A fatal lack of intent

The alarm bells are ringing. The Indian top order, stacked full of the world's finest strokemakers, was knocked over for less than 100 runs on a pitch where even Glenn McGrath managed to play a pull and a cover-drive. If ever there was a time when this Indian team needed to dig into its reserves and come up with a spirit strong enough to defy the Australians, it was today, but barring Mohammad Kaif, they came a cropper. Collectively, the middle order failed to do its job, and the price they pay may be the first series loss to Australia at home since 1969-70.

There were a succession of things that went wrong. Virender Sehwag was scarcely worried about the 398 runs Australia had made. He brought his effervescent, earthy game to the crease, and in striking Jason Gillespie for four boundaries in just the second over of the innings, showed his mates a way to let loose the pressure that the strangulating quartet of Australian bowlers had built up. Score runs, or you will be starved of initiative till you wither and succumb.

There were times when Aakash Chopra's stonewalling efforts deserved praise and played a useful role in shielding the middle order from the shiny new ball, but today was not one of them. The need of the hour was not careful abstinence but hungry strokemaking. Not everyone can walk out to the middle and strike crisp boundaries before the opposition knows what's happened, as Sehwag can. And nor should others try to bat like Sehwag - but there's no place for batsmen lacking intent. If you don't at least try to move the game forward, you will be left dead in the water, as McGrath, ably backed up by Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz, showed.

After Sehwag was sent back, chancing his arm and batting in the only manner he knows, and until Mohammad Kaif came to the wicket, there was a passage of batting so lacklustre that it barely seemed possible that, not long ago, this Indian team called itself the second-best Test team in the world,. Between lunch and tea, the period where the pitch is usually at its most docile, India scored just 60 runs from 30 overs.

But what was more interesting was the way Australia steadily tightened the screws. In the first hour, India made 35 runs and lost two wickets, but from then on it was downhill. The second hour yielded 31 runs, the third 29, and the fourth a paltry 18. In each of those hours, a wicket fell. This was because no batsmen was prepared to counterattack, and the manner in which Chopra, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar approached batting allowed McGrath to settle into a rhythm - and that is fatal.

With the run-flow cut off, and the batsmen hanging firmly back, the bowlers could afford the luxury of pursuing a line closer to the stumps, and the pitch did just enough to create the odd wobble and seam to beat the middle of the bat and take the edge or strike the pad. If there was one moment that summed up the state of mind of the Indian batsmen it was when VVS Laxman chopped a Shane Warne long-hop straight to point. In pushing the Indian batsmen onto the back foot, and forcing them to play a game that they are awkward and uncomfortable with, Australia irrevocably seized the upper hand.

Kaif's fighting - if occasionally fortuitous - 47 proved that there were runs to be had if you were in the right frame of mind. But it only highlighted the stark fact that save for Sehwag's 155 at Chennai, there has not been a significant contribution from an Indian top-order batsman in this series. In that sense, the day's play mirrored the form-book of this entire series. And, India have simply not been good enough to stand up and fight - so forget about protecting that 35-year-old unbeaten home record.