Badri Rocks! and Other Reflections

I have to say that I am very happy with the results of the first two ODIs. The defeat in the first ODI was sweet, because it made a lot of pundits look very silly. After the Tests, everyone was shouting from the rooftops – with great joy, it seemed – that the Fab Four were finished. Well, the youngsters who should have been salvation looked even more clueless. Let’s face it – Ajantha Mendis is a phenomenon, certainly the most exciting bowler to come along in world cricket since Mohammad Asif. Of course, Asif’s travails show that such talent can go horribly wrong – but that wasn’t because batsmen managed to figure him out. Our batting failure was not because of the decline of the seniors, but because of the genius of Mendis.

And now, we have won the second ODI to restore parity. Zaheer Khan showed yet again that, if there’s a little bit in the wicket, there are few bowlers in the world who can swing it as well as he can. But for me, the real joy and vindication was the manner in which Subramaniam Badrinath batted. This should be no surprise to those who read this blog, since it is clear from many previous posts that I am a huge fan of Badri’s.

Let us start by considering the enormous amount of pressure that Badri must have been under. For one thing, in spite of being the most consistent domestic run getter for the past three or four years, he has been constantly overlooked for younger, and generally inferior, batsmen. It could be argued that Raina and Rohit Sharma are prodigious talents; but nothing really justifies the likes of Uthappa, Manoj Tiwary or Virat Kohli getting debuts ahead of him. Given the way things work in Indian cricket, Badri must have been wondering whether he would go the way of Sridharan Sriram – scoring prolifically in domestic cricket, but never getting a fair chance at the international level.

So – it took injuries to Tendulkar, Sehwag and Gambhir to actually get Badri into the playing 11. Then, he was asked to bat at 7. This is not an ideal position for Badri to be batting in, since he is ideally the sort of batsman who likes to build an innings, not someone who likes to come in play the role of a quick finisher. This is exactly what had been asked of Sriram – who was an opener in domestic cricket, primarily an accumulator, and asked invariably to bat at 7 in the odd chance he got in ODIs. Of course, this treatment of Badri is not all that surprising – Dhoni had treated Badri in precisely the same manner in the IPL, with Badri nonetheless responding in enterprising fashion in the chances that he got. Had he been consistently given a chance in the top 5, as he should have been, there is little doubt in my mind that he would have been as big a success as Raina or Rohit were. And finally, he had to make his debut against Mendis and Murali, with the confidence of the Indian batting in a shambles.

27 not out is no great shakes; and if he is giving the chances, he will play far more important innings than he did today. But the fact remains that had he gotten out cheaply, Sri Lanka would have more than likely won the match quite handily.

There are two things that impressed me most about the way Badri batted. The first was his absolutely unruffled temperament, and the way in which he tailored his game to the situation. It was clear that what was needed was to stay till the end. The asking rate was moderate, and Dhoni was keeping the scoreboard ticking at the other end. So Badri cut out the frills, played no nonsense cricket, and kept the scoreboard ticking with some absolutely brilliant running in between wickets. What was impressive in the running was not just the speed, but the judgment.

The second was the way he read Mendis. Mendis is such a good bowler that he is going to bowl unplayable deliveries to the best of batsmen. But the fact remains that if one considers both Tests and one-dayers, there are only five Indian batsmen who have shown any degree of comfort against him – Sehwag, Gambhir and Badri, and to a lesser extent Dravid and Dhoni. Viru is a genius, while Dhoni manages by playing late thanks to his remarkable bat-speed. But the success of the other three is purely down to technique. Someone who has the technique to read a bowler of Mendis’s caliber the first time he plays him is surely someone to take seriously.

There are elements of three batsmen that I see in Badri. The first is Hemang Badani. He too looked very much like Badri when he first came into the Indian side. The same unruffled temperament, an ability to play straight yet finish well, brilliant in the field and between wickets. He was integral to the “21st century” Indian team that was imagined at the start of John Wright’s tenure, along with the likes of Yuvraj and Mohammad Kaif. But the selectors finished him, never giving him an extended run and dropping him when he succeeded. Let us remember that in the series just before he was dropped for good, he had made a match-winning 60-odd against Australia in the 2003-04 VB Series – which was, as it happens, the only game we won against the Aussies in that series. He was rewarded by being replaced by Rohan Gavaskar, who held on to Badri’s spot through the summer of 2004 and ended his one-day career with a glorious average of 17. (Of course, we know that success against the Aussies is a poisoned chalice – every time Murali Kartik bowls us to a win against them, he gets dropped). So – regardless of how well Badri plays, there are enough examples before him – of Sridharan Sriram and Hemang Badani most immediately – of people who have received the axe for no fault of theirs. My worry is that Badri will always be held to a higher standard than his competitors, and made to suffer as a consequence. (And since I hate to bring questions of regional bias into the analysis, I will assert that surely it must be a coincidence that all of the above are from Tamilnadu …).

The second is Michael Hussey. This is the anti-Badani story. It starts in a similar way, but because the Aussies respect performance over pre-conceived prejudices, Hussey has gone on to become one of the best players in the game. The selectors have a choice – they can treat Badri like Hussey, or they can treat him like Badani. No prizes for guessing which will benefit India more. But like Hussey, Badri comes into the side on the back of a long wait and many years of prolific domestic scoring; he is not the most blindingly exciting batsman in the team (doesn’t have Raina’s strokes, or Rohit’s élan, or Yuvraj’s sheer arrogance) – just like Hussey is no Ponting, or Clarke, or Symonds to watch, but often outperforms all three of them. Of course, Indians too often value appearance over substance, which is why someone like Hussey would probably have never gotten a fair run in the Indian system, even if he had managed a look-in; but there is a lesson to be learnt from the way Australia nurtured Hussey, and Badri is the person to apply it to.

The third is Rahul Dravid. Dravid’s technique has a little more flourish than Badri’s – the former performs these little arabesques even on his defensive strokes, like a ballet dancer performing an intricate move – but the basic principle for both is the same. They have a very composed stance and stay very still, they play absolutely straight, they get their foot to the pitch of the ball for their defensive strokes, and they play very late. Indeed, the manner in which Badri handled Murali in particular was strikingly similar to the way Dravid plays him. Like Dravid, Badri has the ability to consolidate, but clearly can also play his strokes. Hence, in the one-day context, he looks like the ideal replacement for Dravid at the pivotal no. 5 position – someone who can consolidate in case of early dismissals, who can keep things ticking over in the middle through good running in between wickets, and who can accelerate if required at the end. He should be locked into that position, and now.

Indeed, while there is some value to having floating one-day positions, what this means is that India’s one-day batting order could potentially acquire a set look to it. The very best teams like the Aussies, after all, are those that experiment with batting orders not as a rule, but as an exception.

So – what we could ideally have is Sehwag and Gambhir opening, and Badri at 5 as the fixed positions. Yuvraj and Dhoni would ideally be 3 and 4, in either order. In an ideal world, I would like to have MS at 3 – he has been our most consistent one-day batsman along with Gambhir for some time now, and I strongly believe that our best batsmen should be batting as early as possible. Also, he averages above 70 at 3. But against teams that have quality spin attacks (basically Sri Lanka, and maybe New Zealand because of Vettori), I would have Dhoni bat at 4, because he is a much better player of spin than Yuvraj is. In either case, 6 is way too low for him. This would leave Raina and Rohit battling for the no. 6 spot on form. Whoever misses out would form one of the reserves, and Shikhar Dhawan would be ideal as a back-up opener. A batting order of Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Badri and Raina / Rohit, with Rohit / Raina and Dhawan in reserve, would be a class act and a look to the future. Of course, this would involve taking the courageous decision of dropping Tendulkar from the one-day side – but the point being that if the likes of Badri are giving a central role to play, then we can indeed afford to look beyond Sachin in the shorter version of the game without missing him too much.

In the context of the next game, of course, there is no Sehwag. Hopefully Gambhir will be fit, but not sending a replacement for Viru is stupid in the extreme, because Virat Kohli does not look like an opener to me. (Indeed, he doesn’t look like much of a batsman. Full marks for hanging in to make 37 today, but as Dean Jones pointed out, his technique against the in-swinger is so vulnerable that, unless it is improved, good opposition bowlers will “chew him up”. His technique against the out-swinger isn’t much better, and there were any number of occasions today when he desperately attempted the sorts of fishing expeditions outside off-stump that would have made Vikram Rathore proud. That he was preferred to Badri at the start of the series boggles the mind). Badri should be playing at 5, while Dhoni should be batting at 4, so that the two middle order batsmen who handle Mendis best can form the heart of the line-up.

I would also stick to Raina at 3, since he has done well there of late, and take the bold move of sending Yuvraj up to open with Gambhir. This is partly because I don’t think we gain anything by sending out makeshift openers like Irfan Pathan, and, as I’ve just said, Kohli doesn’t look like an opener to me. But on a more positive note – Yuvraj clearly is in pristine form, but is utterly clueless against Mendis. He has the ability to cause a lot of damage if he can get face-time against the quicker bowlers, but is virtually a write-off against Mendis. Hence, in the context of this series and in Viru’s absence, playing Yuvi at the top of the order would be a bold move. Kohli and Rohit would basically face off for the no.6 spot – Rohit is a far better batsman, but Kohli might deserve another chance after his 37, especially given Rohit’s poor form. My team for Colombo then would read – Gambhir, Yuvraj, Raina, Dhoni, Badri, Rohit / Kohli, Pathan, Praveen, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Munaf.

One last parenthetic point. I have been less than effusive about Dhoni, and Satish has rightly called me out on it. So let me set the record straight on my thoughts regarding him. I think he is a remarkable one-day batsman. His talent was never in doubt, but the way he has developed into a dependable middle-order batsman who can tailor his game to the situation has been a revelation. And I think he has developed into India’s best wicket-keeper. He isn’t a natural, but he has grown into the role; and even when he was troubled by late swing in England last summer, he didn’t drop a catch. But his Test batting, so far, remains largely unproven, and his only Test innings of real significance was his match-saving 76 at Lord’s. That is slender pickings for someone who has now been in the Test side for more than three years.

Dinesh Karthik was terrible in front of and behind the stumps in Sri Lanka; but purely on ability, he has shown in the past to be a fine wicket-keeper; and a more versatile Test batsman than Dhoni. By more versatile, what I mean is that he too can tailor the way he plays to the situation; but he also provides an opening batting option, which Dhoni doesn’t. So one could imagine a situation, say, where Badrinath bats at 7 in the Test side, and DK opens and keeps wicket. That kind of flexibility is not allowed with Dhoni in the side. But also in terms of results – the fact of the matter is, DK top-scored in Tests in England last year, and that is no mean feat, against one of the better attacks in world cricket. In spite of many more chances and far greater security in the side, MS has not managed anything near that kind of accomplishment as a Test batsman.

Don’t get me wrong – purely on keeping record, I would pick MS as my no. 1 keeper in both forms of the game. But my point is that, if we looked at keeping ability + batting record, then the only thing that keeps Dhoni’s spot secure over DK’s is his hierarchy in the side – that he is Test vice-captain, one-day captain, and advertising superstar.

It is not for me to judge whether MS feels threatened by DK or not. But my point is, in objective terms, DK ought to be a threat to MS’s spot, at least in Tests. Given this, the fact that DK was not even given a look-in throughout the CB Series was peculiar, to say the least. Dhoni may generally be a good and fair-minded captain – but he has already shown that he is willing to make ruthless decisions (surely, the dropping of Dravid and Ganguly from the one-day side when both were playing well has much to do with Dhoni’s wishes to build for the future), and the way DK has been treated over the past year has been ruthless and relatively unreasonable. (One can at least argue about the merits of the seniors’ sacking, in terms of vision, building for the future, etc).

But enough of all that. For now, let us celebrate Dhoni the batsman for his fine innings today, and raise a toast to Badri. May he be treated well.