Fear of failure is reason for poor show

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Ageing players or inexperienced ones, there is something of a team which has lost the battle in the mind that becomes distinctly evident after a period of time.

A clear manifestation of this is that the same players keep making the same mistakes with the same regularity.

This perhaps best explains why India have failed to top 300 more than twice in their last 15 innings. It is unlikely they will do in the 16th either considering that Australia need only four wickets to complete a clean sweep and the total is still a paltry 166.

Victory is 364 runs away, but impossible surely in the context of the series. What is more plausible that rain — forecast for late Saturday afternoon — comes to India's rescue. The big question, of course, is whether the Indian tail can last even a session when the top order couldn’t.

There was a sense of déja vu when Gautam Gambhir hung out a limp bat to edge Ryan Harris in only the fifth over of the innings for a simple catch behind. The pitch still looked true, but the Indian batting looked bereft of the mental regimentation needed to bat out a little under five sessions.

Sehwag went hammer and tongs again, the only difference this time being that he connected more often than he missed and could therefore reach a half-century. Some of the strokes were breathtaking, as they would be when ball finds the middle of his bat, but his dismissal seemed only a matter of time.

It came shortly after when he miscued a juicy full toss from Lyon and holed out to short cover. Neither Gambhir nor Sehwag had topped 200 runs in four Tests. Worse, the best opening partnership of the series had been a paltry 26. As in England, India had suffered badly because of poor starts.

Even sadder was to see Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman scratch and struggle for survival on a pitch where they all have such a fabulous record. The bowling was hostile, but not so deadly as to be not negotiable; it was the pressure of the situation, of expectations, the fear of failure which made all of them apprehensive and all at sea.

Dravid batted 94 deliveries for 25, Tendulkar 34 for 13 and Laxman 88 for 35; this with Clarke setting a very attacking field and open spaces easily available. Obviously extravagant strokeplay was uncalled for, but so was overt defensiveness which only increased the pressure on themselves.

Of the three, two were out trying to break the shackles. Dravid, who seemed conscious not to be bowled yet again, reached out to a widish delivery and edged to gully while Laxman hit a full toss from Lyon straight to short mid-wicket.

Tendulkar's dismissal was even more dismaying. After a crisp boundary off Lyon, he went into a shell again, refusing to take the attack to the bowlers and dispel the close-in field. On a pitch where the odd ball would inevitably break substantially, he edged one off bat to pad for a dolly to short-leg.

The heart had been ripped out of the Indian batting, and when Virat Kohli paid the price for foolishly challenging Ben Hilfenhaus's athleticism at mid-wicket, India's top order had been cleaned up yet again.

The tail has the impossible task of preventing a whitewash, but the more onerous one lies beyond the Adelaide Test and this tour.

It is incumbent now on the Indian cricket establishment to move swiftly and arrest this dreadful decline. The causes may be several though one or two have got more prominence, but it would be folly of the BCCI to believe that the storm will just blow over.