With six overs to go in the last game of what will go down as India's summer of despair, Mahendra Singh Dhoni looked around the field for a bowler and threw the ball to Virat Kohli. None of his bowlers had bowled out but his favoured death bowler Munaf Patel - and that is a story in itself - had been carried off the field. There can be no more telling statement on the poverty of Indian bowling.
At Cardiff, India scored what looked like enough, as they did at Lord's and Southampton, indeed even more so. But in neither case was it enough and another man might have made his frustration apparent. India's best bowler on this tour, Zaheer Khan, lasted a few overs and the next best, Praveen Kumar, wasn't playing. Dhoni might have looked at Ravichandran Ashwin, might have worried about whether the ball was too wet, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there was no one on the park the batsmen would have felt discomfort towards.
In this form of the game, I don't think India need worry too much about the batting. Kohli produced a gem - deservingly the best batting performance on the Castrol Index - Dhoni showed why he is probably India's best limited-overs player and at other times Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel and, most potently, Suresh Raina have shown that India's batting stocks are doing fine. Yes, in Test cricket far too many questions were asked and far too few answers were forthcoming, but in limited-overs cricket the batting looks fine. But the bowling...ah, a long story without an end in sight. There has been a clamour for the inclusion of Varun Aaron but it isn't as if India have left out a Malcolm Marshall or, for that matter, Steven Finn, who couldn't make the Tests and looked the best bowler on either side in Cardiff.
Surely this must wake people up. There is a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. I will watch the BCCI's reaction to this tour with much interest and anticipation for this has been a stinging slap. I hope I don't have to wait too long!
Harsha Bhogle, is writing in his role as a Castrol Index spokesperson.
