Indian cricket at the crossroads: a blueprint in many parts

PART 1: SUMMARY

This series defeat in England has been so comprehensive that it has left most Indian cricket fans feeling utterly hopeless. There are serious structural deficiencies, shortcomings in the team, in the administration, in the way the game is run. Many of them are obvious, and it is equally obvious that nothing will be done about many of them. So I know no other way to respond except to write. Not because I expect that anything will come of my writing: after all, only a handful of people read this blog, it is not going to be read by anyone who has the power to change things, and the people with the power to change things, for the most part, don’t seem to have the best interests of Indian cricket at heart anyway. But nonetheless, I have been writing this blog for nearly 5 years, which is a period in which the Indian team has cycled through the depths of despair under Greg Chappell to the heights of ecstasy with a World Cup win, and I have posted nearly a 100 times on matters big and small. Writing about cricket is what I know how to do, and attempting to think rationally about cricket is, I think, the responsibility of every Indian cricket fan.

I want to start by providing a brief and salient summary of the 2010-11 season that is just concluding. My next post will then have a wish list, of all the things that I would like to see, knowing full well that we are likely to see none of them. And after that, I will do a post that reviews individual players. Harsha Bhogle recently suggested on cricinfo that the Board should keep a dossier on all the contracted players, with a specific plan for each of them. I like that idea very much, and what I will present is my version of the dossier.

But first, the summary.

At the moment, it feels like the world is falling on our heads. Three months ago, it felt like nothing would stop this side. Both responses are exaggerated, because the Indian public generally has little time for history or memory, and little desire to put things in perspective. But exaggerated responses are dangerous, because they lead to precipitate actions that could have long term consequences.

The fact of the matter is, the World Cup win was not an indication that we are a great side. For half the tournament, we played mediocre cricket, losing comfortably to South Africa, tying with a ragged England team, and eking out an ordinary win over the West Indies. In the process, we saw the limitations of the other sides as well. We already knew that the West Indies are no longer a great team, and we saw that reconfirmed. We already knew that South Africa choke spectacularly in big tournaments, but they exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations by crashing out against New Zealand in the quarter-finals, in spite of having what seemed to be their best side since 1999. (Would anyone have cared to be a South African then?). And we saw from England what we are seeing from India now – an exhausted, bedraggled side that had just come off their biggest imaginable high, a comprehensive series win in Australia, something they had been waiting for since 1986. Sure, players always try their best, but it was an England team that just didn’t have gas in their tank, physically or mentally. We are seeing a version of that from India this summer.

The one game in the World Cup when we played truly inspiring cricket was in the quarter-final against Australia. After that, the result in all honesty was a foregone conclusion. Pakistan was never going to have the batting strength or the mental strength to beat this Indian team once they had reached so far; Sri Lanka was a good team, but not a great one, and by the finals India had the confidence of a great team.

The reason India was playing like a champion by then was because they had peaked at exactly the right time – which is, again, what England has done this summer. (Just like India in the first half of the World Cup, England played fairly ordinary cricket in the first part of their summer against Sri Lanka, bar one sensational session in Cardiff). But peaking at the right time is not coincidence: it is the function of good preparation.

And this is where Nasser Hussein has been right all along, in his commentary throughout this series. The way in which India and England have prepared over the past few months shows clearly where their respective priorities lies. England has prioritized Test cricket, they have prepared for it as if they want to be the long term world number 1. For many in this Indian team, the World Cup was the ultimate prize, and once they won it, they were never given the time or the opportunity to savor it. That tournament would have taken an enormous amount out of the Indians, more mentally even than physically, and it has affected both those who have carried on through and played non-stop since, as well as those who took a break against the West Indies. The former just look drained, while the latter have come back looking undercooked. Of course, the IPL is the 800 pound gorilla in this room, and absolutely served to make matters worse.

This is not an excuse, but it also serves to put our performance in England in some perspective. Over the past 3-4 years, this is a team that has played so much cricket, that it has quite often played at 80%. Under Gary Kirsten’s stewardship, and helped by the fact that Australia was on the decline, England not quite there, and South Africa always inconsistent, 80% was often good enough over the course of an entire series. And this was combined with the ability to start series badly but then bounce back during the course of it.

However, by the end of the World Cup, we were playing at 100%, and I think nobody has an appreciation of how much that would have taken out of the players, especially over the course of a 6-week tournament and the pressures of playing at home. And it is just not possible, without a proper break and then a proper build-up, to start playing at even 80% again just a few weeks later. With England looking as fine-tuned and well-prepared and ready as they are, even 80% would not have been good enough. But the Indians have shown up at barely 50%, and it has been compounded by the absence of their key bowler and their key batsman (who, even when he showed up, was nowhere ready for international cricket). In such a situation, poor starts cannot be compensated for. The start of its series had its tight moments, and England was better at grabbing them. After that, a team at the top of its game just got better and better, while the other just slipped off the pole completely.

But this also serves to put things in perspective. Make no mistake: this England side is looking very, very good, and through 2011, in Tests, has played like a champion team. And it is a better team than the Indian team, man for man, even if the Indian team was at full strength, because of its unquestionably better bowling attack. But the difference is nowhere near as stark as what we have seen in this series.

For me, this England team is not the kind of team that the two great teams of the post-WW II era, the West Indies of the 1970s and 80s, and the Aussies of the last 10 years, have been. And there are two reasons for that. The first is that, at this point, this is an England side with a lot of good players; those other two teams were full of great players. The only player in this England side who has that touch of greatness to my mind is Kevin Pietersen. Broad may yet become a great bowler, but he’s not quite there yet. What they do have is a group of players that has all reached peak form at the same time (which again is not an accident but a function of good preparation); a relentlessly consistent group of people with extreme self-confidence in themselves; no weak links in the 11; and enormous depth outside of the 11. Even at their best, India only had the second of these four ingredients.

The second reason is that the trajectory of this team has not been as dominant as those of the truly great teams past. It would be hard to imagine the same group of players that made West Indies or Australia so great ever losing a series 5-0; yet that is what this England team did in 2007.

And that is what India can take heart from. What this England team has shown is the triumph of character, good preparation, good leadership, and some excellent selection choices. Of course, asking for some of these in the Indian context may be asking for too much. But it still means that some kind of turnaround is possible if the right measures are implemented. Hence the wish-list to come.

Finally, in this summary, let me elaborate upon this point of comparison to England with a historical parallel, because I think in many ways these two teams have developed in parallel trajectories. Both of these were for a very long time very ordinary teams with occasional sparks of talent. The turnaround started, in both cases, with two courageous captains, who also happen to be two of the best minds in the game, Nasser Hussein and Sourav Ganguly. (And what a joy it is to hear them give commentary together!). These two gave each of the sides the self-belief that they could compete with the best. In India’s case, that involved the big series win against the invincible Aussies in 2001, and the beginning of some serious limited-overs successes; but more than anything else, the belief that we could travel well and compete abroad.

Each of them handed the gauntlet over to someone who took the team to the next level: Hussein to Michael Vaughan, and Ganguly (eventually) to M.S. Dhoni. In each case, a fighting, feisty character gave way to a more flashy and flamboyant one. And the next level involved the respective teams being not just competitive, but climbing heights. And when they climbed those heights, they looked the best in the world. For England, the height was the 2005 Ashes win, at which point they looked, in some ways, even more impressive than now. Pietersen looked like he would scale every height in the game; in Flintoff, England had the best all-rounder in the world by some distance; and a seam attack of Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff and Simon Jones was better and more versatile than anything England even has today. For India, the height was the World Cup, at which point it did seem like they were the best team in the world. The batting line-up has always been formidable; and the bowling attack, while not as strong as that of the very best teams, was being beautifully orchestrated by Zaheer Khan and constantly punching above its weight.

Both teams also had their troughs, differently timed, and they were spectacular. India’s trough came between their two captains, during the dark Greg Chappell years, which saw the nadir of the 2007 World Cup debacle. Indeed, if Chappell had been allowed to entirely have his way, the likes of Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, and even Sehwag and Zaheer, would probably not have been playing for the past three years. England’s trough came first with the 2006-7 Ashes drubbing under Flintoff, and then the Pietersen-Moores debacle.

England has now reached the third stage. And that is learning to win consistently and ruthlessly. If stage 1 was competing with the best, and stage 2 was looking like the best, then stage 3 is about ruthlessly holding onto being the best. Even when India was world no. 1, they never had that ruthlessness about them. They always did their best when their backs were to the wall (early defeat in the series; having to bat 5 sessions to save a Test at Napier; 126 for 8 chasing 215 against Australia at Mohali; the chase against England at Chennai); or when someone lit a fire under them (the desire to win the World Cup; jelly beans; KP against Yuvraj; Australia, always). But they have always seemed lackadaisical against the lesser teams, and always happy to take the foot off the pedal when on top. The non-attempt to chase down the last 90 runs to win in Dominica is a case in point.

For England to reach that third stage, they needed a new process that was set in place after their 2007 Ashes debacle, and they needed new leadership, which took a couple of years to get right. The question is – will such processes be set in place for India, and is it time to look for a new leadership team, one that, like Strauss and Flower, combines ruthless determination with a dogged, persistent work ethic? I am not hopeful, but my future posts will suggest what might be necessary, in terms of planning and in terms of personnel, to make that happen.