The club that Rohit joined

The recent India versus NZ Bangalore Test will be remembered for multiple reasons India getting bowled out for 46 five ducks in Indiarsquos first innings the devastating bowling of NZ pacers Matt Henry and Will OrsquoRourke Sarfaraz Khanrsquos maiden ton Rishabh Pant missing his century by one run the splendid batting efforts of Dean Conway Rachin Ravindra and Tim Southee the rain and of course the toss which Rohit Sharma won but chose to batRohit will figure prominently in the list of captains to have missed an opportunity to allow his bowlers to make full use of the helpful conditions in the hope of tormenting the New Zealand batting lineupThat said we donrsquot always come to know what the general thinking of the team is and in this case we may never know the lsquoinsidersquo story There is also the fear of batting in the fourth innings but Rohit was man enough to admit that he misread the stripIt is safe to assume that there are dressing room debates on what teams should do if they win the toss no matter how astute the captain is Englandrsquos Nasser Hussain once chose to field in bowlerfriendly conditions at Brisbane where the 200304 Ashes openedEngland ended up losing the Test by 384 runs and lost three more on the bounce before a consolation win in SydneyIn 198687 Australia captain Allan Border was heavily criticised for not batting first against England in the opening Test of the Ashes series at Brisbane Ian Botham blasted his way to a 174ball 138 which included 13 fours and four sixes Half centuries from Bill Athey skipper Mike Gatting and David Gower also helped England amass 456 In the end England had to score just 75 for victoryAmong the critics was Australian cricket legend Keith Miller who said in the Sun Herald ldquoIf you win the toss yoursquove won a 150run advantage Yet today you get captains who wonrsquot bat first after winning the tossrdquoBorder went on to lose the series but England couldnrsquot achieve any further Ashes series honours till 2005In Indian domestic cricket Mohinder Amarnath copped some flak for ldquogiftingrdquo the Ranji Trophy to Bombay now Mumbai in the 198384 final when he asked Sunil Gavaskar amp Co to bat first at the Wankhede StadiumldquoIt must go down as one of the more quixotic decisions in cricket One could have bet onersquos bottom dollar then and there that Bombay would triumph It didrdquo wrote R Mohan in The Sportstar magazineBombay piled up 625 with the help of Gavaskarrsquos unbeaten 206 at No 5 and onedrop Dilip Vengsarkarrsquos 123 to which Delhi responded with 333 The match was decided on Bombayrsquos first innings leadHow can one think of Vengsarkar the batsman and not talk about Lordrsquos India opened the 1986 Test series against England there the then headquarters of cricket The late Raj Singh Dungarpur was on his second tour as manager of a touring Indian team in England Discussions on what Kapil Dev should do if he beats David Gower at the toss on the morning of June 5 were held a couple of days before the start Raj Singh in an interview told me that the toss was ldquodiscussed threadbarerdquo He was a regular at Lordrsquos lived across the iconic ground and knew the people who mattered there On one of his Test buildup visits he met a groundsmen and asked him how many days the pitch was covered for Three days he said and agreed with Raj Singh who said in response ldquoSo the moisture content is quite highrdquoRaj Singh carried this information to the team meeting and it was agreed that India would bowl firstldquoIrsquove been manager on several occasions and I have come the conclusion that the batsmen in the team want to field first and bowlers want to bat first so they have a big total to bowl atrdquo Raj Singh told meHowever he recalled Kapil being unsure after he won the toss According to Raj Singh the captain had not conveyed to Gower his preference immediately He recalled ldquoKapil came to the dressing room and asked what should we do I reminded him that we had decided last night so what has changed My view was we put them in because we had topclass seamersmdashKapil himself Roger Binny Chetan Sharma and if needed Mohinder Amarnath I said the whole team as well thinks we should field Kapil then went and conveyed the decision to GowerrdquoWith his team on the field and only a few reserve players in the dressing the manager didnrsquot feel good when England were working their way to a lunch score of 81 for one However post lunch England lost three wickets Gower Mike Gatting and Allan Lamb in the space of 11 Chetan deliveries A total of 294 was not a score the hosts would have been delighted with and India replied with 341 which included a hundred from Vengsarkar In the words of Wisden Cricket Monthly editor David Frith Vengsarkar was ldquounobtrusively elegant coolrdquo for his third century in three Tests at LordrsquosFrith said Vengsarkar was among ldquothe crowded Hall of Indian Heroes for this particular match which seemed nicely balanced over the rest dayrdquoIndiarsquos other heroes in the countryrsquos first ever Test win at Lordrsquos were Chetan who claimed 564 in Englandrsquos first innings Kapil whose 452 proved decisive as England were bowled out for 180 in their second innings Maninder Singh who claimed four in the Test and batted for over an hour for six with centurion Vengsarkar at the other end played his part too as did Kiran More who scored 25 in the same innings Mohinder Amarnath got a first innings 69 And Mohammed Azharuddin who former captain Bob Willis felt played ldquothe best strokesrdquo for his first innings 33Four years later Azhar was at the centre of controversy when he decided to put England in at Lordrsquos in 1990 Skipper Graham Gooch feasted on the Indian bowling with a triple century as his side amassed 6534 Indiarsquos margin of defeat was massive toomdash247 runsInvariably a bad firstdayoftheseries decision leads to a series loss That probably wonrsquot happen to the formidable current Indian team but then what do they say about cricketrsquos uncertaintiesmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper