Indian cricket at the crossroads, Part 2

PART 2: TWO WORRIES AND A WISH LIST

In the first part of this post, I suggested that in spite of this debacle, India has the possibility of turning things around with the right mindset, but more importantly with proper planning and proper personnel. In this post, I am going to mention the two things that I am most worried about, and then write a wish list of five things that I would like to see happen. I don’t think any of them is likely to happen, which is why I don’t feel optimistic about the future.

My two biggest worries are based on conventional wisdom that I have heard floating about. The first is the same knee-jerk reaction we have heard pretty much since 2005 whenever things have not gone right for India, which is “it is time to get rid of the seniors”. Given that Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman still form the core of India’s batting order, this has to rank about one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life. One cannot say enough good things about how Dravid has played in England, though I will try in a subsequent post. It’s true that Sachin and Laxman haven’t really gotten going. But Sachin has been playing some of his best cricket in the past couple of years, and surely has done enough over his career to be entitled to one poor series. Are we really so perverse that we want to see this glorious career come to an end sooner than it needs to? Laxman, meanwhile, with his technique, is always going to struggle against the moving ball in swing friendly conditions, and it is reflected in his ordinary records in England and New Zealand. But in the past season alone, he has single-handedly won or saved us 5 Test matches, and with a series against Australia in prospect, surely axing him should be inconceivable.

What I don’t understand is why this tired refrain about the seniors keeps popping its head up when it is clear that the quality of those who would replace them doesn’t stand scrutiny. So what, the solution is to let Suresh Raina lead the middle order? Laxman’s “poor” series has fetched him 182 runs. Raina has managed 105, of which 78 came in the second innings at Lord’s, and only 27 in 7 other innings. How has the presence of the seniors hampered his chances? If he cannot make runs in spite of having the cushion of some of the greatest batsmen the game has ever known, how is he suddenly going to be the solution to India’s problems when surrounded by a bunch of untried and untested batsmen? The “let’s get rid of the seniors” refrain is specious and tedious. But there is always the danger, after a series like this, that it will be acted upon, if nothing else in an attempt to show that something is being done. And that will be a disaster.

The second specious argument is “we are struggling because we don’t have a genuine fast bowler”. Sure, it would be nice to have someone who can move the ball around in the high 140s, but there are at least three simple, empirical reasons why this is a rubbish argument. The first is that our best bowler by far in both England and the West Indies has been Praveen Kumar, who rarely gets into the 130s. When fit, our best bowler is Zaheer, who is hardly a speed demon. Generally, international batsmen know how to negotiate pace, but even the best batsmen struggle against good swing bowling. And indeed, the genuinely quick bowlers who tend to be most successful are the ones, like Dale Steyn, who can swing it. Even the English bowlers, in this series, have not been genuinely quick. Broad and Bresnan can both hit 140 when they like, but all of them have tended to keep it in the high 130s. It is not pace that has rolled us over.

The second reason is that in the search for the next great fast bowling hope, we have put our faith in some rubbish bowlers who have just not been international standard, just because they have bowled some fast spells in domestic cricket. The fact that Umesh Yadav has been in a Test touring party before Praveen Kumar ought to be a major scandal; yet that is what our pace-obsessed mentality has given us. Before him, our last great hope was a certain VRV Singh, who, within 5 years of being hailed as India’s next great fast bowler, finds himself unable to break into Punjab’s Ranji Trophy side. Even Munaf Patel, who was brought into the side because of a reputation for pace, has actually become an effective bowler once he has developed the basic skills of line and length.

The third reason is that we do have bowlers who can bowl fast. Ishant Sharma was matching Dale Steyn’s speed in the IPL, consistently hitting the mid-140s. Even Zak, when in rhythm, can bowl in the high 130s. But you cannot bowl fast if you are not managed well. Ishant has bowled something in the vicinity of 170-180 overs in this series, and it has come on the back of a 3-Test series in the West Indies. If Ishant is treated like a strike bowler, he will bowl fast. But if he is made to bear the burden of a stock bowler, how can he be expected to also keep hitting the high-140s? And then the idiots will shout from their armchairs about how Ishant’s pace has dropped off. And the next great fast bowling hope will be brought in. The latest exhibit is Varun Aaron, who has absolutely nothing to show in terms of tangible first class results upon which to base his selection. But, like Umesh Yadav before him, he bowled some quick 4-over spells in the IPL. The combination of this silly belief that somehow to be a great cricketing power we need a genuine fast bowler, along with the belief that bowling fast in 4 over spells will translate into a bowler who can do the job over 40, is one of the ills plaguing Indian cricket. Let us realize that our strength is in swing, and look for the best, the strongest, the most consistent swing bowlers that we have. And we need to manage the bowlers that we do have, so that they bowl at their quickest, and their best, whenever they play for India. I would take a Praveen Kumar over an Umesh Yadav any day.

Now that I have these two quibbles off my chest, here is my wish list.

WISH 1: Sack the entire leadership of the BCCI, and replace them with people who know and care about the sport, not simply about making money. At the very least, devise mechanisms at the governmental level to hold them accountable.

Chances of it happening: 0/10

Cricket administrators ought to care at least some about cricket. The BCCI has turned completely into a money-making machine, no more, no less. This is bad for Indian cricket, as money-spinners like IPL are put ahead of the interests of the national team. How can our cricketers be properly managed when, at the end of a long summer of cricket, Dhoni has to head straight off to lead Chennai in the Champions League? How is the Board going to regulate that when its head is also the owner of that very same Chennai team? How can a Board that does not recognize basic principles of conflict of interest be anything other than a corrupt organization? Corruption is not just about money exchanging hands; it is about doing anything that compromises the integrity of what you are tasked with doing. Of course, how will this government possibly do anything to regulate or combat corruption? People that it depends on are after all in positions of power in the Indian and global cricket administration.

The BCCI is not just bad for Indian cricket, it is bad for the sport, period. The way the BCCI handles media contracts, the way it bullies other boards to toe its line, none of that is good for the development of the game. The only hope, potentially, is that over the next few years some players of integrity will get into the administration of the game. There are some positive signs of that in Karnataka, with Kumble, Srinath and Prasad getting into administration. But there are equally depressing signs in Mumbai, where Vilas Rao Deshmukh, the man whose claim to fame was having 26/11 happen on his watch, beat Dilip Vengsarkar in an election to head the Mumbai Cricket Association. Ultimately, players of integrity will never be allowed too much power in the administrative set-up. The BCCI itself is a pure oligarchy, one with powerful ties to politicians and the state, and equally powerful ties to the leading industrialists in the country through IPL. As an organization of governance, such oligarchies represent the worst form of tyrannical self-interest. Somehow, over the long term, the BCCI must be opposed. But in the medium term, the best hope is that the likes of Kumble will be allowed enough leeway to do some good, at least at the state and grassroots levels of the game.

WISH 2: Have a new selection committee, and make it accountable.

Chances of it happening: 2/10

There will be a new selection committee, since this committee’s 4 year term comes to an end. And not a moment too soon. But whether the new committee will be any better is an open question. Selectors are now professional: they get paid. Yet they are still unaccountable. After failures in a series, players can be dropped. Yet who will hold Srikkanth and co. responsible for their errors? For plucking R.P. Singh out of holiday on a whim and a prayer, because four years ago he had bowled well in England? For thinking of Umesh Yadav as a Test bowler before Praveen Kumar? For selecting a patently unfit Sehwag for this tour, knowing that he would miss the first two Tests, and yet not providing a back-up opener for that part of the tour, so that we were left without a regular opener in Trent Bridge once Gambhir was injured?

I do have a wish-list for an ideal selection committee to replace the Srikkanth committee. Earlier, there was a hope that the zonal system would be done away with and replaced by a three-man committee that simply selects the best players. The way the politics of cricket administration happens, this will never happen, and in any case of late there have generally been fewer players getting into the side purely to fill a zonal quota. So let us just assume that the zonal system will persist for now. If so, there are potential players of integrity who could and should constitute the next selection committee. My committee would be:

1. Mohinder Amarnath (North Zone, Chairman): The man who once called the Indian selectors a bunch of jokers knows a thing or two about being on the wrong end of the stick. He is a serious, low profile, committed man, in every way the opposite of Srikkanth. He has wanted to be India’s coach. I am not sure that he has the credentials for that in today’s hyper-professional environment, but I think he would make an excellent chairman of selectors. More than anything, he is someone who will go beyond surface appearances and value temperament and commitment, two qualities he always had in abundance as a player.
2. Lalchand Rajput (West Zone): One of the unsung heroes in India’s rise to the top. He was the man left with the unenviable task of picking up the pieces from Chappell’s reign as coach, and the 2007 World Cup debacle. And he did so in a quiet, low-profile manner reminiscent of the man who would succeed him with such success. Rajput is not a high-profile player like Gavaskar or Shastri, and he is not the man the media will go to for sound-bites. But he has coached India A teams in the past, knows a thing or two about what is happening in domestic cricket, and deserves a role in Indian cricket.
3. Sanjay Jagdale (Central Zone): He was one of John Wright’s favorites, a man who has always had the interests of Indian cricket at heart. He was a selector during the Ganguly-Wright era, and is by far the most qualified person from Central Zone to be a selector now. There aren’t too many former players of great caliber from Central; Jagdale, however, is one of the few administrators in the country who combines experience and integrity.
4. Dilip Doshi (East Zone): As with Central Zone, East Zone doesn’t have too many high quality former players to offer up as possible selectors. Sourav Ganguly is the one who fits the bill, but he won’t be eligible to be a selector until 2013, when he is five years out of international cricket. This has led to such luminaries as Raja Venkat, Ranjib Biswal and Sambaran Bannerjee serving as national selectors; all of them seem to have done little more than plump for the obligatory East Zone player to be in a touring party to warm the benches. Just in terms of cricketing credentials, Doshi fits the bill. And like the others on this list, he is a low profile person. He himself had to wait until he was 32 to break into the Indian team. And given the paucity of quality spin bowlers in Indian cricket today, having someone who can identify and help nurture the spin talent that exists would be important. In his playing days, Doshi had an uneasy relationship with Sunil Gavaskar. Gavaskar is one of the kingmakers in Indian cricket today, someone who wields enormous influence through the media but who has done little or nothing to actually develop the game in the country. But hopefully, in spite of that, Doshi could be given a role to play.
5. Venkatesh Prasad (South Zone): Like Rajput, Prasad was treated badly by the Board, unceremoniously axed as bowling coach in spite of doing the job with tremendous integrity and commitment. Given that, it is unlikely he will be appointed a selector, but I hope he will. We need someone who can identify fast bowling talent on the committee, and Prasad has worked with most of the current crop and knows their strengths and weaknesses, as well as how best to manage them in terms of breaks, rotation, and so on. And he shares the baseline attributes that all selectors should have, and that everyone on this list does: enormous commitment, a low profile, and personal integrity.

WISH 3: Figure out a way to integrate IPL and T20 into strengthening the domestic structure rather than competing with it.

Chances of it happening: 3/10

I think that the IPL is the single biggest reason for India’s declining fortunes in the game, for a number of reasons. First, and most immediately, the timing of this year’s tournament was such that it did not allow players time to recover from the World Cup, and did not allow them to be properly prepared for the Tests that followed. And it led directly to Gambhir, Sehwag and Zaheer breaking down and missing the international cricket that followed. The players have to be blamed in part: Gambhir and Sehwag in particular were already less than 100% fit going into the IPL, and they should have attended to their fitness straight away rather than play. But the players cannot be held entirely responsible, and playing or not playing in the IPL cannot be left entirely to players’ discretion. This was a collective failure of planning and responsibility, on the part of the players and those whose job should be to manage them so that they are always in the best shape possible to play for India.

But more generally, the IPL is proving to be the bane of Indian cricket. This is because it is skewing the incentive structures completely so that it just doesn’t make sense for aspiring players to go through the hard grind of domestic cricket with little reward when they can make five to six times as much money playing 6 weeks of IPL a year. This is a point that Aakash Chopra has been harping on for a long time. The incentives are not just financial, but are also about credit and attention. Saurabh Tiwary put it succinctly when he said that he gets more recognition for making a quick 20 for the Mumbai Indians than he does for scoring 500 runs for Jharkhand over the course of an entire domestic season. One can already see the consequences of this, and R.P. Singh is Exhibit A. This is someone who could and should have been ready to succeed Zaheer Khan as India’s next strike bowler. But the IPL has provided him the lazy way out and he has taken it. But the real consequences will be seen in the next generation, when kids out of school will be coming into a system where the grassroots is constituted by T20 cricket and T20 skills. Not to mention T20 incentives. That is not a system that is conducive to producing good Test players. We are seeing this in Australia as well, and India will not be far behind. The long-term consequences of this will be devastating.

Personally, I would like to do away with the IPL altogether, and I think such a crass commercialization of the sport is just harmful for the game, full stop. But I know that won’t happen. There is too much money and power that is invested for too many people; and if the IPL ends in India, then some other similar creature will occupy the space that it has vacated in some other country. There have already been attempts, through the Allen Stanford fiasco in England, the Big Bash League in Australia, and the Sri Lankan Premier League. One of those, or something in their image, will take hold even if the IPL doesn’t exist. And players will flock to where the money is.

At the moment, therefore, the IPL is competing with domestic cricket, which, for all its shortcomings, still provides the best feeder mechanism for international cricketers. And this is in large measure because it was never a tournament that was planned with vision; it was certainly not integrated into any larger vision for Indian cricket. It was, purely and simply, a spiteful counter to the ICL, and has grown into a beast of gigantic proportions, fed by the greed and megalomania of those who promote it in the BCCI, amongst the owners, and in the media. Given that it is a beast we have to deal with, the question is: can franchise-based cricket be creatively reconceived so that it actually feeds into the development of the domestic game rather than counter to it? Can the corporates play a positive role in developing all forms of the game in India rather than just the T20 version? I have a suggestion of how it can be done, but I am going to reserve that to an entire post on its own. For now, the wish is just that somehow, the beast that is the IPL gets regulated and tamed into some kind of structure that can actually serve to develop the game in the country, and that can actually serve to identify and nurture talent.

WISH 4: Change the coach, now.

Chances of it happening: 0/10

It is a little unfair to blame Duncan Fletcher for India’s debacle, and I wouldn’t go quite as far as to do that. But nonetheless, not many people would boast a resume that has two whitewashes on it, and I do think that for the good of Indian cricket, we should terminate Fletcher’s contract, pay him whatever is due, and send him on his way. Maybe if he coaches Australia next it will give us a chance Down Under this winter!

Jokes apart, there are three reasons why I think we need a new coach. The first, simply, is that I do think we need a new leadership structure after a defeat as comprehensive as this, and I think it needs to be one, as mentioned in my previous post, which can provide India with the ruthlessness to maintain pole position in world cricket. Fletcher, even in his best days as England coach, did not do that, and to recover from a hiding like this with the same leadership structure is not going to be easy.

Second, Fletcher’s biggest credential seems to be his ability to work with young batsmen to iron out deficiencies in their technique. This is the USP that he comes with and that has been written up. The imagination therefore is that this is someone who will nurture the younger generation, the likes of Raina and Rohit, and make them technically ready to fill the boots of the Big Three when they retire. I think that is a specious hope. Coaches of international teams should not be teaching people the technical aspects of the game; at best, they should be fine-tuning and putting the finishing touches on them. The best coaches – the likes of Gary Kirsten, Andy Flower and John Wright – have instead been man-managers. They have been able to bring out the best in each individual; they have managed to get individuals to gel together as a team; and they have instilled mental toughness into players and into units. If a young Indian batsman needs Duncan Fletcher to teach him how to bat, then that person shouldn’t be playing international cricket. If Fletcher’s job is primarily on the technical side, then he should be a specialist batting coach, like Graham Gooch is for England. The job of a Head Coach has to be much bigger than that. In any case, on Fletcher’s watch, Ian Bell remained like Rohit Sharma is for India: pretty but insubstantial. It is under Flower and Gooch that the likes of Bell and Cook have matured into the batsmen of substance that they are now.

And third, and most crucially, there was one defining attribute that marked both Wright and Kirsten as coaches. And that is that their own commitment has gone beyond simply fulfilling their duties as professionals: while they were coach, the Indian cricket team was their team. You see that kind of whole-hearted identification in the relationship that Andy Flower has with the England team as well. I don’t see that kind of passion and identification coming from Fletcher. When India lost, Wright and Kirsten took it personally. Winning the World Cup was clearly as important for Kirsten as it was for any of the players. Some of that passion and commitment came from the kind of people that Wright and Kirsten are; some of it comes from the rapport they were able to establish with the team, which is always intangible and hard to predict in advance. But some of it was also because this wasn’t just another job for them, it was their first time coaching an international team. They had as much to prove as the players did; and in both cases, they were striving to achieve something with India that they had not managed to achieve with their own teams in their playing days, in spite of being fine cricketers in their own right. We need a coach who needs those wins as badly, or worse, than his players do; not just someone who can teach them how to play, but someone who can pull them out of their comfort zone while making them secure and putting them at ease.

I have an idea for who such an ideal coach would be. I think we have a clear sense of what the attributes are to make a successful Indian coach. I do think it needs to be a foreign coach. This is not because Indians can’t do the job – someone like Rajput was an excellent coach – but because they won’t be allowed to. It is not just the powers-that-be who will pull them down, but the snipers, the likes of Gavaskar and Shastri, who like power without responsibility and like being the top dogs and kingmakers of Indian cricket, who won’t allow one of their own, especially one less glamorous and media-savvy, to get away with actually running things his way. Some day, a Kumble or a Ganguly might have the moral authority to maneuver through that and coach an Indian team; but that day will have to be in the future, after their own contemporaries retire from the game. For now, we have to look elsewhere.

Other attributes include: he does need to be a former player. This is going to be the coach of an extremely talented and accomplished bunch of individuals, and I don’t think that in our set-up, someone who is just a professional coach will earn the respect that a coach needs to have. If you are going to tell Virendra Sehwag what to do, it helps if you have scored 5000 runs in Test cricket yourself. This doesn’t mean the coach has to be a former great; indeed, as we saw with Chappell, that itself could be counter-productive. But it does rule out the good, professional coaches that dot the domestic circuit around the world, the likes of Tim Lamb, Dave Nosworthy, Greg Shipperd, Richard Pybus or even Dav Whatmore. Also, the coach needs to be low-profile, a back room person, someone who lets the captain lead on the field and who lets the players do the talking with their game. We don’t need a coach who comes up with clever strategies and tactics: that should be the captain’s job. This, for me, rules out Shane Warne, whose name did the rounds after the early wonders he worked with the Rajasthan Royals, or Martin Crowe: both too high profile, too opinionated, too likely to get in the way of the team rather than creating the conditions for the team to flower. Dour opener from the Southern hemisphere (but probably not Australia), who has achieved a substantial amount in international cricket (but who is not an all-time great), who can command the respect of the team but who is young enough to understand and relate to them, who can respect the seniors but who can also oversee the transition to the next generation when the time comes, who will demand his autonomy but not threaten the powers-that-be in Indian cricket, and who has ideally never coached a national team before, who will want India to win with all his heart and put every fiber of his being into making that happen. That’s the job description.

Who fits the bill? One person whose name has been doing the rounds is Stephen Fleming, and he would tick most of these boxes (except the dour opener part, but that’s okay). He already enjoys a rapport with Dhoni through coaching Chennai. I’d be happy with him, but that rapport, in fact, is what would give me the biggest pause. I do think (as @buriedatsea has also pointed out in his comment) that at some point, part of the transition that might have to happen is of the captain – if not this year, then within the next couple of years. And in that sense, having a coach who is already close to the current captain can create some difficulties. The coach has to be someone who can work with Dhoni, but who can also forge a new, independent relationship with whoever comes after Dhoni as captain. (Who that should be is obvious – Gambhir. When that should be will be the subject of a future post).

Therefore, my wish for the man who should immediately be appointed as a replacement to Duncan Fletcher, for a three-year term that extends through the next series in England in 2014 is: Grant Flower. He fits the bill perfectly. Some of his attributes – his brilliant fielding, and excellent fitness – would be usefully transmitted to the Indians. He has played a number of years in English county cricket, including as captain of Essex, so knows a thing or two about both leadership and professionalism. He has also taken up coaching full time, currently serving as batting coach to the Zimbabwean side. An India job would be a terrific challenge and opportunity for him, and the prospect of sibling rivalry will add wonderful spice to the revenge series against England at home in 2013, and then in England in 2014.

I don’t think Fletcher will be terminated, and I think this tenure will run its course until it runs aground and a fresh start has to be made. But this is my wish list, so I can wish for whatever I think will be best for Indian cricket, and at this moment, Grant Flower is part of that list.

WISH 5: Come up with a consistent selection policy that values temperament and performance as much as flair and reputation.

Chances of that happening: 1/10

Let me make a simple assertion: and this is that if Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Chris Tremlett were Indians, none of them would be in the Indian cricket team. This is because none of the three are bountifully talented individuals; all of them have come up the hard way, through grit, perseverance and constant improvement. They are not pretty cricketers. In India, we value prettiness over ruthlessness, consistency and effectiveness. That is one of the things that must change.

Cook is a modern-day run machine. But he wasn’t born that way. In fact, he didn’t even enter international cricket that way. In his early years, he had two distinct weaknesses. One was his tendency to fall over while playing the in-swinger, which made him an lbw candidate. The second was a weakness against the out-swinger. We are not talking about shortcomings against spin, or something unfamiliar: this is an opener who had grown up in conditions that favored swing bowling, who was weak against the in-swinger and the out-swinger. Good swing bowling would find him out; it was pace and bounce that he could tackle. And this wasn’t a one-series weakness: as late as 2007, a year-and-a-half after his international debut, Zaheer was working him out on these flaws.

In that sense, to me, Cook is no different than Abhinav Mukund. Mukund has some technical flaws, notably a tendency to push at balls rather than defend with soft hands, which makes him vulnerable when the ball swings at pace. But that is something that can be ironed out. Also, like Cook, he is not pretty. But he has temperament, and he has shown a hunger for runs at an early age. Had he been British, he would have identified as the future of England batting, and he would have been nurtured. Here, he will probably be dropped without a trace, and we will carry on an impossible search for the next Sehwag.

Similarly, Trott is an ugly, limited batsman. But he is bloody-minded and tenacious, and has an insatiable appetite for runs. In my mind, he is no different really than Subramanian Badrinath. The only thing the England selectors care about is Trott’s appetite. But Badri has been discarded, without a fair run, because it is believed that he lacks an “X-factor”, which apparently the likes of Raina and Rohit Sharma have. That X-factor, of course, is nothing other than prettiness, or the ability to hit big sixes in a T20 game. But Badri has the biggest appetite for runs of anyone amongst the younger lot, as he has shown year after year after year on the domestic circuit. Still, he doesn’t make the cut.

And what was Chris Tremlett in 2007? He was simply a relatively good county bowler who seemed distinctly ordinary when bowling to the likes of Tendulkar, but with a good build for a fast bowler. In fact, no different really than Pankaj Singh, who was the best fast bowler in the Ranji Trophy this year, but was not even rewarded with a tour to Australia with the Emerging Players side.

I am not saying that selecting Mukund, Badri and Pankaj will turn India into a great side. All I am saying is that one of the factors behind England’s success has involved following a consistent selection policy that has a few, basic common-sense attributes, such as:

1. Stick to a player when you give him a chance at the international level; don’t drop him until he has had a chance to fail;
2. Pick players based on performance, not based on whether they are pretty. Occasionally, there might be an incredibly talented individual whom you want to give a longer rope to (such as, say, Rohit Sharma). But those longer ropes should be the exception rather than the rule, and it should not be at the expense of someone who might have less talent but more hunger and better temperament;
3. Always have a succession plan in place. If there are 16 people on tour, it should be clear who will be backing people up in case of injury. It would be inconceivable for England to be in a situation that India has been in with its fast bowlers over the last year: first selecting Abhimanyu Mithun to go to Sri Lanka, then dropping him in spite of a fine performance on debut on heartless pitches, then taking Umesh Yadav and Jaidev Unadkat to South Africa, then dropping them when they were found out, then recalling Mithun as an SOS mid-way through the West Indies tour, having him play a decent game, then dropping him, then running around looking for who was available and finally plucking R.P. Singh out of a holiday in Miami to throw him into a game at the Oval, all the while having Munaf Patel on tour to play official water-boy. That is not a lack of talent or depth; that is ludicrous selection. From people who are being paid a lot of money to do this as a full-time job;
4. Monitor the people who are selected, and also those who are contracted. Nasser Hussein emphasized this constantly, and it is not that hard to institute: everything that any contracted England player does is monitored, whether he is playing with the national team, or county cricket, or on off-season. Every ball that an England bowler bowls, in any format of the game, or even in the nets, is clocked. So that when a player plays for England, he is optimally prepared and optimally fit. In the process, some people will get injured; that is the nature of the job, cricket is a demanding sport, and some bodies are better made to withstand the strain put on them than others. But a player should not be unavailable because the right preparation hasn’t been made. And finally:
5. On a big tour, make sure there is a parallel A team playing somewhere, from where replacements who have been in match situations recently can be called in. At the end of each English summer, an England team is announced for the winter, as is an England Lions team. If someone breaks down on tour, there is someone else who is game-ready who can replace him. For all the talk on squeezing in an extra tour game in Australia, I have not heard a single mention of sending an India A team to tour New Zealand simultaneously. Why not? How difficult would that be? How easy would it be for a person already playing a few hundred miles away in similar conditions to fill in for someone who might get injured on tour? It would be easy to judge who is in form and who isn’t; it would be easy to judge the best replacements at any given moment. Why hasn’t anyone thought of something so basic?

If the new selection committee has some of the people I have suggested, this may happen. But what worries me is that even the so-called experts in the media don’t value some of the basics I have just outlined above. A few months ago, Harsha Bhogle wrote a list of who he saw as the younger generation of batsmen who would replace the Big 3. Badri was not on that list, even though he was at that very moment in the process of yet again becoming the highest domestic run-getter of the season. Sourav Ganguly, who is someone I have enormous respect for, was discussing young fast bowling options on commentary. He mentioned Mithun and Varun Aaron, but nowhere was Pankaj Singh mentioned. I can understand him not being an automatic selection to the Indian side – but not having him be part of the Emerging Players side is nothing short of scandalous.

There is a basic difference between India and England. In India, we look for 11 superstars. When we are lucky, we get a team that has 6 or 7 of them. And we assume that they will do the job, even if the no. 6 is weak, even if there is no adequate back-up opener or keeper, even if there is no good third seamer to back up the new-ball bowlers, even if there is no preparation or tour matches, we assume that the genius of the superstars will see us through. England, on the other hand, looks for 11 players. In this line-up, only Pietersen, and to varying extents Broad, Swann and Bell, can even lay claim to something approaching superstar status. But everyone has earned his place, everyone is maximally prepared, and everyone has a roll to play. Unless our selection process is instituted on those lines, we will continue sliding downwards.

These, then, are my wishes. My future posts will elaborate on the domestic structure that I would like to see, and then I will write up my dossier of Indian players.