Reason to worry

In the verdict for Day 4 of the Motera test, S Rajesh brings up the contribution of the specialist batsmen from either side.

Sample these numbers: 97, 100, 105, 201. The first two are the contributions of India's top five wickets in the two innings; the next two are Sri Lanka's. There's no doubt about who won that battle - in Sri Lanka's two innings, here were six scores of more than 40 by their top six; for the Indians, there were only two.

Obviously, the focus has been on the Sri Lankan batsmen and their inability to convert starts to bigger scores. But what about our own? There are two important series coming up. None of our batsmen, barring Yuvraj Singh has shown a semblance of consistency in the series. The only stand out contribution was from Pathan, who is expected to retain his batting position of No 8.. Probably, this is only an aberration. But I wonder if there is a bit of uneasiness about the form of our batsmen. After all, to face a rejuvenated Pakistan attack, with Akhtar in full form and seemingly on the mend, our batsmen need to do much more than what they did in this series. The right processes might be in place but the results better show quickly.