but VVS Laxman had joined the line up and Warne again conceded over 50 runs per wicket in the three Test series. The rout was complete. Warne revealed that the thought of Tendulkar was giving him bad dreams as the Indian maestro took another commanding hundred off him in the decider at Chennai. Three years before at Sharjah Warne had paid him the ultimate compliment by saying that he was hit by the best batsman in the world and in a fitting gesture sought Tendulkar’s autograph on his shirt. This was after Tendulkar had virtually single handedly won the Coca Cola Cup for his team with successive hundreds.

 

By the time Warne came back to India for his third Test tour in 2004-05 it was taken for granted that he would have to endure another battering. But the fact that Tendulkar thanks to a tennis elbow was missing from the line up in the first two Tests was heartening news. Sure enough Warne picked up ten wickets in these games including an innings haul of six for 125 at Chennai. Tendulkar returned for the last two Tests but Warne figured in only one of them. He broke his thumb while batting at the nets on the eve of the final Test at Mumbai and so certainly missed bowling on a woefully under prepared pitch.

 

After the battering he had to endure in India in 1997-98 cricket enthusiasts were keen to see how Warne would fare against the Indians `Down Under’ two years later. Warne would have looked forward to erasing memories of his unhappy debut against the tourists in 1991-92 as also the harsh treatment meted out to him in India. But he never got a chance really as the Indians fell repeatedly to the pace trio of McGrath, Brett Lee and Damien Fleming. Warne’s role in the 3-0 clean sweep was undistinguished – eight wickets at 41.87 apiece- but he did achieve two things he could justifiably be proud of. He dismissed Tendulkar twice in six innings and in the first innings of the first Test at Adelaide he got rid of the `Big Three’ – Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly. Because of the one year ban Warne missed the 2003-04 series in Australia.

 

For some it may be a mystery as to how the bowler acknowledged to be the greatest spin bowler of all time had such a modest record against India. But actually there is hardly anything mysterious about this. One just has to give credit where it is due. Full marks to the Indian batsmen for displaying technical competence, an adventurous approach and free flowing strokes in handling Warne so comfortably – particularly the one man who showed the way.

(Article: Copyright © 2006 CricketArchive)