Toothless attack or clueless approach?

BRISBANE: India's troubles with the opposition tail seem endemic away from home.

On Friday, as Australia went from 247/6 to 505 all out, MS Dhoni must have been thinking about Johannesburg last year, when Faf Du Plessis and AB De Villiers took South Africa from 197/4 to 442/7.

Or Wellington in February, when New Zealand recovered from 94/5 to 639/8 as Brendon McCullum scored 302 in the second innings. Or Nottingham in July, when England went from 298/9 to 496 all out and Anderson and Root broke a world record. The last three wickets on that occasion, in fact, added 294 runs.

At the Gabba on Friday it was Smith, Johnson and Starc who dug in.

What's worse is no one seems to have a clear idea what the problem is. It was funny watching Umesh Yadav trying to explain the phenomenon. "Just because it has happened in England and New Zealand and here does not mean we are not trying. All the time we are trying, sometimes we are giving away runs also," he said. India have allowed the opposition to recover from being five down for 250 or less to making 400-plus four times in 2014, and seven times since 2010. While that's not a specific tail-end problem, the seventh to tenth wickets have also scored at 4.06 against India since 2010, the highest run-rate achieved by tailenders against any team.

"It is all part of the game.Johnson and Starc played well.I feel we gave away 50 more runs.The outfield is a little heavy . The pace we had on Day 1 and 2, it's not the same. It's not that the ball is not swinging, but it is not swinging much," said Umesh.

In England, Cheteshwar Pujara had hinted at a lack of planning. "We will have to think about how to get the tailenders out," he had said, "We will have to regroup and chat with the bowlers and plan for the next few matches. We definitely need a strategy in place for the tail-enders."

There was a strategy in place on Friday , that of out-bouncing the opposition and placing men in catching positions, but it didn't seem to work. In the past, Dhoni has been accused of being defensive, with long-ons, deep midwickets, deep fine-legs and the absence of slips often marking his fields when the tail is in.

It seems the skipper is still trying to work out a middle ground with his bowling attack.

TAIL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS

Since 2010, India have been the worst Test team in leaking runs against the tail (7th to 10th wickets) in away Test matches.In 145 innings in this period, a cricket website reports, India have given away 4695 runs at an average of 34.77 at a run rate of 4.06 per over. India lag behind all others in both total runs conceded and the run rate. This means India not only give away runs generously to tail-enders, they also fail to restrict the rate of scoring, thus giving their opponents a bigger chance of winning a Test match.

BATTERED AT BRISBANE

Indian bowlers not only failed to get the tail out quickly, they also failed to stem the flow of runs. The following stats makes a stark point:

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