The legend of the modern Indian batting line-up.

529 international test matches
105 hundreds
40000 runs
average of close to 50

These statistics are not of a fictitious warrior cricketer born in a planet far away.These are the combined factual data of only the top 5 batsman of the Indian batting line up.The Indian batting order is considered to be the best,and i make no half measures in saying this-the very best in the world today.No other country can boast of a record so prolific and no other team has been able to garner half the praise or criticism that the Indian batting line up has accumulated in the last decade.The praise-I won't elaborate.I say criticism beacause of certain debacles that the team has encountered in not only recent times but ever since a certain Titan cup was played or a team boasting of humongous magnitudes of talent was sent back by the aussies in 99 with their tails between their legs.That and cases like being the No.3 team in the world,conceding 600 first innings runs,following on and losing a match to a couple of spinners.One of them a debutant with an experience of 19 B-grade first class matches.

Ajantha Mendis.The name has hooped up so much of newsprint in the last month or so,I can't remember if remember if Lara was given half of it when he became the highest run-getter in the history of the game.India continued to prove the jinx right time and again in the second half of the year in the shorter version of the game starting with the Kitply cup and then then following it up with a almost stomping march to the finals of the Asia cup,only to lose their way miserably ultimately,folding up like a pack of high-school kids appearing for the district team selection before rushing out to audition for a play.It would've all been forgotten as just another final debacle for the mighty team if it wasn't for the presence of one man who single handedly took it away from India with 6 wickets.Ajantha mendis destroyed India's hopes of winning an Asia cup yet again.If the Indians believed the final was nothing more than a one-off incident and it couldn't happen again,they couldn't have been more wrong.The team vying for the No.2 spot in the world with 3 other countries at present was made to follow on humiliatingly after 5 years of International cricket and it was defeated,in fact debilitated,by Lanka's most depleted bowling attacks in recent times(at least on paper)by an innings and 239 runs inside 3 full days(the first day was a mere formality with only one session being played).Did some one say invincible batting line up?I don't think so.

Right.Murali sent 11 guys of the Indian team single handedly back to the dressing room during the course of the match,and was man of the match.How many times have we heard of that happening before?Probably everytime Sri Lanka goes on to win a match.Murali has been part of the mainstay bowing attack of Sri Lankan cricket since one can remember.It's not for nothing that you get to be the highest wicket taker in the world.Ever since I understood the rules of cricket,i remember switching on the TV to watch an India V Lanka match,and if Lanka fielded, till before this very match,I can recollect only two bowlers bowling in tandom.Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas.So either the oppostition batsmen got tired of negotiating the wizard for half the day's play or it just got too boring to defend an off cutting seamer at nothing more than a 120 case that a batsman simply knocked his own stumps down with a punch.

This time it was different.Lanka had taken to the field with two seamers.Not the usual Fernando or Malinga or Maharoof.All of their front line seamers were missing from action cooling their heels at the hospital.So in came Vaas' partner in crime-a totally inexperienced test cricketer in Nuwan Kulasekara.Not that it mattered much as Vaas and him bowled not more than 30 overs between them in the second innings.What must be pinching the Indian batsmen the most is that in their quest to unravel the mystery and hype that has surrounded Mendis in the lead up to the test,they probably took their mind off the main threat of the Sri Lankan artillery-that of Muralitharan himself.Not to take credit away from Mendis' splendid debut performance;but the question that still pokes my mind even when i watch the highlights of the match is whether Mendis actually took all of the wickets or were most of them offered to him out of sheer fright of deception?
Except Laxman and Tendulkar,neither of the other batsmen seemed to have any answers to Mendis's finger flicks and while the others seemed overly cautious in trying to thwart off Mendis with a strategy that seemed to say "lets keep blocking him out till he injures himself or till the match is called off for rain",Tendulkar and VVS seemed to be the only two batsmen to still remember the sole purpose of the match being played-that of winning by putting up runs on the board.Dravid and Ganguly seemed clueless after a BCCI enforced 2 month exile and seemed completely out of sorts to gift their wickets to the Lankans with shot making of such dismal quality that simply wouldn't go with stalwarts of impeccable records.And Dinesh Karthik remained only a pale shadow of himself from England,where he promised so much more.And although Tendulkar really didn't last long to stand apart from the other batsmen's flawed approach,he could atleast take heart front the fact that one of his dismissals was a genuine Murali nipper while Sehwag's was a stark reminder of why technology still can't promise the best.

India has struggled in the bowling department for many years now,and even though Harbhajan Singh has been around for close to 10 years now,he himself has no real impact or prescence in the line up.The punch and the air that was clearly visible in his deliveries when he made the aussies weep 7 years ago,are today,merely items of the cricket lover's museum and in spite of bagging the man of the match series award against South Africa only recently,thanks largely to a Vietnamese mine field in Kanpur,Harbhajan Singh is seen as nothing more than a loyal aide to the aging skipper,who himself seems to be struggling to find rhythm after the famous Perth victory with only 5 wickets in 4 matches.With only contenders like Piyush Chawla,Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra in the reckoning,India's spin future appears to be in the dark and it looks like at least one of the half billion women in the country need to produce another Bedi,Solkar or a modern day Chandrasekhar.And really fast!The Indians are running out of time quickly with more than half of the team pushing the not so helpful part of their 30s.

Unless Kirsten and the think tank decide to do something about the approach of the Indian players soon,or unless Mahendra Singh Dhoni decides he has got himself enough time off and returns to deliver a repeat of Faisalabad(which would suffice to say Laxman gets a five-fer in each innnings,but anyone seems to be better than Karthik),the signs look ominous.Team India need to tie their laces tight and get rid of their inhibitions and apprehensions.And if players who average around a decade of cricket at the highest level between themselves aren't able to comprehend that soon,god help the gentleman's game.