England's traditional weakness comes to the fore

as they were thoroughly outplayed by the West Indies in a must win game at the Kensington Oval.

England inability to play a lofted shot with any degree of conviction came to bite them in the rear as they were outclassed by the West Indies in a must win game for both teams.

Over the top? I thought so.

But given that I have been hearing Nasser Hussain grate on and on about "India's traditional weakness against short pitched bowling", this was as good an opportunity to stick the boot in.

Because Nasser Hussain makes a lazy argument. And like Goebbels, he believes that if he makes the point enough number of times, it will become accepted as the truth.

I had previously argued here regarding Indians being quality players of spin that

What we have had, and consistently at that, is 2-3 very good players of spin every decade and a team nucleus that revolved around this.

and

We had, in every era, a few good and more than capable players of spin.. But what we had, even more, were quality spinners.

And because we have had quality spinners and since the spinners and the batsmen played each other more regularly in domestic cricket, the tacit assumption has been made that Indians were very good players of spin.

And the same argument holds to playing short pitched bowling at pace.

Growing up in Mumbai, playing with the hard tennis ball, pulling, if not hooking the ball was a natural instinct, given that we played on cement pitches and unless the ball was really pitched up, the horizontal bat shots were the way to go.

The constraint was that the "pitch" would invariably be sandwiched between two buildings. Which meant that any attempt to play the ball in the air jeopardized window panes. Which meant that aeriel shots had to be shelved. Which meant no hooks, no pulls.

Playing on maidans was not better. While you could hook and pull, and the rising ball gave enough opportunities to play the shot, the paucity of fielders meant that runs behind the wicket were a no no and the pull was inevitably played in front of the wicket.

And the hook ceased to exist in the lexicon.

Even today, that is true of maidan cricket.

The other great truism of playing cricket on the maidans was that the ball wouldn't travel on the dusty surface.. So the concept of timing never really existed. The way to accrue maximum runs was to whack the living daylights off the ball. And for that, you needed a heavier piece of willow ( for maximum returns).

Long story short - it is not as if kids don't play throat high short pitched bowling growing up. But given the constraints that they face, they improvise.

Again in domestic cricket, it is not as if the bumper is not present. But because the bounce on the wickets is on the lower side, a short ball inevitably sits up between the waist and the stomach - an ideal height to play the pull in front of the wicket.

And because there aren't express pacemen available at will in the domestic game, the batsmen get conditioned to play against the slower pace.

Very rarely do batsmen find themselves confronted with a pacy wicket with bounce that takes a length ball at waist height. When that happens, timing goes awry. And because one uses a heavier willow, adjusting "up" becomes a bigger problem.

Which is why Indians are late on the shot.

Not because it is a weakness but because it is a surprise. And adjusting takes time.

If Indians were "traditionally weak" at playing short pitched fast bowling, how does one explain the 13 hundreds Sunil Gavaskar accrued against the greatest fast bowling line up ever assembled. Opening the batting, In pre helmet days. ?

Finally, does Nasser Hussain remember this

Ninety runs came in the next eight overs as Tendulkar and Ganguly, who registered his ninth Test century off 156 balls, blasted the bowlers out of the park. It was the first time that Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly had registered hundreds in the same innings of a Test.

Tendulkar was contemptuous of the English seamers, hooking and pulling at will, while Ganguly devastated the hosts with his sublime strokes through the off-side, and sweep slogs over the mid-wicket fence.

The 171st over from Giles was taken for 23 runs as Ganguly scored 4,6,6,4 and tapped the left-arm spinner after the annihilating over.

and this

South Africa overpowered a new-look England side who went to the Wanderers full of optimism and left realising the scale of the task ahead. It was South Africa's tenth consecutive home Test win, equalling India's winning sequence from December 1988 to November 1994, and only their second victory by an innings against England. The first had been in 1905-06 at Cape Town, by an innings and 16 runs. This later one was completed before lunch on the fourth morning but, with rain and bad light causing interruptions, there were less than three days of playing time. The match was dominated by South Africa's peerless new-ball pairing of Donald and Pollock, who exploited perfect conditions for fast bowling to claim 19 wickets between them. Poor England. They turned up on the first morning to find a damp, spongy pitch underfoot and heavy, low clouds overhead. Then Cronje won the toss. It took just 17 deliveries to put all England's plans and preparation through a shredder as they lost four wickets for two runs, their worst start to a Test match.

He should - he was England's captain in both matches.