Hasn't Eric learnt from his earlier mistakes?

More trouble for India if bowling coach Simmons repeats his mistakes of 2004

More trouble for India if bowling coach Simmons repeats his mistakes of 2004

Not even news of a multi-million dollar deal could brighten the day for India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Bowling coach Eric Simmons, is another seeking answers to the slow, run-factory production line pitches in Sri Lanka.

Bowling coach Eric Simmons with Ishant Sharma. PIC/AFP

With six days remaining before for the first Test in historic Galle, India's bowling was as innocuous as any they have put into the field at any time the past ten years on the opening day of this tour. The result: 432 runs on the board for the Sri Lanka Board President XI for the loss of five wickets with three centuries and a scoring rate at times in excess of five an over.

It was hardly inspiring stuff and a day of hard labour for the bowlers. There were centuries from Upul Tharanga, Thilina Kandamby and Test candidate Thilan Samaraweera, with spinners Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha giving away 253 runs between them while collecting the only wickets to fall.

Despite the conditions suiting the seam and swing bowlers and remembering this is Day One of the only pre-Test practice outing of this tour, it also explained why, in a sense, Simmons, South Africa's former coach, battled on the 2004 tour of the island. He failed to get an accurate measure of the surfaces then and is doing so this tour.

Ishant worry
Maybe a harsh comment, but remembering how the streetwise Shaun Pollock mastered these skiddy surfaces on that 2004 tour, it left anyone watching Ishant Sharma bowl today, where the young man's memory has gone.

After an aggressive opening spell, in which he had a Tharanga edge missed by Rahul Dravid (it was a difficult chance), he seems to remember nothing from the tour of two years ago. Line and length were seriously absent at times.

In 2004 any number of South African bowlers struggled to get their length right and if the 20-year-old Karnataka right-arm medium pacer Abhimanyu Mithun is a Test prospect, India are indeed in trouble on this tour. He bowled too short and his figures 0/70 in 18 overs explained he has a lot of learning to do. Surely, India have better than this as it explains just how heavily the tourists will be relying Harbhajan Singh in the Test.