PART 2: THE CORE FOUR: NEEDING MANAGEMENT
In the first part of this dossier, I made a case for simply savoring the Big Three rather than pushing them to retire. In the last few days, yet another voice has added to the chorus of phasing them out, Kapil Dev. His idea is that we take turns playing them, and allow more youngsters into the middle order. I will not dignify such stupidity with a response. However, coming from a man who thought that Ajit Agarkar was the Rolls Royce of Indian bowlers, this is not entirely surprising. Coming from a man who hung on to his place in the side for dear life just to overtake Richard Hadlee’s wickets record, thereby keeping a young and at the time far superior Javagal Srinath out of the team for over a year, though, it is a bit rich. Sourav Ganguly has responded with typical sanity, saying that the seniors should be allowed to retire on their own terms. As someone whose own international career ended at least a couple of years too soon because of this kind of idiotic sniping, he is far better qualified than Kapil to speak on such matters. Indeed, he is far better qualified than Kapil to speak on most cricketing matters.
The critical issue, however, is not managing the Big Three, even though all the pundits seem to be spending all their time thinking about them. It is, rather, about managing whom I would call the Core Four – Dhoni, Sehwag, Zaheer and Gambhir. This is because, as I have suggested in a previous post, these are the four who form the core leadership of Indian cricket at the moment. These are the four who took India to the top, and these are the four who collectively failed in our abysmal performance against England. These four are no longer youngsters, and two of them, Zak and Viru, have never been the fittest. And these four have been playing in all three formats, in addition to being central figures in the IPL, over the past years. N. Srinivasan, in announcing that nothing needed to be done in the aftermath of the England debacle, said that the players who are playing in all three formats are the ones who are not getting injured. No one took him to task on this blatant lie (or was it just blatant ignorance?), since three of the above four and Harbhajan were all injured and all play across three formats. In any case, this is unsustainable going forward, and it is critical that these four players are managed properly. This is hard to imagine, because Viru and Dhoni in particular are such marketable commodities, so the idea of dropping them for games is inconceivable to our unimaginative mandarins whose only interest is in killing their golden geese.
I think there are slight differences in these four situations though. Of these four, Gambhir has been the unluckiest. He should not have carried his niggles through the IPL, but the temptation to do so is always going to be there, and I lay the major blame at the door of administrators who think that injury management should be entirely left to players themselves. Other than that, the year that has just finished has been a litany of unfortunate injuries for Gambhir. He is the youngest of these four, immensely committed, and immensely fit. And for me, one of the most exciting moments of the year was when he captained India in the one-day series against New Zealand. Admittedly, New Zealand is not the toughest opposition. But Gambhir led with flair, aggression, and intelligence, and is clearly the long-term successor to Dhoni as India captain. Indeed, I think that in the long term, he is going to be our Andrew Strauss – the man who helps us recover from this mauling, and leads us back to the top of the game. He is committed, he has a ruthless streak about him, he is intensely professional. He needs to be made the full-time vice-captain, and we can only hope that the year ahead is less unlucky for him than the year gone by.
For Dhoni, England was a nightmare, as captain, as wicket-keeper, and for most of the series, as batsman. And I do think that keeping wickets and captaining across all three formats is taking its toll. At the best of times, the captaincy duration for most people is 5-6 years, so I think we are entering the latter stages of Dhoni’s captaincy. We also saw the dark side of Dhoni’s leadership – conservative captaincy, stubbornness and a refusal to change course when needed, some bizarre team selections.
Yet I am not willing to give up on him, as keeper, captain or batsman. As keeper, quite simply, there is no alternative to him. Dhoni himself is not a natural keeper, but, his fumbles in England notwithstanding, he is for the most part a safe keeper. His major competition comes from Parthiv Patel, who has improved his keeping, but who is hardly a natural keeper himself. Wriddhiman Saha probably has the best keeping skills in the country, but he is not even good enough to bat at no. 7 for India in Tests. I think we need a keeper who can always bat at 7, but who is good enough, potentially, to bat at 6 and allow us 5 bowlers. Dinesh Karthik, at one point, had both the keeping and the batting skills to push Dhoni, but both have imploded spectacularly in recent times.
As captain, Dhoni was never the best or most aggressive tactician. What he has always been good at is man management and bringing out the best in his team. These are the skills that allowed Dhoni to lead India to no. 1 in Tests and to a World Cup win, and these are not skills that you can lose overnight. Indeed, it is striking that even in the aftermath of the England debacle the dressing room basically looks tight and well-knit. Both Dhoni and his potential successor would be best served if Dhoni continues as captain. Dhoni deserves a chance to redeem himself, and certainly deserves a chance, after all he has achieved as captain, to attempt a series win in Australia, which is still very much our final frontier. Gambhir, who would be the obvious alternative to Dhoni, deserves a better situation to take over the team than the current post-England scenario.
As batsman, I think Dhoni has performed less well of late than he is capable of. But as he showed at various points in the latter stages of the England tour, and even more in the World Cup final, he has the ability to be a game-changer, and the ability to bring out his best in the toughest circumstances. Parthiv Patel is the best alternative to Dhoni as a keeper-batsman. And while he is a good batsman, he is not a match-winner, or a game changer, the way Dhoni is.
Therefore for me, Dhoni is still our best bet for the time being. But some concession has to be made to manage the amount of cricket he is playing. Certainly, at the very least, having the option of playing Parthiv in some one-day games as wicket-keeper (even if Dhoni plays simply as a batsman) would be important to contemplate. It would also be nice if Dhoni’s IPL and Champions League duties were considerably reduced, if at the very least someone else kept wicket or captained Chennai. But in the mercenary world of Indian cricket that is unlikely. And over time, we are likely to see Dhoni’s career shortened by a couple of years as a consequence. It is a shame that neither Dhoni nor his minders see this.
The cases of Sehwag and Zaheer are trickier, for three reasons. First, they are older, 32 and 33 respectively, and these are ages when many cricketers are reaching the twilights of their careers. Second, on both physical and mental counts, these two cricketers are likely not the sharpest. Physically, neither has ever been the fittest of cricketers. And mentally, both have played across three formats for the past few years, so in that sense, have entered their 30s on the backs of much more cricket than that played by the generation immediately senior to them. Third, both of these are irreplaceable cricketers. Dhoni and Gambhir are the best options for what they do, but in principle Dhoni can be replaced by Parthiv, and there are young openers who can potentially do the job at the top of the order, even if they have a long way to go to be finished products as international cricketers. However, no one in world cricket can bat like Viru, and the momentum and psychological pressure he creates at the top of the order, especially in Tests, is unparalleled. And there is no bowler in India, and very few in the world, who have the sheer skill and craft with the new ball that Zak does. Zak has been much more than our lead strike bowler for the past four years; he has been our bowling captain. We saw in England how toothless our team looks without these two.
Yet, the difficult thing to come to terms with is that we must now be prepared to play without them. We can do so in one of two ways. We can either follow the current chalta hai attitude of the selectors, which is drop them when they are injured, select them when they declare themselves fit, play them without any match preparation whatsoever in all formats, and have them be injured again. This will ensure that they are unavailable when the team really needs them, and will also shorten their careers by a couple of years. Or we can take some tough calls on them now, manage them properly, and try and prolong their involvement with Indian cricket for as long as possible. Of course, the whole purpose of this dossier is to argue for the latter course.
How they need to be managed is different, because the problem is different in each case. In Zak’s case, there is absolutely no dilution of skill, the problem is purely one of fitness. The problem is, when a fast bowler breaks down at 33, recovery tends to be sporadic at best, and possibly unlikely: just ask Brett Lee and Andrew Flintoff as two recent examples. And, unlike a batsman, a fast bowler in a Test match has to be in the field and capable of bowling across two innings. A less than fully fit Viru can still make 150 off 150 balls, which means effectively that his active role in a Test match could be restricted to 30 or 35 overs in a 450 over game, and he could still be a game changer. Zak, potentially, could have to bowl twice as much as that himself if the opposition is making runs, while also remaining on the field and playing a leadership role. If he is not at a 100% match fitness, which is much more than simply submitting a fitness certificate, then however good a bowler he is, he will be a liability to the team.
This is why, for all practical purposes, I do see Zak’s Test career as more or less at an end. This injury alone is slated to take 16 weeks to heal. That means end-November before he starts bowling again. The Melbourne Test starts on Boxing Day. This means that even if his recovery goes to plan, he will at best be ready to play just in time for the Australia series, and will at best have a warm-up game or maybe two before the First Test there. This is an identical situation to that which led to his breakdown in England. (And let us remember, he broke down in Melbourne the last time we were in Australia too). Even if he plays in Melbourne, grounds in Australia are harder than in England and will take more of a toll on his legs; outfields are larger and will involve more running around in the field. If Dhoni was open to playing 5 bowlers, then at least we could play Zak with an extra bowler as insurance. But if his stubborn insistence on 4 bowlers continues, then playing Zak would be a huge gamble, and there would be no point whining afterwards about bad luck.
All told, I see Zak’s international future now as being only in limited overs. That is tragic, and hopefully with proper recovery time and a rehabilitation program, he could still play a role for India in Tests in the future. But there is no responsible way in which he can be a part of our plans for Australia. Of course, there is no chance that we will be responsible about this; but if we really do have any planning or thinking in relation to player-management, then we should recognize that the time to stop counting on Zak as the leader of our attack has ended. We need someone else to step up to the plate and take on that role if we are to make our way back up the world ladder.
The case of Viru is trickier, and I think the solution that is demanded is the opposite. As an opening batsman, Viru’s involvement in any particular game needs to be more limited than that of a frontline bowler, so what fitness means in his case has to be different. But he too needs management if we are not to run his career into the ground in the next year or two.
In his case, the peculiarity is that even though his game has always seemed more suited to limited overs, he has been a much better Test batsman. Indeed, his limited overs performances have been distinctly average in comparison, and there are many other potential openers for India in the shorter forms of the game: Gambhir, Sachin, Rahane and Parthiv, just from those who are part of the current set-up. In that sense, while Viru is potentially irreplaceable as a Test opener, he is certainly replaceable as a limited-overs opener. He is unlikely, at 36, to be a part of the 2015 World Cup, and with Sachin’s international career also likely to last another couple of years at most, this is a good time to groom the likes of Rahane and Parthiv rather than persist with Sehwag. Of course, he is such a marketable commodity that this will never happen. But I think that restricting Viru to Tests is one of the most important decisions that need to be made.
If only it were that simple, however. I have no argument with Viru’s genius and game-changing abilities. But after a simply stellar couple of years from 2008-10, his performances even in Tests over the past year have taken a distinct dip. If the home series against New Zealand is taken out (when he made 173, which has also been his only 100 this past year), Viru’s Test average is a mere 25. That is as bad as during his dark days of 2006-7 which led to him being dropped from the side. Hopefully this is just a temporary loss of form. But combined with a long lay-off due to injury, this does make me worry about him in Australia. The last time we were in Australia, Viru came into the side struggling against the bowling of Himachal Pradesh, and went on to make big 100s against Lee and company. So his ability to confound the logics of form remains. Yet is a less than fully fit, out of form Viru really a better bet than, say, an in-form Ajinkya Rahane who made a fistful of runs in Australia in the Emerging Players tournament and therefore has a recent feel for conditions there? I don’t know. Might there be a case, for instance, for having Gambhir and Rahane open and have Viru come down the order at 6 as he feels his way back into Test cricket?
All of these questions can only be answered closer to the time. The point however is that a fully-firing Viru is critical to India’s Test match fortunes. And as he enters his mid-30s, having him fire fully is going to require more management, more intelligence and more flexibility than the Indian cricket establishment and team management is likely to show.
As we enter the new season, two of the core four are out of the side with injury and in their 30s, and Dhoni for all of his superhuman lack of emotion seems exhausted. Unless we can get them to play at their best whenever they play for India, any chance of a revival is dead in the water. This, much more than making prophecies about the seniors, is the critical issue facing Indian cricket today.
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