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Why Laxman is integral to the future of Indian cricket

2012-01-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

By this time, I am only watching the series in Australia out of masochistic impulse. This is without a doubt the worst cricket I have seen India play in the 30 years I have been following the game. In the maulings of the late 80s and early 90s, there were silver linings (Manjrekar standing up to the West Indian quicks in 1989; a young Tendulkar’s stunning early hundreds in adversity in Old Trafford and Perth; and so on). In 1999, we could take solace in the fact that we were beaten by a far superior Australian side, one that was about to embark on its record-breaking 16-consecutive Test win streak. In England this summer, we hid behind injuries as an excuse, and at least had Dravid’s batting to savor. None of those excuses apply here. The first 11 has retained full fitness throughout the first three Tests; it is Australia that has had to do without their key all-rounder throughout, and in Perth, their main strike bowler. There is not a single century to show for our batting efforts, even though each of the top 7 batsmen has reached 50 at least once. (Also, in most cases, only once). And, what hurts the most, we are not up against an exceptional Australian side, but a brittle one. This is a side that has been bowled out for 100 thrice in the last year, including by Pakistan, which is hardly a world champion side at the moment. It is a side that was coming off a home defeat against New Zealand. It is a side where, arguably, only Michael Clarke and Peter Siddle were fixtures going into the series. A side that contained three aging players – Ponting, Hussey and Haddin – fighting for their careers; one player (Hilfenhaus) making a comeback after having been mauled by England the last time he played Test cricket; and a bunch of youngsters, some of whom had already shown promise, but all of whom were yet to establish themselves. If you matched up the teams on paper, the series should have, at this stage, been 2-1 in one direction or another, with everything to play for in Adelaide.

But what depresses me is not the abysmal performance on the field. We have been outthought and outplayed by a team that has played better cricket, led by a captain who has been tactically brilliant and inspirational as a batsman, with five quick bowlers who have been unrelenting, fast, capable of moving the ball, and always coming at the Indians. Throughout the series, even on the rare occasions when partnerships have been built, a wicket has always seemed just a ball away. So let’s face it – the better team won.

What depresses me rather is the response to this win – within certain quarters of the team, amongst those who should be taking responsibility for the defeat, amongst the so-called pundits who ought to know better, and throughout the media. Because really, the only, single, tangible thing that I have heard as a solution to this defeat is – it is time for V.V.S. Laxman’s career to end, and for Rohit Sharma to take his place. Even Sidharth Monga, a cricinfo journalist whom I have great respect for, has written his obituary to Laxman’s career, as an immediate response to the second innings debacle at Perth. Even though, in that very innings, there were failures from Gambhir, Sehwag, Tendulkar and Dhoni as well, with Sehwag’s and Dhoni’s innings being particularly abject.

There are two reasons why such a response is so depressing. The first is – it does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental structural issues that we are facing. We have not lost in Australia (or England) because Laxman failed. We lost because of poor captaincy; because our openers have failed to give us starts; because our bowling has lacked depth, and even when the bowlers have punched above their weights, they have not had enough backing from the captain; because our tail has effectively started at number 7, with the exception of the occasional contribution from Ravi Ashwin; and because of the absolute lack of accountability that permeates our cricketing culture.

Dhoni has claimed that “he is to blame”, and then immediately has the temerity to talk about phasing out the seniors. Srikkanth’s only intervention, first after Sydney and then after Perth, is “it’s not my fault, I picked the best team”. (The idea that Vinay Kumar could be part of a “best team” is laughable, when the likes of Irfan Pathan and Ashok Dinda are sitting at home, raking in wickets by the bucketful). And Duncan Fletcher, whose claim to fame is his ability to improve the techniques of young batsmen, has not a word to say when the techniques of even our established batsmen have been exposed by the moving ball; but he continues to draw his fat pay check. It is all very well to say that the youngsters need time, or that the seniors are past their best. But what about Gambhir and Sehwag, who have shown in the past that they have the techniques to succeed in South Africa, Australia (though Gambhir has only played one-day internationals in Australia) and (in Sehwag’s case) England, but who have been opened up and hung out to dry by the Aussie quicks? In Gambhir’s case, all the bad habits that Gary Kirsten had worked so hard to rid him off are back again – what is Fletcher’s contribution in stopping their slide?

Why is no one calling for Dhoni’s head, or Srikkanth’s, or Fletcher’s? How is dropping Laxman going to sort any of this out? Over the past year, in four spectacular implosions against Pakistan, England, South Africa and New Zealand, Australia made 380 for 40 (an innings average of 95 all out). Between the entry of Michael Clarke at Sydney and the exit of Ed Cowan at Perth, Australia made 836 for 1 (an innings average of 8360 all out). It is not Laxman who was responsible for that, and bringing in Rohit Sharma is not going to address it.

I would like to make two arguments. First, if we are actually looking for people who need to be dropped, then there has to be some empirical basis for it; simply making someone a scapegoat is not going to have the desired effect, and at this point, the gunning for Laxman’s head has all the makings of scapegoating, nothing else. And second – a more radical assertion perhaps – since so many people are talking about dropping Laxman so that we can “build for the future”, I would argue that Laxman is integral to building the future. I take up each of these arguments below.

Empirically, who is the weakest link in our batting?

If one is going to actually look at batting failures, then there are three levels or horizons at which one can do so. The first is at the most immediate horizon – for instance, the current series just gone by. The second is a slightly longer horizon – ideally, the last 18 months to 2 years. It is possible for someone to have a poor series, since all batsmen go through poor form. But if someone has been given a chance for two years and has done poorly, then there is a more serious issue at stake. The third is the question of the intangible: what is the particular value that this batsman brings to the team as a whole, which goes beyond figures or statistics? Let me address each of these in comparative perspective.

In terms of this particular series, only Tendulkar has crossed 200 runs. Laxman and Dhoni bring up the rear amongst the frontline batsmen (if Dhoni can be called that), with 102 runs, with Dhoni’s average marginally inflated by a not out, but still only an unflattering 20 to Laxman’s 17. But the fact is, everyone failed, and the difference between Laxman and the second highest scorer for India, Dravid, is only 66 runs. Sehwag has made only 16 runs more than Laxman, which is statistically insignificant. And that is largely on the strength of his 1st innings 67 at Melbourne, a score he reached only because of the Aussies’ largesse in dropping him twice. Yes, Laxman has failed; but so has everyone else. Only Sachin has made more than one 50 (he has made all of 2). And even his average for the series is nearly 15 less than his career average. Until he was dropped at Perth, Ashwin was India’s second highest run-getter, and would probably have retained that spot had he played. That says it all. In this collective failure, why single out Laxman?

If we look at the slightly longer horizon of the past two years, then we get the following figures for our top order (starting from January 1, 2010, till the end of the Perth Test):

• Gambhir has an average of 32.05 with 1 century, which was against Bangladesh. If you take Bangladesh out of the equation, his average over the past 2 years is 28.5.
• Sehwag’s average is a healthier 46. But on closer inspection: his average in this period in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is nearly 60. His average in South Africa, England and Australia (three countries where he has enjoyed much success in the past) in this period is 17, with no centuries, and a highest score of 67 made at Melbourne with those two lives. If Gambhir has failed unequivocally in this period, then Sehwag has turned into a flat-track bully.
• Dravid in this time has a batting average of 48 with 8 hundreds, not bad for the oldest cricketer to still be playing Test cricket, and a slap in the face for those who believe that age and not quality should determine selection.
• Tendulkar’s average during this time has been a staggering 62, 7 above his career average, also with 8 centuries, 2 of which were doubles. No surprises there, but then there are those who seem to think that Rohit Sharma is the next Tendulkar. All I can say is … huh?!?
• The much maligned Laxman in this time has an average of 49 (also, as with Sachin, higher than his career average, in spite of averaging just 17 in this series), with 3 hundreds. But what has been more important are the match-winning innings he has played, not all of which have translated into centuries: at Galle against Sri Lanka; at Durban against South Africa; and in Mohali and Bangalore against Australia, in tight 4th innings chases (with Mohali, of course, being a historic knock).
• Kohli, the only youngster who looks worth his salt, has only played Test cricket since June 2011, in which time he averages 27. There is an opinion piece on cricinfo that says that Kohli’s success shows the importance of playing youth over the seniors. The least successful of the seniors has an average that is over 20 runs an innings higher than Kohli’s – so what exactly are we meaning by success here? Of course, Kohli is an investment for the future, we have to be patient with him, and so on – I buy all of that, but let’s face it, so far he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. (At a similar stage in their careers: Dravid’s average was 35, Tendulkar’s, at the tender age of 17, was nearly 40, Laxman’s was similar to Kohli’s, 29, and Ganguly’s was already 42. None of them had been a regular member of the limited overs side prior to making their Test debut for three years, as Kohli has). There is no point even asking about Raina and Yuvraj – the less said about them, the better.
• And last but not least, our great captain has an average, in this period, of 33. Take Bangladesh out of that equation, and the average slips to 28.

How, then, is Laxman the cause of our failure? Or Dravid, or Tendulkar? And not Gambhir, or Sehwag, or Dhoni?

In terms of actual performance, then, the three people who should really be under the cosh (if we grant that Kohli, at an early stage of his career, should be given a longer rope), are Sehwag, Gambhir and Dhoni, not Dravid, Tendulkar or Laxman. It is not the seniors who have failed us, but the middle generation. That is the generation that should have been leading the side now – Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Zaheer and Harbhajan. Of those five, over the past two years, only Zak has stepped up to the plate and done the job required of him. But only Harbhajan has been dropped.

At one level, it is tricky to think of dropping Gambhir, Sehwag or Dhoni. For the two years before his long slump started, after all, Gambhir was the bedrock of India’s top order, scoring 8 hundreds in 10 Tests, including 4 in consecutive Tests, against the best attacks in the world (though not in England or Australia). And even now, he exudes an aura of intensity and commitment; in many peoples’ reckoning (including my own), he would have been the man to succeed Dhoni as captain. Dhoni of course had the myth of Captain Cool behind him – a myth that now stands thoroughly exposed, as over the past 7 Tests abroad he has looked more like Captain Clueless, without ever having the Test match batting credentials to make him an automatic selection at no. 7 on batting ability alone. Sehwag is the trickiest of the lot, because there is no question that he is a genius, and the glimpses of that genius shine through even in bad patches – such as the 200 in 44 overs in a one-day game, after he had spent the previous 6 months averaging 12 in the shorter format.

But the fact remains that – yes, even in the case of Gambhir, whom I have always admired and supported – the performances just don’t stand scrutiny. In Dhoni’s case, I just don’t think he is a good enough Test match batsman, keeper or captain to justify being retained any longer in the longer form. (He himself has suggested that he will step down from Tests at the end of 2013. Why wait so long? If we really are so obsessed about “building for the future”, why not groom a wicket-keeper straight away so that he can have a couple of years of Test cricket at home before having to tour South Africa, England and Australia in 2014-15?). In Gambhir’s and Sehwag’s cases, the ability is there, a longer rope is justified, but for a team whose success depends so much on its opening pair, the collective failure of both openers over such an extended period of time is just untenable. Over the past 6 months (and that includes the home series against a mediocre West Indies side), our opening partnership has averaged less than 15. That is a truly damning figure.

There are two things that have protected the image of Gambhir, Sehwag and Dhoni – and none of them have to do with their Test match ability or performance. The first is that they have continued to perform in limited overs games. Dhoni has always been an exceptional limited overs batsman, and the fact that he could barely score a run in the Tests in England, but then followed it up with a batting run in the one-day games when he wasn’t dismissed even once, says it all. I laughed when Ravi Shastri said in commentary in Australia that Dhoni is “out-of-form”. This is not lack of form – it is lack of ability in the longer form of the game, covered up by performances in the shorter form. Sehwag hasn’t performed consistently in limited overs, but then he produces that occasional innings that defies logic – such as the 175 in the World Cup opener, or the 219 against the West Indies – so the belief that, on his day, anything is possible, remains. On his day, it is true that anything is possible. The problem is that his day is coming less and less often, and, on sporting wickets, is hardly coming at all. Even Gambhir, who has shown himself to be a Test batsman of ability, has continued to score heavily in one-day games even while continuing to fail in Tests.

The second is that – other than Tendulkar – these three are the most marketable cricketers in India today. In between overs in games where India is performing abjectly, these three show up selling products; that last ball six to seal the World Cup from Dhoni is shown again and again. We are living in an age where the quality of a cricketer is determined by the media and advertising more than by facts and performance – and nowhere more so than in India. Laxman doesn’t show up in ads anymore; Laxman cannot redeem himself in limited overs cricket. (And indeed, Laxman doesn’t show up in ads because he doesn’t play limited overs cricket – once he was dropped from the Indian one-day side in 2003, the advertising endorsements also ended). Ergo, Laxman is dispensable, while Gambhir, Sehwag and Dhoni are not. Facts or performance have nothing to do with it.

I don’t mind giving some people a longer rope than others, and I think that Gambhir and Sehwag, for different reasons, have deserved the ropes they have gotten. (Gambhir because of his attitude and sheer bloody-mindedness, and his consistency when at his best; Sehwag for his genius, the psychological impact he can have on an opposition, and for the fact that he is one of India’s two match-winners in Test cricket – the other being Laxman. Sehwag wins us matches from the front, Laxman wins them with his back-to-the-wall; but both have won us more games than Dravid, whose efforts have tended to be match-saving or critically supporting, but who has been responsible for some of our more famous wins, such as Adelaide, Rawalpindi and Kingston (twice), or Tendulkar, who in spite of his monumental individual records has still contributed less in the really critical games than Laxman has). But the openers’ prolonged run drought must put them under the scanner, not just because of their individual failings, but because of how it has contributed to the team’s overall failure. It is clear that for India’s batting to click, especially abroad and against good attacks, getting a start has been critical. Our initial competitiveness abroad was built on finally getting an opening pair that could see off the new ball in the early 2000s (whether Sehwag and Bangar, or Sehwag and Chopra); our slump in the mid-2000s coincided with the musical chairs being played with openers as Chopra was unfairly jettisoned, followed by Sehwag’s complete loss of form and confidence; our series win in England was on the back of a successful combination between Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik, the latter being the highest scorer in that series; and our actual rise to the top has been because of Gambhir and Sehwag playing at the peak of their games between 2008 and 2010. The equally dramatic fall has coincided, equally, with the fall in performance of these two.

None of this is going to be addressed by dropping Laxman. However good a batsman Rohit Sharma may or may not be (and I for one am dubious that he has the technique to do well on fast bouncy tracks abroad, since pretty much all of his success has come in the shorter forms of the game), he is not going to give India 400+ scores if the openers aren’t doing their jobs.

Hence, it is essential, if we are thinking about changes in personnel, to start at the top in two senses. First, we need to hold the leadership accountable, and remove the captain, coach and vice-captain from their positions of leadership. Sehwag was never going to be the right choice to succeed Dhoni as captain anyway; he has shown himself to be an ordinary captain, whether in the IPL (where the Delhi Daredevils, after four editions, have been the poorest aggregate performers, in spite of consistently having amongst the strongest line-ups on paper), or on the occasions he has captained India (most spectacularly in Napier, when he seemed completely bereft of ideas and would have lost us the game had it not been for Gambhir’s 7-hour marathon to save it).

And second, we need to start at the top in terms of trying out a new opening pair in Tests. The irony is, we do have openers who are good enough to play international cricket. Neither Abhinav Mukund nor Ajinkya Rahane are finished products yet, but if we are talking about “building for the future”, then both are thoroughly worthwhile investments. It is worth giving them a chance in the home series against England and Australia this coming year. Gambhir, I think, values the India cap dearly, and he is young enough to have another shot at it; but he needs to be made to go back to domestic cricket and earn it the hard way, not depend on strong limited overs performances to keep him in the Test side. Whether Sehwag has the fire in the belly to do that anymore remains an open question – he is, after all, 33, at which age Ganguly was already being hounded out of international cricket, and even Tendulkar was being written off. (Remember the “Endulkar” signs around Indian grounds in 2006? And how he was even being booed on his home ground in Bombay? If we had decided to “build for the future” and listen to the pundits who were calling for his head then, we would have missed 5 of the most glorious years of batsmanship in the history of Test cricket, anywhere). But if Sehwag doesn’t have the fire to fight for his spot, then he shouldn’t be playing Test cricket for India. Meanwhile, Dinesh Karthik, after a poor domestic season in 2010-11, has started making runs for Tamilnadu in abundance. He is a much better Test batsman than Dhoni technically, and has shown this in trying conditions abroad, without ever having the security of an extended run in the side. (As a keeper, he was always a stand-in keeper for Dhoni, knowing that however well he played, he would be dropped on Dhoni’s return. But if he is given the security of an extended run, he has a lot to offer India still. If we do stick to 6 frontline batsmen, he is a far better Test no. 7 in all conditions than Dhoni. And he allows us the option of playing 5 bowlers as well, because of his ability to double up as an opening batsman).

Laxman’s role in this transition

Simply as a batsman, therefore, I think Laxman needs to be retained in the side. This is because I think, if we look over the past two years, he has been amongst the most important batsmen in the side, playing critical, match-winning roles for us at crucial junctures. Temperamentally as well, he has a very important role to play in the team, because he is clearly someone who maintains the equilibrium of the dressing room, someone whom everyone looks up to, trusts, and respects. And in any case, dropping him is not going to solve our problems, even if Rohit Sharma, as an individual, proves good enough for Test cricket (something that is possible, but which I don’t think is at all a given), because unless we get a good captain who can lead from the front, and good openers who can give us starts, we are going to keep losing abroad, and will quite likely start losing at home as well against good teams. (Teams like England and Australia will not let us off the hook if we are 85 for 6, as we were against the West Indies in Delhi).

But I think Laxman has an even bigger role to play, because I think the crisis we face is as big as the one that we faced at the end of Dravid’s captaincy. Then, of course, there was also a crisis of trust, since Greg Chappell’s tenure as coach had damaged the dressing room environment. But the “rebuilding” that has to happen now has to be around building new leadership. If Gambhir was sure of his place in the side, there would have been no questions asked, he could have taken over the reins and would have had the authority to do so. But if Gambhir’s place is also in question, then there is a real question mark as to who can succeed Dhoni as captain.

I think Virat Kohli is a future India captain, and I actually think the time has come for him to take over the reins in limited overs cricket. He has been playing international cricket for three-and-a-half years now, which is longer than Dhoni was playing for India when he was made captain for the T20 World Cup. And his position in the side, as one of the most prolific one-day batsmen in the world, is secure in that format. But while I see a future for Kohli as a Test batsman, he clearly isn’t secure enough as a Test batsman to be entrusted with the leadership yet. I think his performance under fire at Perth was a turning point, and I think we are going to see a lot of good things from him in Test cricket going forward. But he needs a year leading the one-day side, and further establishing himself in the Test middle order, before he is made captain in both formats.

A critical part of the transition between Dravid’s captaincy and Dhoni’s was the role played by Kumble. He helped knit the team back together, he led with pride and passion, and even though he himself knew that his role at the helm would be a short-term one, he prepared the ground for Dhoni to take over by handing him a team that had gotten over the scars of the Chappell era and that was starting to believe in itself again. As a bowler, Kumble was still good enough to be in the playing 11 in that year when he led the side, but there was no question that his best days were already behind him. Nonetheless, the role that he played that year was integral to Indian cricket finding its feet again.

Laxman can play that role now. He has always been a good captain, tactically and in terms of supporting his players, and if India is to transition smoothly from the Dhoni era to the Kohli era (as I think it must), then Laxman has a big role to play in facilitating that transition. After all he has achieved for India, the very least he deserves is to exit on his own terms. But I see a much larger role for him than that, and it is not based in charity. It is based on the value he brings to the side, as a player, a leader, and a mentor. Rather than hound him out, why not make use of him, and value him for the great player that he is, for a change? It may only be for a few months, but a Laxman captaincy through the 2012-13 season could help us erase the scars of the past 6 months and build a platform upon which we can be competitive again on the world stage in Tests. I have no hope that this will happen, but as an Indian cricket lover, I can only write, and hope that the few people who read this at least will be convinced of the value that Laxman can still bring to Indian cricket.

Thoughts before Perth

2012-01-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

While all the pundits are writing India off and looking forward to another 4-0 whitewash, I am going to stick my neck out and say that we have a 40-60 chance of coming back and leveling the series. This is for two reasons. First, both the WACA (in spite of its speed and bounce) and the Adelaide Oval have less lateral movement than Melbourne and Sydney, which should suit our batsmen, who were showing some signs of form in the second innings at the SCG. And second: I still believe that, unlike England, Australia is a flawed team. Their top order is vulnerable, as are Ponting and Clarke early in their innings. And if our batting can come into some form, then Australia’s inexperienced attack, now without James Pattinson, will have to show what their Plan B is. A comeback won’t be easy, but it is possible.

What is necessary, however, is some smart thinking, and that has been in seriously short supply. In England, we were completely outplayed. Here, we have simply been outthought. Dhoni’s captaincy has been a disaster, especially when contrasted to Michael Clarke’s, and Duncan Fletcher seems intent on getting himself a world record three whitewashes, something not even a Bangladesh coach has managed. But none of our so-called cricket pundits and experts seems to have much by way of ideas either.

Indeed, the only idea I have seen floating around is to bring Rohit Sharma in, as if he is some sort of messiah, and the only debate has been whether it should be at the expense of Kohli, Laxman or Dravid. Those who say one of the latter two should go – and this includes many of our former players, not a single one of whom has achieved half as much as either of these have for India – claim that this is to “build for the future”. That is such a ridiculous cliché. What is this “future” we are building for? The biggest series in the world for us is Australia in Australia. And the Border-Gavaskar Trophy can still be retained. The future is now. It’s one thing if Kohli offers us a better chance of winning in Perth than Dravid or Laxman, but he doesn’t. I think he will be an excellent Test batsman one day, but this weekend shouldn’t be the time we punt on him becoming so.

But more than that, I don’t think that Rohit is the answer to our problems. Sure, he’s a talented bat. But that talent has primarily been on display in limited overs cricket, and generally on flat tracks. The one time he was confronted with a barrage of short-pitched bowling was in the T20 World Cup in England, and he looked woefully inadequate, as bad as Suresh Raina. (And that’s saying something). How is someone who cannot play short-pitched bowling in limited overs cricket going to succeed in a Test debut at the fastest and bounciest ground in the world? The one thing Rohit had coming into this series was form. But it is now 3 weeks since he played in a match situation, and form is an ephemeral thing. The runs that he made back in November in one-days against the West Indies count for nothing in telling us what he can or cannot do against the Aussies at Perth.

Rather than simply say Jai Shri Ram and throw Rohit to the wolves, an intelligent response would be to analyze what our problems are and see how we can counter them. The two biggest problems, alas, can’t be fixed before Perth. One is Dhoni. I think his captaincy has to end, but it’s not going to end tomorrow, so unfortunately we are stuck with him for now. And the second is the refusal to play five bowlers, which is always, in any condition, going to be our best bet for winning matches. But Dhoni is unwilling to do that when our batsman are in form, so he’s not going to do so now. So the following thoughts are based on a realistic assessment of what we can and should do at Perth.

Here are our problems:

- Our openers are not giving us a start. On wickets abroad, this is critical, and we need our middle order to be cushioned against the new ball. All our strong performances abroad, whether from 2008-10 when Gambhir and Sehwag were in peak form, or in 2003-4 when Aakash Chopra provided such a wonderful foil for Viru, have been based around strong starts. Gambhir ran into some form in Sydney, but Viru’s methods are not working on these pitches against the lines and lengths the Aussies are bowling. Yet Viru remains, along with Laxman, one of the two batsmen most likely to actually win us matches. (They have done so far more often than Dravid or Tendulkar). So this is something we need to figure out, especially since one cannot ask Viru to change his style of play.

- Dravid is looking scratchy at 3. Temperamentally, he remains the one batsman capable of gritting it out even when not looking pretty. But in this sort of form, with a flimsy opening pair ahead of him, he is not a wall. This means that, between Sehwag’s unsuccessful methods and Dravid’s scratchy form, our middle order risks getting exposed way too soon.

- We don’t have a lower middle order that can marshal the tail. Dhoni of course is a disaster, but Kohli doesn’t have the experience either. And Rohit can’t be expected to. This means that we are in a situation where the first 2 or 3 wickets are always waiting to happen, and once we are 4-down, we are effectively all out, in spite of Ashwin’s useful batting down the order. Any scores of substance depend entirely on a Dravid - Tendulkar or a Tendulkar – Laxman partnership. And indeed, our two 200+ scores have been built solely on the basis of one or the other. When such a partnership doesn’t happen, we don’t get 200.

- Ashwin has disappointed with the ball. He is a good, talented spinner. But he is still learning how to bowl in Australia. In Aussie conditions, it is very important for the spinner to be able to take on the roll of stock bowler. But Ashwin is of the mindset where he is trying to get a wicket with every ball. That is actually a T20 mentality, and it is hampering him, because in the process he ends up doing too much and losing consistency. Being a stock bowler doesn’t mean bowling defensively. On the contrary, it means tossing the ball up consistently, slowing it down, and maintaining good lines just outside off-stump. He needs to be the bowler the captain can turn to in order to bowl long spells, so that the quicks can bowl in short bursts in the middle overs at the Aussie middle order.

In terms of solutions, Ashwin is the easiest: I would persist with him at Perth, which means we go into the side with the same bowling unit as Sydney. This is not because he is a better batsman than Pragyan Ojha: if you are playing only 4 bowlers, then you have to be sure they are the four best available, and batting abilities cannot cloud the decision. It is because I think that, if he has learned his lessons from Sydney, then he can actually be a huge factor for us in Perth. With his height, if he can keep it consistent and keep tossing it up, he will get bounce on this wicket. And that will make him a very difficult customer to face. I see him potentially being a big factor in this Test match.

In terms of the batting line-up, I see the need for only one change in personnel, but a few changes in strategy. Kohli has to go. But I would replace him, not with Rohit, but with his Bombay teammate Ajinkya Rahane.

I have taken issue with Rahane’s selection for this tour because he has hardly played any cricket over the past couple of months, and I felt Abhinav Mukund would have been the better bet on form. (This lack of cricket is an indication of the poor player management that bedevils our system. He has basically spent the entire domestic season carrying drinks for the national team. This would never have happened in England, where players who are on the bench are released to play domestic cricket if they are not going to play. For Rahane to sit on the bench through the ODIs against the West Indies was particularly egregious, since he ended up getting a single meaningless hit at the end of the series. If the selectors knew he was part of their plans for Australia – and they did, since the team had been selected by then – he should have been playing 4-day cricket for Bombay instead. Someone like Robin Uthappa could have carried the drinks just as proficiently).

However, I do have great belief in Rahane’s talent and ability. He does have some weaknesses around off-stump, and can push at deliveries that could be left alone – a deficiency shared by Mukund and many Indians, a function of growing up on Indian tracks, and something one can grow out of. But I was extremely impressed by the technique he showed against quick bowling in England. Simply put, man for man, I have more faith in Rahane’s ability to handle quick, short pitched bowling on a bouncy track than I do Rohit’s.

But it is not just in terms of ability that Rahane scores over Rohit. It is also in terms of the balance he lends to the side, because this would allow a necessary rejigging of the batting order. I would have Rahane open with Gambhir, move Viru down to 3, Dravid to 5 and Laxman to 6. I think this would protect both Viru and Dravid.

Rahane’s job should be simple – he should be asked to do what Akaash Chopra did in 2003-4, which is to just see off the first 15 overs. Anything above that is a bonus. I don’t care if he just makes 20, and if the score is 40 when the 1st wicket falls. If Viru can walk in after the first drinks break, and if the Aussie new ball bowlers have been denied an early breakthrough, then it will be an entirely different ball game.

Viru changed Test batsmanship by inverting the logic that the opener has to accumulate, so that the middle order can blaze away. But that inversion worked in an era where new ball bowlers tended to be, bar the odd exception, in the McGrath / Pollock seam bowler mold. Against genuinely quick swing bowlers who pitch the ball up, we need to revert to the strategy of having openers who can see off the new ball, so that the middle order can attack. Because against such a swing-oriented attack, seeing off the first hour is absolutely key, and can make the difference between a score of 175 and 450.

If Rohit was to play, then basically all the structural problems that have beset us so far will still be facing us. Viru will be a walking wicket at the top of the order; a struggling Dravid will have little cover; and Tendulkar is likely to be walking in to bat in the first hour of play. Australia will not be challenged in their thinking in the least, and can stick to the plans that have worked so well for them. All we will be doing is hoping against hope that Rohit, miraculously, and in defiance of his well-known weakness against the short ball, will somehow be our savior. Champion teams are not built by waiting for such acts of providence.

On the other hand, if Rahane comes in at the top of the order, we can adopt a different approach, and force the Aussies to think differently. There also ends up being a structure to the batting order, which each person in the side having a specific role to play, and the conditions in which he is most likely to realize that role.

So: in such a situation, we would have Rahane and Gambhir at the top of the order to see off the new ball. With the expectation, at least, from Rahane that he negotiates the first hour, from Gambhir that tries to play through a session and get 40-50. So that Viru would walk in against a first or second change bowler, and Sachin not before the afternoon (if we bat first). This would allow Viru and Sachin to play their natural, attacking games, with some kind of a foundation behind them. In case that doesn’t work out and there is still a collapse, there will still be the experience of Dravid and Laxman to bail the team out. If it does work out, then Dravid and Laxman, at 5 and 6, remain the two best players in the side to bat with the tail and turn a good position into an excellent one. Dhoni’s role would be as Australia’s 12th man, since he isn’t doing anything useful for the Indian cause. (His only consolation is that he is a better keeper than his Aussie counterpart, which shows what an embarrassment Haddin is behind the stumps). And then there would be a useful bowling quartet, all of whom will get purchase and enjoy bowling at Perth.

With a little thought, a little intelligence, and a little creativity, we have the ability to push back in this series. We have only to think back to Headingley 2002, which in my mind was the greatest Test win by an Indian team, because we played a comprehensive game to outplay a strong opposition, in conditions that were far more favorable to England than to us, simply through intelligent and creative leadership. (Ganguly, in that game, rejected conventional wisdom, went in with two spinners on a green top because they were our two best bowlers, and moved Viru up to open as an attacking move, not as a move of desperation as is usually the case. The rest is history). Calcutta 2001 was more stirring, but that was a game won by superhuman individual performances. If we sit and wait for those, then against a strong bowling attack led by an imaginative captain, we don’t stand a chance. Playing Rohit, as everyone is advocating, speaks to the sit-back-try-someone-hope-for-the-best-maybe-he’ll-click approach. If our approach is based on thought, and not just hope and prayer, then the Border-Gavaskar Trophy could yet remain in our hands.

India team for tri-series

2012-01-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am still too depressed from Sydney to write a post-mortem (which really would be a post-mortem for Indian Test cricket, in a true sense). So I thought I would distract myself by looking ahead to the ODIs. It is clear that this is where the priorities of our administrators and our captain lie in any case. So below is my team for this. It will be full of controversial selections, selections that I think are important, but that won’t be heeded.

First – I think it is time for Dhoni’s captaincy to end. This will not happen, but it must. I am amazed that everyone is baying for the blood of a range of other scapegoats – it was Gambhir until he saved himself with 80, or Kohli, or Laxman, who is still far better than any of the young pretenders to his place – but no one is questioning Dhoni, who has been completely inadequate with the bat and as captain. Quite simply, he was never an exceptional keeper; he was never a good enough batsman to play Tests successfully on bowler-friendly conditions abroad. (A total of two half-centuries in 13 Tests in England and Australia is scathing indictment of this fact. Even our bowling all-rounders such as Ravichandran Ashwin or Irfan Pathan could do better than that, so to have such an inadequate batsman play at 7 is a disaster). What left him unscathed was the myth of his wonderful captaincy. That myth now stands thoroughly exposed. If he is not good enough to be part of a Test XI in conditions abroad, then he shouldn’t be captaining India. In any case, he has achieved all that he can hope to achieve in limited overs cricket with World Cup wins in 50 and 20 over formats, and has himself said that it is not certain he will be around for the 2015 World Cup. (Of course, he knows he will be shown up in a World Cup in Australian conditions). So the time to build for the future in terms of team leadership is now. Dhoni has given Indian cricket whatever he can as captain, and his continuation at the helm is the surest ticket to a continued downward slide.

Dhoni still remains a fine limited overs batsman, so he would remain in my team. And like Ricky Ponting, he should have the humility to be in the team as an ordinary player. If he doesn’t, I have no problems with him returning to Ranchi and riding his motorcycles. And his replacement should, quite obviously, be Gautam Gambhir, who is the person best-suited to be India’s long-term captain. He is a better captain than Sehwag, and Sehwag is unlikely to be playing when the 2015 World Cup rolls around, at which time he will be 37. I think the only reason Viru was made vice-captain was so that Dhoni wouldn’t be threatened by someone, like Gambhir, who could replace him as captain in the long-term.

In terms of the batting line-up, I think there are really only two or three tricky questions. The first is – should Tendulkar still be playing ODIs? Personally, I think it would have been wonderful if he had just retired from all limited overs after the World Cup win. He is not going to be around for the next World Cup, and it would have been a fitting occasion to quit. But I do think he should play this tournament. This is partly because he is the only batsman who has looked equal to the task of playing Down Under in this series. But it is mainly because I don’t expect him to get to this 100th 100 in the Tests, and would welcome any opportunity for him to get this utterly over-hyped and meaningless milestone out of the way so that he can get back to just playing at his best in Tests again.

The second is whether Yuvraj Singh should be selected. He has said that he is available, and in India the only thing that merits selection of a star player is his say-so. But as one can see for the Aussies, getting into the side means actually proving match-fitness, and that is I think a basic criterion that should be imposed for our players as well. Yuvraj has barely played any cricket since the World Cup. (In the couple of Tests he played against the West Indies, he looked completely inadequate). I don’t care if he was man-of-the-series in the World Cup: if he wants to play for India, he needs to show that he is fit enough to play by actually playing domestic cricket. Our one-day middle order is quite healthy as it is, with Virat Kohli continuing to excel, Rohit Sharma coming into his own, and Manoj Tiwary getting into the act with a 100 against the West Indies. So there is no place for Yuvraj in my team. Indeed, I see Virat Kohli as a leader in the making, and would have him be Gambhir’s deputy.

This means a top 6 of Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Rohit and Dhoni. I would select Manoj Tiwary ahead of Suresh Raina, who in my mind remains India’s most overrated cricketer. Raina didn’t even make much of a mark at home, in one-days, against the West Indies, in a series that met all three of his criteria for success (limited overs, flat tracks, weak opposition). Tiwary has been piling on the runs in domestic cricket in obscurity for years; technically, he has the ability to be not just a successful one-day batsman, but part of a future Test middle-order; and it is high time he is given a proper run. Raina’s continued inclusion will otherwise be at the expense of a genuinely promising player, someone whom Sourav Ganguly, the best judge of talent in India, once called “the future of Indian cricket”.

Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin select themselves as the two spinners. In the seam department, I use the same principle for Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel as I do for Yuvraj: even if they are fit (and there is no indication that they are), then need to be match-fit before they can be selected. So, neither of them will be in my team. Zaheer and Ishant of course select themselves to lead the attack. For me, the third seamer, without question, should be Irfan Pathan. He should have been in Australia already for the Tests, but for the ODI’s, with his additional batting capabilities, his selection should be a no-brainer. (I cannot imagine why he is being excluded, it cannot be for cricketing reasons). A playing 11 with Jadeja at 7, Ashwin at 8, and Irfan at 9 will be one with incredible batting depth; but just as a bowler, Irfan is good enough to be in India’s playing 11, especially given Australian weakness against quality swing bowling.

This only leaves the reserves. I have already indicated Tiwary as one, Umesh Yadav should obviously be another. (Irfan pushes ahead of him in the 11 because of his far superior batting). So this leaves two more spots, one for a batsman and one for a bowler. And here, I would bring in two cricketers from outside the current fold.

I think the batsman should be someone who can also keep wickets, because in a long tri-series played far away one cannot count on one keeper’s fitness. Parthiv Patel has been given enough chances and found wanting. So I would go back to someone who last played for India four years ago, but who has since then improved greatly on his batting and fitness while developing more than adequate keeping skills: Robin Uthappa. Uthappa is a wonderfully versatile player to have on the bench, someone who can be a floater in the order and therefore come in as a top order replacement, a lower middle order replacement, and be a back-up keeper. It is high time he is given another run.

My back-up seam bowler will also be from outside the fold. I think Vinay Kumar is a game tryer and a useful one-day bowler, but I just don’t think that his military medium pace is going to threaten Australia’s batsmen. What we need, again, is a genuine swing bowler, ideally someone who can swing it at nippy pace. Someone who has Sreesanth’s bowling style, but with brains. And the candidate there for me is Ashok Dinda, who has been in outstanding form for Bengal this year. He has had a few random chances with the team based on a strong IPL performance in 2008, but he is a much better bowler now than he was then. He is 27, the age when fast bowlers enter their peak, and is also someone who can become a part of India’s Test options. He is a far better bowler than either Vinay or Mithun, and should be part of the team.

Depressed rants on the Tests will follow in due course, but for now, my ODI team:

1. Virendra Sehwag
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Gautam Gambhir ©
4. Virat Kohli (V)
5. Rohit Sharma
6. Mahendra Dhoni (W)
7. Ravindra Jadeja
8. Ravichandran Ashwin
9. Irfan Pathan
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Ishant Sharma

Reserves:

12. Manoj Tiwary
13. Robin Uthappa (W)
14. Umesh Yadav
15. Ashok Dinda

Melbourne post-mortem and Sydney preview (or: The difference between Dhoni and Dravid)

2012-01-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

While I am unhappy, as any Indian fan would be, at the outcome of the Melbourne Test, all I can say is: I told you so. Pretty much everything in that game panned out as I had predicted. The only encouraging aspect was that the Indian bowling punched well above its weight in spite of being just a four-man attack, with young Umesh Yadav being particularly impressive. (As someone who had written him off, I happily stand corrected). India’s over-hyped batting line-up showed its weaknesses against the moving ball in conditions abroad. Australia showed tremendous vulnerability in their own batting, but also showed off a young bowling attack that has the potential to match England’s in the years to come. Our bowling showed how much more effective it is overall when Zaheer Khan is leading the attack. And Virat Kohli’s place could have been much better taken by an extra bowler. However well our bowlers bowled, the fact remains that Australia’s weak batting line-up made more runs against our bowlers than our supposedly strong line-up made against theirs. Having Pragyan Ojha’s controlled spin to fall back on as an extra option would have made it harder for the Aussies to make those crucial extra runs at critical moments. On the whole, however, the Melbourne Test proved, first of all, just what a terrible ground Melbourne is for India, as we kept intact our recent record (now going back two decades, so really not that recent) of losing there by more than 100 runs. And secondly, that Australia is, if not unarguably a better side than India, than certainly the more likely side to win this series in their home conditions.

The question is, can we come back in Sydney? Our performances over the past few years suggest that we can, since we have typically started slowly on tours but have shown the mental resilience to fight back from deficits. This is in contrast to Australia, who in recent times have shown great inconsistency, and an inability to string together successively strong performances. Also, while it is more than 30 years since India has won a Test at Sydney, there is no question that it is a happier hunting ground for our batsmen – Tendulkar and Laxman in particular – than Melbourne. So, all the indications are that India is far from out of this series, yet.

I do think we can win in Sydney, but there are a couple of things that give me pause. The first, of course, are the memories of the summer in England. There, we didn’t see a mentally resilient team, but one that slid from bad to worse. Of course, England is a terrific side, India had more injuries on that tour, and we were mentally exhausted and definitely not as well prepared as we are for this tour. England’s batting line-up is far more formidable than Australia’s, and our bowling attack on this tour is much stronger than the one that went to England in the summer. Nonetheless, the summer did expose certain structural deficiencies in the Indian side, and nothing has been done to address them. We have papered over them through a meaningless autumn that has seen one-day wins at home, and a Test series win also at home against a West Indies side that, without Chris Gayle, is just marginally better than Bangladesh. And those deficiencies were exposed ruthlessly by the Aussies at Melbourne. Since those deficiencies haven’t gone away in three days, our only chance of winning is to expose Aussie weaknesses more strongly than they expose ours.

There are two major deficiencies here – one more structural and fundamental, and the second having to do with what I believe is the biggest weak link in the Indian side. Let me address each in turn.

The structural, fundamental deficiency is that we do not play top quality swing bowling well. This is not to say that we are flat-track bullies: after all, very few batsmen in the world play quality swing well, except to a considerable extent the English. This is partly because of a surfeit of limited overs cricket that has developed techniques that tend to be too flashy to deal with swing. But it is also partly because, as Sambit Bal has analyzed in an excellent recent piece in cricinfo, much of the past two decades has seen an accent on McGrath-like, hit-the-deck seam bowling, and only in the past few months has there been a sudden resurgence of swing bowling worldwide. (The exceptions, in the 1990s, were of course the Pakistanis, and no one in the world really had the measure of Wasim and Waqar through that decade). Even two years ago, the only genuinely quick swing bowler who, through a combination of pace and movement in the air could get wickets anywhere in the world, was Dale Steyn. (Anderson wasn’t that quick and needed help off the wicket; Zaheer was effective because he could switch from conventional to reverse swing and thereby make use of dry, dusty conditions as well as seaming ones). Now, most teams seem to have a couple such bowlers. Even bowlers who used to be hit-the-deck enforcers are now pitching it up and getting it to swing. Stuart Broad this summer, and Peter Siddle in recent times, are two examples.

Also, the nature of swing bowling has changed. Earlier – except for the Pakistanis, who would bowl fast and straight and move it about – the idea of swing was that it was a tool to get outside edges. This is why it depended so much on the nature of the wicket and conditions. And if you had good batsmen who could leave the ball, and see off the new ball, then such swing was potentially negotiable. Wicket-to-wicket swing tended to be associated for the most part with the older ball and reverse swing – which was also favored more under certain pitch and weather conditions than others. In other words, the conventional wisdom was that a McGrath-type bowler would be effective in all conditions at all times, while a swing bowler would only be so in some places some of the time. The empirical evidence for this was to be found in McGrath’s own success rate, as compared to the early record of someone like Anderson.

Indian batsmen have learned to play seam. This is why they have succeeded in the past in Australia, and even held their own in South Africa, their problems against Steyn notwithstanding. Because one outstanding swing bowler can be negotiated. It’s a different ball game, however, if one has to negotiate three outstanding swing bowlers, as we had to in England or in Melbourne. Then, even the best technique gets put under stern examination, and most have been found wanting.

This is what makes me anxious about Sydney – the question of whether our batsmen have the technique to survive what will be another searching examination by a trio of bowlers who will pitch it up, bowl straight, and swing it fast and late. The only person in the Indian batting line-up who has the technique to deal with that is Dravid. That Gambhir, Sehwag and Kohli don’t really have the technique to deal with this is obvious, though each of them (Sehwag in particular) may get runs through some combination of grit, audacity, or let-up in intensity on the part of the bowlers. What worries me more is that Laxman and Tendulkar also, in my opinion, don’t have the technique to deal with this. Laxman has a phenomenal record against Australia, but against an Australian attack that was based around seam. Now, he is suddenly confronted with an Australian attack that seems to have developed an English phenotype, and Laxman’s record against England is distinctly ordinary. A technique that is built on wrist-work rather than footwork is not one that is ideally suited to succeed against the type of bowling that was on offer in Melbourne, and that will again be on offer this week.

Sachin’s technique is better suited to this than Laxman’s, but I would go out on a limb and say that, all the hype about Sachin’s averages in Sydney notwithstanding, he too is vulnerable. This is because, at his core, Sachin is an attacking batsman. But if you attack bowling of this quality and intensity and don’t get it to back off, then sooner or later a ball is going to slip through the cracks. This is exactly what happened in Melbourne. Negotiating bowling of this quality requires the ability not just to counter-attack, but to grit it out. To play well even when not fluent or pretty. Only Dravid, in this line-up, has this ability, which is why he was head and shoulders above the rest in England. If we are to win in Sydney, it has to be on his back.

What we have going for us, as mentioned earlier, is the fact that our bowling is stronger than it was this summer, and Australia’s batting is weaker than England’s. So potentially, a Dravid 100 could be the difference between the two sides. The reason our bowlers could not get through the Aussies as quickly as they could get through us brings me to the second weakness in this side. Indeed, the biggest weakness in the side: M.S. Dhoni.

Quite simply, Dhoni’s captaincy has been amongst the worst I have seen in the three decades that I have followed cricket. His principle of spreading the field the minute the 6th wicket falls is utterly inexplicable. Commentators are hoping that he would have learned his lesson in Melbourne – but given that he did this throughout the summer and didn’t learn his lesson then, I don’t see that he would have learned it now. Is he saying that the same fields and tactics that are good enough to dismiss Ponting, Clarke and Hussey are insufficient to dismiss an out-of-form Brad Haddin, or Siddle or Pattinson? It is ludicrous. And then he has the gall to gripe about the bowlers’ inability to get through the tail! As Ian Chappell said, Dhoni’s captaincy on the 4th morning was an object lesson in how to lose a Test match. My only correction would be to replace “object” with “abject”. It was a disgrace. Yet, other than Chappell, not a single commentator has called him out on this, except for some polite talk on cricinfo about how more attacking fields would have been better.

I think it is time for Dhoni’s Test captaincy to come to an end. If, somehow, we eke out a creditable performance in Australia, then Dhoni himself should step down, saying that he has achieved whatever anyone could hope to achieve, that he has had his four years at the helm, that it is time to look forward. If we end up losing big, which is quite possible, he needs to be axed.

A good captain has at least one of three elements (great captains usually have at least two). He could be a good strategist; he could be a good man-manager; or he could lead by example. Dhoni has never been a good strategist. In his very early days, in the 2007 T20 World Cup or when he stood in for Kumble in the 2008 home series against Australia, he would at least take gambles – largely, I think, because he had nothing to lose. Since he has become a full-time captain, however, he has been an extremely conservative captain. This reflects in his refusal to even consider a five-bowler attack, even though batting is supposed to be our strong suit; but also in his field placings. This conservatism works if the batting clicks and we have runs on the board, as pressure then can make defensive tactics seem attacking. But when the batting gets exposed, as it was in England and in Melbourne, the true horrors of such a conservative approach become evident. Forget Ganguly, who was indisputably a better tactician than Dhoni. Even the much-maligned Dravid was. (It was unfortunate that Dravid’s tenure as captain was marred by Greg Chappell’s as coach, and also unfortunate that the only thing he will be remembered for as captain will be the 2007 World Cup, just as Dhoni will only be remembered by the 2011 Cup. But the fact remains that Dravid won us a series in England 1-0, and Dhoni lost us one 0-4. That, to me, is a far more significant statistic than a World Cup).

Dhoni’s strength is in man-management; and when he took over the side, this was an important skill to have, given the mistrust that Chappell’s tenure as coach had engendered. But now, this is basically a happy, mutually supportive dressing-room, and one doesn’t need a captain who can bring calm and keep people happy – we need a captain who can think of ways to win Test matches. (One is also forced to wonder how much of that successful man-management had to do with Gary Kirsten, who was so instrumental in bringing out the best from the likes of Gambhir and Sehwag, rather than Dhoni).

Even poor tacticians however can lead from the front if they lead by example; Ricky Ponting is the classic recent example. There is no question, in this regard, that Dhoni is an exemplary limited-overs captain, because there are few batsmen in the world who are as good in the shorter form as he is. But in Test matches, he is just not good enough. He was always a mediocre keeper; and it is quite clear, given his record in England, South Africa and Australia, that he is a textbook definition, as a batsman, of a flat-track bully. Indeed, he is no more a Test batsman than Yuvraj Singh or Suresh Raina. This is why, in my opinion, he refuses to play 5 bowlers – because he knows that there is no way he is good enough to bat at 6 in a Test line-up. (Indeed, it was quite clear in Melbourne that James Pattinson is a better Test match batsman in these conditions than Dhoni is. This is not a question of form – just in terms of basic technique and ability on wickets that have some juice in them, Dhoni doesn’t cut it). His poor batting has for the most part been covered by the successes of those who have come before him; but when the top and middle-order struggles, having a number 7 who can be depended upon becomes important, and Dhoni is a big cipher in this regard. Forget Ashwin, Ishant Sharma inspires more confidence with the bat than Dhoni does. One could forgive the ordinary keeping and the ordinary batting as long as the myth of Dhoni’s captaincy endured. But if that myth itself requires performance to hold up, then we are in a circular situation.

Quite simply, this emperor has no clothes. The tragedy is that the moral of that story was that the naked emperor was still emperor. And that is the case here. No one is seriously calling Dhoni to account, the myth and the aura and the hype are just too great, he was never taken to task for the failure in England, and he is still getting off largely scot-free here.

And he sells too many packets of soap. He is just too precious a commodity, which means that his power will not be affected by little things like failure of the field in Test matches. But if we lose this series – as we likely will – it will be his fault, as captain and as batsman. And he will remain unaccountable, will make some runs in the tri-series after that, someone else like Gautam Gambhir will be made a scapegoat, and all will be forgotten and forgiven.

I am disgusted with Dhoni, but will still tune into the Sydney Test with trepidation and anticipation. This is our best chance of a win, we cannot afford to go 2-0 down, and this is the chance for our team to stand tall and shine. But a win is going to depend on another strong performance from our bowling unit – definitely likely – and on Dravid standing tall on the burning deck like he did in England. What is different is that England had 9 batsmen who could bat as successfully as Dravid; Australia, in actual fact, has none. So Dravid + the bowlers could yet win this for us, in which case the series will be tantalizingly set up.

But if we do win, it will be in spite of our captain, not because of him.

Five reasons why Australia are favorites

2011-12-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

The conventional wisdom says two things about the forthcoming India – Australia series. The first is that it is likely to be an engrossing series between two flawed teams. I agree. The second, heard in many quarters of the Indian media, is that Australia’s recent batting travails, combined with India’s record against the Aussies over the past couple of years, makes India the favorites to win. I disagree. These pundits and hype-masters seem to have forgotten the small fact of our own drubbing in England this summer, and the fact that the structural issues raised by that drubbing have still been largely unaddressed.

I wouldn’t rule out another 4-0 defeat, though I think it is unlikely, because England is a far better team than this Aussie side, and because I think we are mentally better prepared for this tour than we were for England. But I still think Australia are favorites, for the following four reasons.

First: Australia’s weakness is in their batting; our weakness is in our bowling. But Test matches are won by taking 20 wickets, and, quite simply, I think Australia’s attack is far more capable of taking 20 wickets than ours is. We might be able to do so occasionally, especially given Australia’s fallible batting. But series are won by doing so repeatedly.

Australia’s young attack is not as experienced as the England attack we faced this past summer, but it is still a potent and versatile one. In Pattinson, Siddle and Hilfenhaus, they have a seam attack with a genuine quick, a hard working seamer who will keep coming at the batsman with heavy balls, and a genuine swing bowler – a versatility that mirrors England’s trio of Broad, Bresnan and Anderson. In a match-up of those two attacks, it is true that Graeme Swann is superior to Nathan Lyon; but Swann didn’t have to do that much against India in the summer anyway. We’re going to have our hands full with this Aussie attack. Pattinson looks as menacing as the young Brett Lee did 12 years ago; Siddle is a far better bowler than he was when he made his debut against India in 2007-08; and by all accounts, Hilfenhaus is back in form and mentally stronger than he was last year during his Ashes drubbing at the hands of Alastair Cook. Indeed, as a genuine swing bowler, Hilfenhaus could well be the most dangerous of the three. And if any of them fails to step up to the plate, then Ryan Harris is likely to be fit and in the wings by the time the Sydney Test rolls around.

More generally: of the four teams that have claims to being the best in the world, three of them – England, South Africa and Australia – can plan to win games by taking 20 wickets. England has the best batting line-up of the three, and Australia the worst, and that is reflected in recent results and rankings, but all three have attacks that are potent enough to win games. India’s best plan to win a game is to rack up a big total and use that to pressure the Aussies, especially given the lack of form of some of their most experienced players. That’s a tactic that has won us games in the past; but it is a more reliable tactic in the sub-continent, when racking up big totals is more of a given. It is not a tactic that world champion teams need to depend upon.

And that brings me to the second reason for our vulnerability – our batting. The myth of our unassailable batting line-up is repeated ad nauseum, but the fact is that our batting failed as comprehensively in England as our bowling did. And in the one full warm up game we had here, we managed 270. That does not inspire huge amounts of confidence.

If we look at individuals, then the reputations are big, but the reality is more sobering. Gambhir and Laxman have both averaged in the low-to-mid 30s in 2011. If the series against Bangladesh is taken out, then Sehwag’s Test average over the past 18 months is merely 25. Kohli will be under huge amounts of pressure to perform on a big stage and on hard, bouncy tracks, especially with Rohit Sharma nipping at his heels. Dhoni has always been an average Test batsman, turning in an occasional strong knock but not someone you can count on the way a Gilchrist could be counted on, or even that a Matt Prior these days can be counted on. And there is no question that the hysteria over a 100th hundred has been playing on Sachin’s mind and that he has not been at his most focused or most imposing over the past few months as a consequence; and no doubt the Aussies will keep reminding him of this. This means that, once again, the success or failure of our batting is going to depend largely on Rahul Dravid. And we have seen in England how even a superlative batting performance from Dravid, if single-handed and unsupported, doesn’t count for much.

Of course, it may be that our batting will click. Maybe Sehwag’s 200 against the West Indies is the shot in the arm he needs to get back to his big scoring ways; maybe Gambhir needs just one big knock to start being Mr. Consistent again; maybe Sachin will get that bugbear 100 out of the way and be back to his very best; maybe Australia will bring out the magic in Laxman as it always has; maybe Kohli has what it takes to be Ganguly’s long-term successor at 6 and will show it. But for a team whose strong suit is supposed to be its batting, that’s an awful lot of maybes to depend upon.

The third reason why Australia are favorites is because their batting is fragile, but not weak. This is not a team with a poor batting line-up, like, for instance, the West Indies. It is a team with a line-up that has been prone to far too many surprising and sudden collapses. That is always going to keep bowling sides interested, even ordinary bowling sides like India’s. But there are some good players in that line-up. I personally think that Ponting and Hussey are nearing the end of their ropes – and they have been given longer ones than senior Aussie players usually get – but there is some serious quality amongst the younger brigade. David Warner has already shown this; Ed Cowan is a man in form; and Shaun Marsh is a serious talent, a star in the making. So while not an imposing line-up, this is also not a line-up of pushovers. Of course, compared to England’s – whose number 10 can come in and swat run-a-ball 80s as if playing in a club game – this is a very weak line-up, and if fit, our bowlers do have the quality to expose it.

The key to exposing it, of course, lies with Zaheer Khan, and if he can get through the series, then that alone will make our attack far more potent than it was in England. This is not just because of the quality that he brings himself, but because of his leadership abilities, and the way he is able to act as a mentor to the bowling unit as a whole. As we rose to no. 1 in Tests, our bowling often punched far above its weight. It was Zak’s ability to get the best out of the rest of the attack that was most responsible for that. In England, our bowling didn’t just lack quality – it was rudderless and directionless, there was no thought or intelligence in the bowling unit. Zak will lend it that. This is why I think he is the single most valuable player in the side – perhaps even more so than Dravid, who holds the batting together, or Sehwag, who can change games and demoralize oppositions on his day. And this is why the fact that he is nearing the end of his career, to me, is more worrying than the fact that Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are nearing the ends of theirs.

The fourth reason why Australia are favorites has already just been suggested – because for us to really do well, we have to count on our key players, especially our key bowlers, remaining fit. Given that one is coming off a four-month lay-off, and a second has a dodgy ankle, and given that we will be playing four Test matches in a month on hard grounds with big outfields, that is a big if. And if fitness emerges as an issue – as it already has in taking two of our first choice seamers out of the series, and making a third, Munaf Patel, unavailable from the start – then we just don’t have the bench strength to be competitive.

This is the fault of the selectors. Of the six people who are likely to be on the bench in Melbourne, only two – Rohit and Pragyan Ojha – really deserve to be in Australia. Abhinav Mukund has played Tests in the West Indies and England and is piling on the runs in domestic cricket, yet Ajinkya Rahane – who has never played a Test abroad, and who has spent most of the last couple of months carrying drinks – is back-up opener, to two openers who have themselves been extremely prone to injury this past year. It was clear in the warm-up games that Rahane is in no sort of form, and both he, and the team, would have been served far better had he been left at home to get some domestic cricket in, and the in-form Mukund been selected instead. And Wriddhiman Saha is just not good enough to bat at 7 in a Test match, so if he did have to step in for Dhoni, then our batting would become even more vulnerable than it is.

But the real scandal concerns the fast bowlers who have replaced PK and Aaron. Mithun and Vinay Kumar are game tryers, but there is no way, on either form or ability, that either should be in Australia, so god help us if any of our three frontline seamers – two of whom are physically fragile – break down at any point in the series. Irfan Pathan has toured Australia twice, with great success each time; provides the all-round skills to allow us to contemplate 5 bowlers; and, by the time the team to Australia was selected, had already picked up more Ranji wickets this year than Mithun and Vinay combined; yet is still sitting at home playing for Baroda.

We could have also done with a genuine conventional right-arm swing bowler, given Australia’s well touted weakness against swing, especially once PK was injured. In theory Sreesanth fits the bill, but he too is injured and has been given enough chances. The one bowler in India who fits a profile similar to Sreesanth – capable of swinging the ball big in the mid-to-high 130s – is Ashok Dinda, who has also been getting wickets by the bagful. Sourav Ganguly claims Dinda is the best fast bowler in India today. There might be a bit of parochial bias in that statement, but Ganguly is a great judge of talent, and if he backs someone, I take it seriously. One can understand Irfan and Dinda not making the first cut – those are judgment calls, and while I think both have stronger credentials than Aaron, certainly PK had first claim to a spot – but to not have either in Australia even as replacements, and to have Mithun and Vinay there instead, is nothing short of scandalous. What this means, effectively, is that we are a touring party of 13. We saw what the consequences of poor bench strength were in England, and if we have to witness that again, it won’t be pretty.

The final reason why Australia are favorites concerns Melbourne rather than the series altogether. And that is that, over the past two decades, the MCG has been one of India’s worst grounds, along with Lord’s and Bridgetown. The Bridgetown threat has been recently mitigated somewhat because the West Indies are so awful (though we still didn’t win a Test there when we toured); but Lord’s and MCG have been terrible grounds for us. The last three Tests we have played at the MCG have all resulted in 100+ run defeats. (The last defeat was by 337 runs). So if we keep going on about the fact that Australia hasn’t beaten us in the last eight Tests, then this little bit of counter-history might be a humbling fact to chew upon.

All in all, I don’t give India a chance at Melbourne. The question is whether we can recover after that, as we have done on many recent tours abroad, or whether this would mark the beginning of a drubbing as we received in England. The answer to that will largely depend on the fitness of our first choice XI. For me, as always, Dravid and Zak are going to be key. And on the Aussie side, the two young comeback men, Marsh and Hilfenhaus, are I think ones to watch and fear.

From a strategic point of view, given that ultimately Tests are won by getting 20 wickets, I would still advocate going in with 5 bowlers – having Ashwin bat at 7, and playing both spinners. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Virat Kohli, and think he should be given maximum encouragement. But if our much-vaunted top 5 can’t get us more runs than Australia’s much-derided line-up, then it is too much to ask a relative rookie such as Kohli to solve that problem; if they do fire, then an extra bowler will be of more use than an extra batsman in any case. But that, alas, will not happen. This is partly because of Dhoni’s stubbornness (and basically defensive mindset) in always playing the extra batsman; partly, I think, because of Dhoni’s lack of confidence in his own ability to bat at 6 in Tests; and partly an indication of Dhoni’s own faith (or lack thereof) in his much-vaunted line-up. That is too bad, because in my mind, our best chance of winning this series comes from playing 5 bowlers, putting as much pressure as possible on Australia’s batting, and giving ourselves the best possible chance of taking 20 wickets.

Irfan must replace PK

2011-12-04T02:49:00.001-08:00

This is literally a one-liner. But since I argued for Irfan Pathan's selection in my previous post, his case has only gotten stronger, with yet another five-for against a strong Delhi side. With Praveen Kumar now out of the Australia series, and Munaf Patel still not fit, Irfan must be selected. From the perspective of team balance, he allows us to play 5 bowlers - which is important, given Zaheer's dubious fitness, and will allow us to play both spinners. But just in terms of bowling credentials, there is no one else in India who can make the grade. At the moment, Zak's fitness remains a question mark over four Tests, and I don't see Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron scaring Aussie batsmen with their low-140s stuff: the Aussies grow up on that, it is bread and butter for them. The thing that troubles the Aussies, especially their technically suspect top order, is swing. Fortunately, Sreesanth is out injured, so he won't tempt the selectors; it really leaves Irfan as the only credible choice. Abhimanyu Mithun has been coming in as reserve of late. Mithun is a game trier, but after a strong debut Ranji season he has done little of note. And his mid-130s hit-the-deck bowling will be slaughtered by the Aussies.

Here's to hoping that Irfan gets his chance and grabs it. Indian cricket needs him, fully fit and firing, in the long term.

Two team selections, one of them important

2011-11-24T04:05:00.001-08:00

In the next two days, the Indian selectors will meet twice, first to select the team for the ODIs against the West Indies, then to select for the Tests in Australia. The second, of course, is the big selection, so let me start with my team for that, before working backwards to the ODIs.

I have some fundamental principles guiding my selection for the Australia series, and some of these are things I have highlighted in my posts at the end of the 2010-11 season. The most fundamental thing for me, which I don’t think will be heeded by the selectors or the team management, is that we have to go for quantity in bowling. This is for two reasons. First, our bowling is our weak suit, and indeed we have one of the weaker bowling attacks in world cricket today. This was cruelly exposed in England. The Aussie batting line-up is weaker than England’s, but they will be playing on hard, true wickets at home. If we don’t play 5 bowlers, there is no chance of winning this series. And this is a series we need to play to win: because Australia is beatable now; because we need to expunge the memories of England; and because we owe it to Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman in what will surely be their final tour Down Under.

The second reason is because I will argue that Zaheer Khan should not be selected. He has now declared himself fit, and the selectors say his selection will be “provisional” on his proving that fitness. But this proof will come, most likely, from a single Ranji Trophy match. That is not enough, for me, to prove the fitness of someone who is 33, and who has a record of breaking down on big tours, including on the last tour to Australia. Brett Lee came back from an injury like Zak’s, and even though he played 3 or 4 Tests, he was a shadow of his former self in the longer version of the game. However good a bowler Zak might be, this is just something I am not willing to risk. We need to go in with an attack that we are sure about. Zak’s injury is not something minor (like Munaf Patel’s ankle); hamstrings are difficult injuries to heal even for younger, fitter bodies. In Zak’s absence, 5 bowlers in the 11 is a must.

A very exciting development has happened that has enabled us to contemplate this, and that is the return to first-class cricket for Irfan Pathan, with a bang. In the first three Ranji matches of the season, Irfan already has two five-fors. This is wonderful news, because Irfan remains the only Test-class all-rounder, in terms of ability, for India. Our last Test win in Australia, at Perth, was set up by Irfan, who was man-of-the-match in that game. I would select him for the tour in a heart-beat, this time without the pressure of being the lead bowler (since Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar are the automatic choices to lead the attack). No number 6, in any case, has made the spot his own since Ganguly’s retirement, so Irfan at 7 with his bowling is a far better bet than any specialist batsman we can put in at 6.

This means that the top 7 selects itself: Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dhoni and Irfan. PK and Ishant are the two new ball bowlers, and playing 5 bowlers will allow us the luxury of playing two frontline spinners. This is where I will make a gut call.

This will surprise all those who have followed my Bhaj-bashing on this blog for years, but I think Harbhajan Singh needs to be on the plane to Australia. This is simply because of his record against the Aussies, and his ability to get under their skins. Ashwin is a good bowler, but bowling on true Aussie tracks against Australia is a different ball game from bowling on Indian wickets to the West Indies, who are possibly the worst players of spin in world cricket today. Pragyan Ojha has done enough to earn an extended run in the side, and I certainly think Ashwin should be taken along as a third spinner to keep the heat on Bhaj. Bhaj will have to perform to keep his place in the side, but I would give him a shot at Melbourne. His career is at a crossroads at the moment, and it is up to him to seize this chance and become the senior leader of the attack.

This only leaves the reserves to pick. I already have Ashwin on that list, and Virat Kohli is for me the obvious back-up middle-order batsman, someone who can play at 6 should the need arise to pick the extra specialist batsman. Parthiv Patel is also, for me, the obvious reserve keeper, because I don’t think that Wriddhiman Saha is good enough to bat at 7 (let alone 6) should Dhoni be injured. Umesh Yadav, I think, still has a lot of skills to develop, but his performances against the West Indies have been promising. Australia isn’t going to be afraid of a bowler who bowls in the low-140s: even Shane Watson, their slowest fast bowler, can hit those speeds. But Yadav does have the basics to be a good fast bowler, and if we get a genuinely quick wicket having the option of playing him as a fourth seamer would be useful to have. The fifth seamer I would take along would be Munaf Patel, who for me is the most improved Indian cricketer of the past year. He should be fully recovered by then, and he provides the option of tight, hit-the-deck, wicket-to-wicket stock bowling. It is time to give him another look-in in the longer version of the game. I have seen nothing in Varun Aaron’s bowling to suggest that he is ready for a long tour of Australia, and I think the selectors’ patience with Sreesanth has finally and rightly worn off.

That only leaves the reserve opener’s spot. Ajinkya Rahane has it against the West Indies, but here again I would use gut and selectorial judgment to take Abhinav Mukund along instead. Rahane is the prettier batsman, and has played some good one-day knocks. But technically, he has the same weaknesses as Mukund, viz. a tendency to push at balls outside off-stump away from the body. This clearly comes from growing up on flat Indian tracks, and it is something that can be worked on and ironed out. What I really like about Mukund though is his temperament: even when the going was tough in England, he showed that he has a strong head on his shoulder. That is a vital attribute in a youngster, and he is not someone who should be given up on. He has experience playing in the West Indies and England, and that is something that will stand him in good stead in Australia. Rahane’s day will come, but Mukund is the one I will invest in first. Indeed, I would even give Mukund a run in the one-dayers against the West Indies, to give him some confidence: he is no more a Test specialist than Rahane is.

Hence, my team for the Australia Tests:

1. Gautam Gambhir (V)
2. Virendra Sehwag
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. V.V.S. Laxman
6. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Praveen Kumar
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Pragyan Ojha

Reserves:

12. Abhinav Mukund
13. Virat Kohli
14. Parthiv Patel (W)
15. Munaf Patel
16. Umesh Yadav
17. Ravichandran Ashwin

For the one-dayers against the West Indies, I would rest a few people. Top of that list would be Dhoni, who desperately needs a break. But I would also rest Sehwag and Tendulkar. As I have suggested before, Viru needs to be dealt with carefully, and in my mind he should purely be selected for Test matches in the future. Neither he nor Sachin is likely to play the next World Cup, and I think Sachin should probably just have retired from one-dayers after the World Cup win. This will allow us to groom youngsters to partner Gambhir at the top of the order in the long-term. As I have suggested, Mukund should be in the picture here, as should Rahane, who played a couple of good knocks against England.

Parthiv Patel remains the best man to back Dhoni up in Tests, but he didn’t do enough as a one-day batsman against England to be his obvious replacement. Rather, I would finally recall the long-suffering Robin Uthappa, who has had to wait for four years to fight his way back into India contention. Uthappa has in the meantime developed into a more than functional limited overs keeper, and he provides the ability to finish an innings explosively that Dhoni has. He’s the right man to replace Dhoni at 6. Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj and Raina of course are automatic selections, and Gambhir should be leading the side in Dhoni’s absence, with Kohli, not Raina, the more worthy deputy.

I would rather have Irfan and Bhaj play a couple of more Ranji games before Australia than play one-day games at this point. Ravindra Jadeja did enough against England to retain the all-rounder’s spot at 7, and Ashwin has emerged as a better limited overs bowler than Bhaj. PK has had a bit of a rest, so he, Ishant and Munaf can form the seam attack, with Umesh Yadav backing them up. Pragyan Ojha also needs to be in the picture, he is yards ahead of Rahul Sharma, who has no credentials whatsoever to be part of the plan.

My final spot would go to another seamer, and here I would make a long-term investment. I do think we need to find a long-term left-arm seam replacement for Zak. Irfan could be one, but it is still too early to say if he will make the kind of comeback that I hope he will. R.P. Singh should have been the one, but he has been too lazy and has turned into a joke. And Jaydev Unadkat, clearly, is not remotely ready for international cricket.

This is why I would give the young Delhi seamer Pradeep Sangwan a chance. He is 22, but has had 3 or 4 seasons of domestic experience. Sehwag rates him as one of the best bowlers in India: not praise to be dismissed lightly. After an injury-ridden season last year, he is bowling beautifully this season. Why not give him a go and see what he can do?

So, my team against the West Indies for the one-day games:

1. Abhinav Mukund
2. Gautam Gambhir ©
3. Virat Kohli (V)
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. Suresh Raina
6. Robin Uthappa (W)
7. Ravindra Jadeja
8. Ravichandran Ashwin
9. Praveen Kumar
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Munaf Patel

Reserves:

12. Ajinkya Rahane
13. Umesh Yadav
14. Pradeep Sangwan
15. Pragyan Ojha

Dossier summaries and Indian team against West Indies

2011-10-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

In my last four posts, I have come up with a dossier for the group of cricketers who I think is critical to our fortunes in the coming year. This includes:

1. Dravid, Tendulkar, and Laxman, the Big Three, who I think continue to showcase their class and greatness. They are absolutely still integral to our Test match success, as, three years after his retirement, we still haven’t found an adequate replacement for Ganguly at 6. They deserve a win in Australia as the crowning achievement of their careers. (At least Tendulkar now has a World Cup. Dravid and Laxman don’t even have that). And I hope they keep going as long as their bodies allow them to. Dravid, in particular, continues to prove that he is arguably the greatest cricketer India has ever produced, combining his sheer batting ability with a willingness to do just about anything the team asks of him.

2. Dhoni, Gambhir, Sehwag and Zaheer, the Core Four. These are the four who took India to the top, and a combination of their injury and poor form led to our debacle in England. Dhoni and Gambhir are still integral to the team’s fortunes, and indeed do constitute the team’s leadership. It is time to formalize that by making Gambhir the long-term vice-captain. But Sehwag and Zak are entering the twilights of their careers, especially given that they were never the fittest of players to begin with. This is a huge worry, and the time has come to restrict the games they play to prolong their careers. I think Viru should be restricted to Tests, though I am well aware that this won’t happen. And I think it likely that Zak’s body won’t allow him the rigors of Test cricket anymore: it is very hard to make a comeback from injuries such as his at age 33 for a fast bowler.

3. Harbhajan, Sreesanth, Yuvraj, Raina. These are the four in whom long term investments have been made, but the dividends have been mixed at best. Bhaj and Sree are potential match-winners, and there aren’t too many alternatives to them. There aren’t that many fast bowlers to choose from, so we don’t really have the luxury of abandoning Sree. And none of the possible replacements for Bhaj have made a defining case to be a lead Test match spinner. But both should only be played in Tests. Yuvraj and Raina, meanwhile, are fine limited overs players, but we should recognize that this is all that they are. Let us give up on the fiction that either can be a long-term successor to Ganguly at no. 6 in Tests.

4. Kohli, Ishant, Munaf. These in my mind are our stars for the future, and the three that we need to invest in this year, especially in Tests. Kohli is the man to succeed Ganguly at 6; it is time for Ishant to take over the mantle as strike bowler, which means he needs to be protected as one would one’s strike bowler; and Munaf needs to be given the role of Test match third seamer / stock bowler / bowling captain, especially in Zak’s absence.

There are, of course, other important players in Indian cricket, but none of them are as central to manage as these 14 above. For instance, Praveen Kumar has been outstanding over the summer, but I don’t think we can count of him to be effective in Test matches in all conditions. Both Mukund and Rahane are youngsters of enormous promise, but they need to be persisted with, and develop their games, before judgment can be passed on them. Badrinath has continued to pile on the runs in domestic cricket, but continues to be ignored, and with each passing season, his chances of becoming an integral member of the Indian team recede. The likes of Rohit Sharma and Ashwin have shown promise, but there is a long way to go before either of them can be considered certainties, or before they can be considered serious Test prospects. Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra show glimpses of being good supporting acts to Bhaj, but neither looks like a lead spinner yet.

With this in mind, here is my team for the Tests against the West Indies. I base it on the following claims. First, as I have said repeatedly in previous posts, we have to be open to playing 5 bowlers in Test matches. In India, I think that is a must. So my team will have 5 frontline bowlers, even though I know Dhoni will never go down that road. Second, Sehwag has declared himself fit. I’d like more of a basis for fitness than a player’s self-admission, but there is no question that we need to see Viru in action before Australia. So if he’s available to play, he must. This means the batting order takes care of itself, with Virat Kohli in reserves. I would also keep Abhinav Mukund in reserve. He didn’t set England alight, but he showed that most crucial of attributes for an opener, temperament. He will only improve with experience, and I think it is crucial that we persist with him.

In Zak’s absence, my four frontline bowlers, without a doubt, would be Ishant, Praveen, Munaf and Harbhajan. I would select Pragyan Ojha as Bhaj’s bowling partner, because I think he provides greater control than Mishra, and would tie one end down and allow Bhaj to attack. And I would have Sreesanth in reserve. Hence, my team:

1. Gautam Gambhir (V)
2. Virendra Sehwag
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. V.V.S. Laxman
6. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
7. Harbhajan Singh
8. Praveen Kumar
9. Ishant Sharma
10. Munaf Patel
11. Pragyan Ojha

Reserves:

12. Abhinav Mukund
13. Virat Kohli
14. S. Sreesanth

2010-11 Indian cricket dossiers Part 4

2011-10-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

RISING STARS TO INVEST IN

The four youngsters we have invested in over the past 5 years or more – Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Sreesanth and Raina – have all been capricious investments. Each has shown glimpses of true ability, but years after their debuts questions remain over them all. I have nonetheless suggested that they are worth persisting with, if in limited and more qualified ways. But this still leaves the question of who the long-term stars of Indian cricket will be. And it still leaves some of the glaring gaps in the Indian Test side: specifically, support acts and successors to Zaheer Khan, and the still-elusive successor to Ganguly at no. 6.

I think it is time to make three new long-term investments in this regard, and those are Virat Kohli, Munaf Patel and Ishant Sharma. Munaf has been around as long as Sreesanth, and certainly has over the years been equally disappointing. But he has received far fewer chances than Sree has, and over the past year, has developed impressive consistency as a limited overs bowler. Ishant is already part of the current Test dispensation, but at this point needs to be taken much better care of; he is just too precious a bowler to be overbowled in the manner that is happening. And it is time for Kohli to be the man we invest in as long-term successor to Ganguly.

Kohli’s case, indeed, is extremely straightforward. Of the youngsters who have been given a run in one-day cricket – Raina, Rohit and Kohli – Kohli has by far made the most of his opportunities. In limited overs over the last year, Kohli has been more than consistent, he has been phenomenal, stringing together big scores repeatedly at 3 and 4. His temperament and hunger are far superior to any of his contemporaries. Even though he came into the limelight as the bad boy of IPL-1, he in fact had already turned in big performances for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy while still part of India’s under-19 ranks, showing an ability to play 4-day cricket right from his early days. What is impressive is how quickly he has outgrown the bad boy antics to mature into a thoughtful, composed cricketer. Ray Jennings, not one to mince his words, thinks Kohli will in years to come make bowlers around the world weep, and has tipped him as a future India captain. Certainly, he has far stronger leadership credentials than Raina does. Geoff Boycott, another astute judge of batting talent who is not given to lightly praise people, also thinks highly of Kohli.

Kohli is an attacking batsman, but his strength, unlike Rohit or Raina, is that he is not a fancy one. He is a well organized batsman, and keeps it simple. The shot that he likes most is the leg-side flick, and he uses it to keep working runs over; but he is able to change gears and accelerate fiercely when required. He was given a working over by the West Indian quicks in the couple of Tests he played there, but I think has a fundamentally better technique against the short ball than either Raina or Rohit. And he adds immense value in the field. One of the things that he does need to do is focus on his bowling. I have talked in an earlier post about the utility of having a part-timer who can bowl slow-medium (like Ganguly, Sanjay Bangar or Mohinder Amarnath), as that opens up the option of playing either 3 seamers or 2 spinners in the frontline bowling attack and provides the team management more flexibility. If Kohli can develop into the bowler than Ganguly was – good enough to give the captain 10 overs in a Test innings regardless of conditions, but capable of nipping it about and getting a couple of wickets on green tracks – then he will really add value to the side. Right now, he is not as useful a bowler as he might be, and that needs to be the task he sets himself this year. Regardless, if we play 6 frontline batsmen in Tests, he needs to be our no. 6. Judging him on the basis of a couple of ordinary Tests in the West Indies, as the selectors did, was poor judgment, as was the decision to leave him out of the party to tour England. But not even giving him a chance at the Oval after Raina had looked so abysmal in Trent Bridge and Birmigham suggests something close to nepotism.

Ishant’s case is far more straightforward, because he is already a part of the Indian Test dispensation. There is no question that he is a unique bowler in the Indian context. He is not an out and out quick, though he can hit the 140s consistently when fit and in rhythm. But his height and his ability to hit the deck and seam it around make him a unique commodity. What is even more impressive – similar to Kohli, but different from his fast bowling contemporaries like Sreesanth and R.P. Singh – is his temperament. He has always been a game trier, and has always given 110%, not just while bowling, but even with his limited yet invaluable tail-end batting. His support to V.V.S. Laxman in that sensational Mohali chase against Australia was one of the highlights of the year for Indian cricket.

When he burst on the scene 3 years ago, it looked like Ishant would be one of the three future fast bowling stars of world cricket, along with Morne Morkel and Stuart Broad. While Broad is more of a swing bowler, all three share certain characteristics – their height, aggression, their ability to come at the batsmen, and the way in which they complement the senior strike bowlers in their respective teams, Steyn, Anderson and Zaheer. All three went through second-year blues, showing alarming losses of form and having injury problems after their initial promising burst. Morkel and Broad have come through their difficult spells, and how are integral members of their respective bowling outfits.

Ishant has also shown signs all year of coming into his own again. But his problem is that it is not clear how long Zaheer will be around to give him cover, and the rest of the bowling attack that works around him is much weaker than either South Africa’s or England’s. This means that, at age 22, it seems already like Ishant needs to lead India’s attack. Certainly, he is likely to be our strike bowler in Australia, with Zak’s fitness in doubt. And that means that how he is managed becomes critical.

Broad in particular has a huge advantage in this regard, being a part of England’s professional management system. Ishant on the other hand just gets bowled whenever he is around to bowl; and because he is such a team player, he shows up to do the job. Arm chair critics go on about how his pace has dropped off; yet he bowled an astonishing 173 overs over 4 Tests in England. That is not the way to treat a key fast bowler, especially one who is still young and whose body is yet to reach peak fitness. There are no signs that Ishant’s treatment will become any better in the near future, since N. Srinivasan has emphatically said that professional cricketers should know enough to take care of themselves. In other words – don’t come looking to the BCCI for help, or for professional player management.

This is a tragedy, because given India’s limited bowling resources, it is essential for Ishant to be at peak fitness every time he plays. Ishant’s role in the side – regardless of Zak’s availability or fitness – needs to be as the main strike bowler. He is one who can bowl at 140-145 and jag it around. But that means that he needs to be used as a strike bowler: in short, 4-5 over spells, brought on to take wickets, with other bowlers bowling around him to keep things quiet or create pressure. He is still young, but has been around for nearly 4 years now; he is ready to play a central role in this side. The question is, will he be managed in a way that allows him to fulfill his potential, and play the role he is capable of playing?

I think that Munaf Patel has a role to play in answering this question. He is the third young player that I tip as central to India’s future. Ishant and Kohli are relatively unproblematic choices for this category: Ishant has looked a star ever since he has burst on to the scene, while Kohli’s growth has been both steady and spectacular. Munaf, however, has been one of the consistent underperformers in Indian cricket over the years. Yet there are a couple of reasons why I think the time has come to invest faith in him and give him more responsibilities.

One is simply based on performance. Along with Kohli, Munaf has quite simply been the most improved Indian cricketer over the past 12 months. Most of that improvement has been in limited overs, but that is because he has not received many chances in the longer version of the game. In the odd Test match that he has played – such as at Dominica – he looked amongst the most threatening of India’s bowlers, even if his figures didn’t reflect it. For Kohli to be left out of the Oval Test for Raina was bad enough. But Munaf was on tour throughout the England series and didn’t get a look in even once. There is no excuse for that, this was simply egregious.

Performance aside, Munaf has the potential to play a particular role in the Test bowling attack, which is that of the stock bowler. We keep looking for the glamorous bowlers, the ones who can bowl really fast or swing it around wildly like Sreesanth. But every bowling attack needs someone who can give it control. Occasionally, teams are lucky to have a stock bowler who is also a strike bowler – Glenn McGrath is a prime example from recent times, as is Andrew Flintoff. And Zak has played that role for India. And often, the stock bowler’s role is played by the lead spinner, such as what Kumble did for India or Murali for Sri Lanka, regardless of whether or not they were taking wickets. As mentioned in my previous post, Harbhajan does not have that ability to double up as stock and strike bowler: when he thinks control, he turns into an ordinary, flat bowler, and our interests are best served when he plays an out-and-out attacking role. This means that, in Zak’s absence, we don’t have a single bowler who can combine the two roles that the leader of an attack needs to play: being the strike bowler who can take wickets, but also being the person the captain can turn to in order to keep things under control so that others can go flat out.

I think Munaf can play the latter role. One of his tragedies is that he is constantly being measured against the expectations that existed of him when he burst onto the scene: he was seen as the answer to India’s search for a genuine fast bowler. But his strengths as they have developed over time are not about genuine pace. And instead of constantly touting that as a failure, we should recognize the strengths that he does have. He is not going to be our version of Brett Lee; he is not even our version of Glenn McGrath. But he can be our version of Angus Fraser. And while the glamour-obsessed Indian cricket pundit / selector / fan doesn’t hold much stock in the Frasers of the world, our bowling attack desperately needs someone who can play that role. I think we need to invest in Munaf to play that role – that, as with Kohli, needs to be a judgment call. These are two judgment calls the selectors need to make this year, and they are both critical, I feel, to India coming back to be a top team in Test cricket.

2010-11 dossiers Part 3

2011-10-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

[As it happens, this is my 100th post on this site. It has taken 5 years to get here, it is really not much of a typical blog in that I know it has a limited readership and I don’t do well about responding to comments etc. But it has provided me an outlet for my thoughts, and I am grateful to those of few who have tuned in occasionally, either leaving comments or just reading. Five years ago, it seemed like Sachin Tendulkar’s career was about to end (which was the subject of my very first blog post). In those five years, Indian cricket has plummeted depths and scaled heights. Even though I don’t know most of you and you don’t know me, I am grateful to have shared this voyage with you all in some small way. T20 has thrown cricket open to the fan who views it merely as entertainment. It is good for me to know that there are some of us who still love it for the great sport that it is, and who will support, rejoice and lament in the Indian cricket team in good times and bad].

YOUNGSTERS NO MORE, BUT HOW GOOD ARE THEY?

So far in my dossiers, I have analyzed the core of the Indian cricket team: Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, and the immediate next leadership generation of Sehwag, Zaheer, Dhoni and Gambhir. I think there are concerns here especially with the fraying bodies of Viru and Zak, who have been so central to India’s rise to the top. But otherwise, we do have 7 top-quality cricketers here, who would form the core of an outstanding cricket team. The question now concerns who fills in the gaps; and, given that 5 of these 7 are in the latter stages of their career, also who exists to fill their shoes in the long term.

Even before we go to youngsters coming through the ranks, it is worth considering what those gaps are. Three are quite obvious: a replacement for Sourav Ganguly at no. 6; a replacement for Anil Kumble as the lead spinner; and a reliable new ball partner for Zaheer. It is understandable that no one has filled Kumble’s shoes: those are very big shoes to fill. But, given the amount of batting talent that purportedly exists in the country, it is shocking that 3 years after his retirement, no one has really claimed Ganguly’s no. 6 Test batting spot yet. It is equally an indictment of the system that Zak doesn’t have a reliable new ball partner.

The four people to consider in this category are: Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Sreesanth and Suresh Raina. Somehow in the media’s common sense, three of these (except Harbhajan, who is often referred to as a senior member of the side) are still called “youngsters”. Yuvraj is hitting 30, so the only reason he is a youngster is because he still hasn’t established himself as a Test batsman, in spite of having made his Test debut 8 years ago. But it is important to recognize that Sreesanth and Raina are no longer youngsters either, both having made their debuts back in 2005-06. If after playing 6 years of international cricket they still haven’t established themselves as reliable members of the side, then one has to start considering how much longer a rope they should have.

And that is the common denominator with all four of these players: they have had exceptionally long ropes. Ultimately, when there are a handful of key spots in a side to be filled, filling them with the best person has to be a matter of judgment. There can be some element of luck and trial and error: it may be possible to take a punt on someone and have it work unexpectedly. But these four are not punts: they have been long term investments, taken by successive captains, team managements and selection committees. They have been trusted, effectively, with the future of Indian cricket. This means that it is time to evaluate whether the right choices and the right investments have been made, or whether it is time to change course.

One thing that is definite about all four of these players is their enormous natural ability. In a country where natural talent and style counts for much more than temperament or substance, this was always going to be an advantage for them. But the consequence of such long term investments, of course, is that other people miss out. Who knows now whether Mohammad Kaif, who never got the chances Yuvraj did in spite of being a more solid Test batsman, mightn’t have developed into Ganguly’s successor had he been the chosen one? Or whether Murali Kartik mightn’t have been a better spinner to succeed Kumble? It is unlikely that Kaif or Kartik will ever come close to an India cap again, but now Raina is effectively keeping the likes of Virat Kohli and Subramaniam Badrinath out of the side, just as Sreesanth, through the England series, kept Munaf Patel out. Those are choices that are being made, and they have consequences. The question is: are they the right choices?

I will make a basic argument in this post, and it will be a surprising one to those who have followed my tirades against Bhaj over the years. And this is that these four players fall into two clear categories: Harbhajan and Sreesanth on the one hand, and Yuvraj and Raina on the other.

There is no question that Yuvi and Raina are outstanding limited overs players. (Well, Yuvi is. Raina is an outstanding T20 player and a decent 50-over player). But neither is a Test player. Both have played the occasional good Test knock. (Indeed, Yuvraj has played two outstanding Test knocks: his 169 against Pakistan in Bangalore, and the supporting role he played to Tendulkar in the famous Chennai run chase against England). Of course, these are two knocks over 8 (albeit interrupted) years of Test cricket; and, crucially, both have come in India. Raina impressed on debut, again on flat sub-continental tracks, but hasn’t even played the occasional defining knock like Yuvi has. Indeed, Yuvi and Raina are living proof that it is much harder, perhaps even impossible, to transition from being good limited overs players to being good Test players, than it is the other way round.

Bhaj and Sree on the other hand are immensely frustrating talents, and sometimes one feels like slapping them. (Sreesanth in particular is so infuriating that even Bhaj feels like slapping him). But – and this is the key point – they are proven match-winners in Tests. And this is the fundamental difference. One wishes that they were consistent and that they had their heads screwed on. Maybe that will still happen, maybe it never will. But on their day, even with loosely screwed heads, they can be as good as the best in the business. It is not clear that Yuvraj and Raina, in Tests, ever can.

Sreesanth’s skills are simple and straightforward. He is a natural swing bowler. There is nothing fancy about his swing: he doesn’t have the craft, cunning and variation of a Zaheer Khan, or the ability to dangle the ball on a string and make it stop in mid-air before wobbling in four directions like Wasim Akram. But he can swing it; not that many people in the world can. And he can swing it both ways, again not a skill that too many have. In that sense, as a classic, conventional swing bowler, he is the closest parallel there is in world cricket to Jimmy Anderson. Indeed, when he is in rhythm (and that’s a big when), he can be as quick as Anderson too, and is capable of hitting the low-140s. The second thing that is wonderful about Sreesanth is his amazing seam position, possibly the best in the game. Good swing bowlers can trouble the best of batsmen, and this is why Sree always does need to remain in the picture, certainly as a Test bowler. His inconsistencies mean that he can never be a certainty, and could on any given day be a liability. And again, with a 4-bowler attack, the risk of playing him multiplies. But he is too good to give up on entirely, and if we were open to a 5-bowler attack then it would be conceivable to play him as an out-and-out attacking option with some insurance in case he was to have a bad day.

Much the same can be said of Harbhajan Singh. At his best, he has enormous ability and many subtle variations. He himself will point to the 400 Test wickets he has taken, and it is true that so many wickets have to speak to quality somewhere. More than that, many of those wickets have been match-winning performances: when Bhaj is on a roll, he can be very dangerous. The frustration with Bhaj is that often, when the team needs him, he fails to turn up. And, as someone who is now leading the spin attack, and who is often looked to as both a senior bowler and as someone who needs to play multiple roles depending on the context of the game, this makes him a potential liability. Now it seems like he has reached a point, given his axing for the England one-dayers, where he cannot even take his place in the side for granted anymore.

I think the truth about Bhaj is somewhere more nuanced than these extreme positions, though I myself have taken very critical positions of him in the past. The fact is, Bhaj is a very good attacking spinner, the best we have. (Ojha is a good spinner, but primarily a defensive one; Mishra can be attacking, but also erratic; Ashwin has potential, but so far he has primarily impressed in limited overs and it is not clear how good he will be if he has to bowl 50 overs in an innings). But Bhaj is not a good defensive spinner. And the really good spinners are those who can shift back and forth between those roles, depending on conditions and the state of the game. This was the genius of a Kumble or a Murali: even on flat batting tracks when the opposition was wracking up 500, there wouldn’t be cheap runs on offer from these two, so usually the captain would only have to worry about one end. And if there was an opening, both could shift from being defensive to attacking at the snap of a finger. Indeed, there was constant aggression even when they were bowling defensively. (Shane Warne, the other great bowler of this spinning trinity, of course rarely had to bowl defensively given the quality of the attack around him).

And that’s where Bhaj’s limitations lie. For one thing, he is a confidence bowler, and so falls into a groove or a rut very quickly in his spell. If he is in a defensive mindset, he is rarely able to switch out of it or change gears. And, unlike most spinners, Bhaj is a very poor defensive bowler. His idea of defensive bowling is to bowl flat and quick. But he is not a conventionally big spinner of the ball, and when at his best relies on flight and bounce to snare batsmen. When bowling flat and quick, then, Bhaj turns into little more than a slow medium bowler without variations. He can be milked, and he is rarely threatening. Indeed, this is often the mode he reverts to in limited overs cricket, and he is not a good limited overs bowler. (Someone like Ashwin offers far more variations. Bhaj has variations, but they are rarely on display when he is in a defensive mindset).

The other limitation is that, temperamentally, unlike Kumble or Zaheer, Bhaj is not the leader of an attack. He was helped enormously through most of his career by having Kumble at the other end, and even of late, has always looked better when he is bowling in tandem with another spinner. (When the Aussies toured for instance, Bhaj looked constantly threatening when he had Ojha keeping things quiet at the other end. Ojha himself didn’t pick too many wickets, but in this sense he played a crucial role in freeing Bhaj up to bowl his attacking best).

Once again, what this means, as with Zak and Sree, is that Bhaj can be a real asset as part of a 5-man attack, which would allow us to play 2 spinners at all times and allow Bhaj to play the role of attacking spinner. But as part of a 4-man attack, he is always a gamble, especially against good batting sides and / or in conditions that don’t favor spin. Given how much his batting has improved, a case can be made for Bhaj to bat at 7, if not all the time, then at least some of the time. I agree with Dhoni that Bhaj shouldn’t have the expectations of an all-rounder thrust upon him. But I also think that the expectations that he is Kumble’s successor as leader of the attack are misplaced. As a senior member of the side, he does need to step up to the plate and take on more responsibility. But I think that he is actually better equipped to take on additional responsibilities with the bat than he is to play outside of his comfort zone as a bowler. As he moves into his 30s, I think we would do well to dispense with him from limited overs altogether, since Ashwin is proving a more than adequate successor. Instead, he should just be made to play the role of attacking spin bowler, and should remain open to batting at 7 should the team need him to. He could still have a big role to play for India if used right, especially with a series in Australia coming up.

Yuvraj and Raina are trickier cases. Yuvi in particular is now basking in the glow of his World Cup heroics, which probably means that he is back to being no. 1 in line for the Test no. 6 spot. I think he has a stronger case than Raina for that spot, and there’s no question that when in form and confident, he is a colossal presence, especially in the shorter formats. And the most exciting development of the past year has been the development of his limited overs bowling skills, as he has reliably filled the role of 5th bowler and turned into the all-rounder that we so desperately needed.

But I still don’t think he is a Test batsman, and in giving him incessant chances to prove himself in that role we have prevented technically more qualified players from getting a chance to establish themselves. Quite simply, I don’t know of a single limited-overs specialist who has gone on to become a good Test batsman: both technically and mentally, this is a very difficult and possibly impossible transition to make. In Yuvraj’s and Raina’s cases this has been exacerbated by the fact that throughout their careers they have in fact played very little long-form cricket at any level. Because they are such integral members of India’s limited overs sides, and because India is playing all the time, neither of them has played a single domestic season from start to finish. (Unlike say Rohit Sharma, who having been dropped from the Indian side, just played for Mumbai all of last season. I think that has helped him immensely, because it has put him in contexts where he has had to play long innings, where quick 30s and 40s are not good enough, and I think that he will be a better player for India across all formats consequent to this experience). So Yuvraj keeps getting into the Test side on the back on strong limited overs performances, is found wanting, loses confidence in his game, then struggles in limited overs which is his strength. Until he regains form and confidence and the whole cycle repeats itself.

This is why I think it is time to just think of Yuvi as a limited overs specialist. This is especially with a series in Australia coming up, because I think Yuvraj and Raina, even when they play well in Tests, are text-book definitions of flat-track bullies. A case in point was the last time we went to Australia. The Test before we left was when Yuvraj made that 169 against Pakistan. Yet in Australia he was a walking wicket. This was not because of poor form: technically, Yuvraj just did not have it in himself to negotiate Australian bowlers in their home conditions. I don’t see how it will be any different this time.

Of these four talents, all of them frustrating, the most overrated in my opinion is Raina. His vulnerabilities against the short ball and the moving ball have been all too well documented, and his performance in England was simply an embarrassment, one that should ensure that he does play Test cricket again for a good long time. Indeed, while I can at least see a rationale for Yuvraj being given more chances, I think that Raina, unequivocally, cannot be considered as anything other than a limited overs player.

Even as a limited overs player, I think Raina is overrated. People ooh and aah over his batting, but if one looks empirically at his performance over the past year, what does one see? A person who, going into the World Cup, was not even a part of the starting 11 in India’s one-day side. He only got a chance in the quarter-finals because Yusuf Pathan failed to get going. The sum total of his contributions then were two innings of 30-odd. They were both good innings, but hardly substantial ones. (Indeed, Yusuf himself had made a couple of 20s and 30s until then, which was considered a “failure”). While Yusuf’s 20s and 30s saw him dropped from the side so hard that he couldn’t even get into the squad in England after all our injuries, Raina was rewarded for his 30s by being made captain of the side in the West Indies! The double standards here simply boggle the mind. I don’t know what it is that makes Raina the blue-eyed boy of Indian cricket. Is it the fact that he plays for CSK, and India’s board, chairman of selectors and captain are all CSK men? Is it because he is friends with Dhoni? It has to be something like that, because certainly his cricketing abilities don’t warrant the treatment he has received.

The biggest problem with Raina is not his technique: Ganguly and Steve Waugh were both technically wanting against the short ball, but that didn’t prevent them from becoming colossal contributors to their teams in all forms of the game. It is temperament. Raina does not have the mental strength, on most days, to bat for more than 40 balls. He then loses concentration and invariably throws it away. In T20s, he is good enough to make 50 or 60 in those 40 balls. In ODIs, he is good enough to make the occasional telling 30. (Which, when compared to the big 100s Virat Kohli has been stringing together over the past year in one-days, is actually a pittance). In Tests, he is good enough to make single digits, or, in that infamous 2nd innings at the Oval, 0. In any of these cases, it is very rare that he has really shown the ability to concentrate much beyond 40 balls. And of course, he has never had to. He has never had to prove himself even in 4-day domestic cricket. He got into the Indian side on the strength of under-19 heroics and one strong Challenger Trophy performance. He made his comeback on the basis of IPL heroics. And the kindest reason one can give for his continued presence in the side is that those who keep selecting him are delusional. Because the only other explanation would be nepotism.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Raina has an important role to play in the Indian one-day side, as our specialist no. 7. The role of the finisher is an important one in 50-over cricket, and Raina, unlike many others, has the ability to get going without needing much time to get his eye in. Given Yuvraj’s increasingly reliable bowling, we have the luxury in one-days of playing a 7th frontline batsman, something we don’t have in Tests without seriously compromising our bowling. And Raina has the ability to be a dangerous finisher for us, playing the role that Ajay Jadeja briefly played in the late 90s, or that Lance Klusener played so well for South Africa. And that, amongst contemporary Indian players, only Yusuf Pathan has the ability to play. I think effectively, Raina should be fighting with Yusuf for that spot. Given Yusuf’s own inconsistencies, I have no problems with Raina getting first preference for it. But he is no Test batsman. He is not even good enough to be a full-fledged middle order one-day batsman, someone who would have to control the middle overs before accelerating. There are many others who are better middle-order batsmen: Yuvraj and Dhoni have been for years, Kohli certainly is, Rohit has always been on the verge of fulfilling his potential, and even Badrinath or Manoj Tiwary, if they are given a fifth of the chances Raina has gotten, will I am sure do a far better job than him at 4, 5 or 6.

Of the four who are youngsters no more, let us keep Bhaj and Sree for Tests, and Yuvi for limited overs. And let Raina prove himself with consistent performances before he is given the kind of royal treatment that he has received.

2010-11 Indian cricket dossier Part 2

2011-09-30T11:36:00.001-07:00

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.

2010-11 Indian cricket dossier Part 1

2011-09-20T20:29:00.001-07:00

PART 1: THE BIG THREE: STILL THE BACKBONE

Having come up with four blog posts on what needs to happen for Indian cricket to get back on the rails, it has become clear that what will happen is absolutely nothing. N. Srinivasan, in his sage wisdom, has announced yesterday that his first act on becoming Board President will be to do nothing in the aftermath of the England tour. The Board also immediately went on to extend Kris Srikkanth’s tenure as Chairman of Selectors. I always knew that our administrators had a blatant lack of interest in anything other than eyeballs and revenue. But Srinivasan has thrown his hat into the ring to compete with Ijaz Butt for the position of most vile and worthless cricket administrator in the history of the game. No doubt he is determined that India should beat Pakistan in the race to the bottom, a race engineered entirely by mal-administration.

In any case, one of the few good ideas I have heard – something that is simple and practical to implement, but which won’t even be considered – was Harsha Bhogle’s idea that a dossier of key Indian players be maintained, so that each can be monitored and treated in an optimum fashion. This has been done in England, with obvious results. Even though it won’t happen here, here is my dossier, also in many parts.

Part 1 will start with the backbone of Indian cricket: the Big Three. There were people who were saying as far back as 2005 that it was time for Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman to retire so that we could “build for the future”. (This is because they thought that once a cricketer turned 30, he was too old. Yet Yuvraj Singh is still referred to as a “youngster” even after he has turned 30). Greg Chappell tried his best to prematurely terminate these and other promising careers, and his brother Ian still goes on about how India’s problems are because these three are still playing. Had the Chappells had their way, there would have been no World Cup win, no rise to world no. 1. (Greg briefly turned his attention to destroying Australia’s chances of a return to world dominance with similarly ludicrous views. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, his tenure as Aussie selector was all too brief, but he did manage to finish off the wonderfully committed Simon Katich).

Some of those voices keep chirping away on this, and every time India does badly those chirps return. I don’t see the logic – it says, basically, that because India hasn’t retired its senior superstars, the youngsters are not good enough. That is a particularly perverse reasoning of cause and effect. Indeed, had it not been for Dravid, the ICC match referee would have had to call off the England series half-way through and simply declare it a knock-out. Even with Dravid, there was a good case to be made for that happening.

So, rather than waiting with bated breath for the seniors to retire, or ranting about how the seniors should be dropped, I for one plan to savor the twilights of their careers, and hope personally that it is a long and glorious sunset. So far, the indications are positive. Sachin’s performances in England were disappointing, but his last three years have been golden, combining some of the boyish enthusiasm of his early days with a complete mastery of his game. Indeed, that is the only word to describe Sachin’s batting: he is a master. He is someone who knows his own game inside out, but who also understands the game of cricket inside out. Watching him bat is not just an education on technique, it is not just a coaching manual – it is a tutorial on the finest nuances of the game. It is a batsman who can get into the head of the opposition, who can suss out of the conditions, who knows how to plan innings in his head before he executes them on the field. It is batting in a different dimension altogether. His relative failure in England was disappointing, but there was a beautiful poignancy to that, a testament that the game of cricket is rich enough to beat the designs of the even the most brilliant masters to master it.

Laxman’s technique against the swinging ball was always going to make him vulnerable in England, but over the past couple of years, he too has grown from being the artist who could make one gasp, to Mr. Dependable. His mental mastery of difficult situations at no. 5 has rivaled that of Michael Hussey, the only difference being that Laxman is much more beautiful to watch, and can still pull off shots of stunning magic with, quite literally, just a flick of the wrists. Sanjay Manjrekar, searching for a scapegoat after our defeat, suggested that Laxman was one of those whose “one-dimensional” cricket would now be under scrutiny. No doubt many others think that way, since Laxman has always been the fall guy of Indian cricket. Those people would be well advised to note that Laxman’s average since the start of 2010 has been 68, in spite of his poor series in England. This includes two match-winning knocks against Australia, two against South Africa, and one against Sri Lanka. Those who think he adds no other dimensions would do well to note his impeccable slip catching. (While the likes of Suresh Raina impress pundits by running around in the field like headless chickens, the minute you put them in the slips, the fingers seem to have a thick coating of butter. Good fielding in Test matches requires more than running around breathlessly like Usain Bolt). With a series against Australia coming up, I don’t know how we can even think of ending Laxman’s career.

And then there’s Dravid. What can one say? I thought that he was entering the last gasps of his career, but he too has had a revival this year to rival Sachin’s. He is the second highest Test scorer in the world in 2011, with only Alastair Cook ahead of him. His technical superiority against the moving ball was there for all to see in England. And more than that – something no youngster in India today has – was his temperament, his patience, his willingness and ability to play long innings without throwing it away.

But there is something greater about Dravid than his batting. In England, he opened, he kept wicket, he allowed himself to be drafted unceremoniously back into the one-day side. He has done all this throughout his career – always serving as the fall-back opener because of selectorial ineptitude or lack of talent; keeping wickets for years in one-day games while still making runs, only to be labeled as not being a one-day player; playing the difficult one-day games because our “one-day specialists” are not good enough, then being dropped without reason so that those very same specialists can beef up their averages on flat sub-continental tracks.

And this for me is Dravid’s true greatness, just as it is a quibble with Sachin. When we had to juggle our batting order in Trent Bridge, why couldn’t Sachin bat at 3 instead of Laxman? Everyone knows he has the better technique to negotiate no. 3 in England. Yet somehow Sachin’s role in the side is sacrosanct: if he really is one of the greatest batsmen to grace the game, then why does he need to be protected in that way?

Laxman is pure beauty combined with immense mental strength. Sachin is without a doubt the greatest batsman India has ever produced.

But Dravid is our greatest cricketer.

They don’t need to be managed. They need to be savored, and saluted.

Indian cricket at the crossroads Part 4

2011-09-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEAL SELECTION POLICY

There is no doubt that one of the reasons why England has risen to the top of world cricket is because of some sound, consistent selection policies; just as, indeed, Australia was helped by that in their rise to the top under Trevor Hohns’ selection committee. In an earlier post, I have mentioned who I would like to have as my ideal new Indian selection committee. (My wish list comprises: Mohinder Amarnath [chairman], Lalchand Rajput, Sanjay Jagdale, Dilip Doshi and Venkatesh Prasad). But regardless of who comprises the committee, if India is to do well, then identifying, nurturing and managing the right players is of paramount importance. Currently, none of these are done right. Identifying talent happens through a haphazard process of guesswork and trial and error. When it pays off, the selectors pat themselves on the back; when it doesn’t, nobody holds them accountable. Talent is also not properly nurtured. This is why, 6 years after their debut, none of Suresh Raina, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel or R.P. Singh is playing a consistent, leadership role in the Indian side. And the terrible management of our players was all too evident in England, especially in contrast to the meticulous way in which England has started managing its players.

Harsha Bhogle has suggested that a dossier of Indian players needs to be maintained, so that a plan for how best to manage each of them is chalked out and adhered to. I agree entirely, and in my next post I will hone in on the specifics of individual players and their performances as my version of a dossier. But in this post, what I want to do is set down some general principles of policy that should be at the heart of any selection process. I have alluded to some of these in earlier posts. And all of these are simple, common-sense suggestions, not something that needs rocket science. Yet I have not heard a single pundit in the media suggest some of these things, except, to a certain extent, Nasser Hussein, who has mentioned some of these (but not all) in the context of systems that have been set up in England. So here are five basic principles that should be part of any Indian selection policy, none of which are currently part of the way in which the Indian team is selected.

1. Selection should be based on performance

You would think this would be a no-brainer, yet hardly ever is the selection of the Indian team consistently based on performance. If it had been, then at the very least, Subramaniam Badrinath would have played more than 2 Tests (and would, in my reckoning, have cemented his place in the Test middle order by now much more convincingly than either Raina or Yuvraj have done); Praveen Kumar’s Test career would have begun far sooner than it did; Ajinkya Rahane would have been in the picture at the start of the last season, instead of accidentally being pulled in towards the end; and given our laments about the lack of fast bowling talent in the country, Pankaj Singh, who was the highest wicket-taker in domestic cricket last year, would have at least been part of the Emerging Players tour to Australia this summer. The fact that none of this has happened should be a scandal. But because these are low-profile players and not superstars who can get millions in advertising endorsements, even the pundits don’t bring it up. So there will be laments about the lack of technically sound batsmen, but not about Badri’s continued exclusion; laments about the lack of fast bowlers, but not about the way in which Pankaj Singh has been ignored. And very few questions are being raised about why it has taken so long for Rahane and PK to come into the picture, and why in both cases this has only happened because of injuries to others.

Of course it is true that performance alone cannot count for selection, which requires judgment as well, which is inherently subjective. And there are people who perform exceptionally well in domestic cricket, such as Arun Lal and Vikram Rathour, who are found out at the international level. A domestic format such as what I suggested in my previous post, which would require at least a few weeks where domestic cricketers play with and against some of the best cricketers in India and the world across all formats, would help in identifying whether top domestic performers also have the chops to cut it against the best. But the bottom line is, if someone performs well in domestic cricket, he should at least be given a proper run at the international level – it shouldn’t be decided in advance that he doesn’t have what it takes to make the cut. Everyone who performs in domestic cricket should at least be given a chance to fail in international cricket. The fact is that we are lamenting the lack of talent in the country, while at the same time, the highest run-getter (Badri) and the highest wicket-taker (Pankaj) is domestic cricket last year were not even sent on the Emerging Players tour. That is nothing short of scandalous, and the fact that it has not even been raised as an issue is a crying shame.

2. Everyone should be treated equally

One of the biggest pitfalls in Indian cricket is that there are different standards for different people. Some of this is just because of nepotism, explicit or implicit. How else can one explain Aniruddha Srikkanth being part of the Emerging Players’ tournament in Australia, while Badrinath, the highest scorer in domestic cricket last year, wasn’t? Or that Rohan Gavaskar managed to be a part of India’s one-day side for nearly 6 months in 2004, which served no other purpose than denying Hemang Badani a chance to stake his claim to a long-term middle order berth and effectively ended his promising international career before he turned 25?

But some of it is also because of the way we evaluate our players. Inherently, we go for style over substance. This is not just a failing of the selectors, everyone falls prey to it – the media, and the so-called experts included. This is why people still wax eloquent over Suresh Raina after he has been repeatedly shown up on lively pitches, but don’t make any mention of Badrinath. If given half the chances that Raina has been given, Badri would be ten times the Test batsman. But Raina is an exciting batsman, even if that excitement comes with poor technique and little substance, and we prefer that to consistency. As I said in a previous post, Jonathan Trott would never have made it to an Indian side.

We also go excessively by first impressions. I remember when I was in 5th standard, in a new school, and I got my first chance to bat in a lunchtime game. As I walked out, my captain, Amit Jain, said, dekhte hain kuccha hai ki pukka. I got out first ball. Kuccha, he immediately said. And I never got a chance to bat again as long as I was in that school. The point is not that I was a great batsman as a 10-year old. The point is that the Amit Jain syndrome pervades Indian selection policy. How good you are is not determined by what you do over time, it is determined by what you do when you get your first opportunity. If you grab it, or at least look pretty while failing, then you get a long rope. Otherwise, the rope is snapped and it’s very hard to get a second chance.

By consistent selection policy, I mean that if someone is considered good enough to play for India, then he deserves at least 10 Test matches or 20 limited overs games to prove his worth. It is true that the occasional person might seem exceptionally talented and can be given a slightly longer rope. It is also true that some people may not need 10 Tests to be shown up – it was clear after one series in England that Vikram Rathour would be best qualified to be a specialist slip-catching coach (and not because he was a particularly good slip catcher himself). But Badrinath being discarded after just 2 Tests and Raina being persisted with for an entire year, in any other profession, would be regarded simply as discrimination and be deemed illegal.

3. Think about 5 bowlers

I have said this earlier. Ultimately, winning a Test match requires taking 20 wickets. However strong your batting is, if you cannot take 20 wickets, you cannot win. This is why, even if we had been at full strength in England this summer, we would likely have lost, if not so humiliatingly. England has risen to the top on the strength of a good, strong, versatile bowling attack. We rose to the top on the strength of our batting. The former is always going to count for more. And what is encouraging for England, and scary for everyone else, is that England’s bowling reserves just seem to be getting stronger and stronger. Simon Kerrigan is the latest, a left-arm spinner of enormous potential, which means the likelihood of a second spinner to partner Swann, and hence the likelihood of success in the sub-continent. With young Irishman George Dockrell also eventually likely to play for England, England is likely to have the best fast and spin bowlers in the world.

And this, for me, is the biggest drawback of Dhoni as a captain. It is his stubborn refusal to even contemplate a 5-bowler attack. I can understand certain situations in which you would want an extra batsman. And I can understand wishing for a genuine all-rounder, though by now we should reconcile ourselves to the fact that we don’t have one in the country. But the come-what-may attitude to having only 4 bowlers has no excuse. It is true that Australia rose to world dominance on that formula. But that was because their 4 bowlers were Warne, McGrath, Gillespie and Lee.

There are many specific reasons why having five bowlers would work to our advantage, and as I work through my player dossier in my next post I will point these out. But the most general reason is this – if you don’t have quality, then make it up with quantity. Throughout the England series, we have lamented the fact that we don’t have bowling talent – why did none of the experts who were lamenting this suggest a fifth bowler at any stage? Dhoni kept grumbling about the bad luck that left us without Zaheer and Harbhajan at Lord’s and Trent Bridge respectively, leaving us with just 3 bowlers in each case. Injuries are bad luck, but being left with 3 bowlers was not – there is no law in cricket that says you should just have 4 bowlers in your side, especially when one of them is not terrifically fit anyway and coming off a long lay-off. Throughout the series, we played with the extra batsman as insurance. But that extra batsman was Raina, who provided no insurance, and added no value, whatsoever. There were critical stages in the series – in England’s second innings at Lord’s, and their first innings at Trent Bridge – when that little bit extra with the ball could have won us those phases of the game. Those were phases that turned out be the crucial phases of the series writ large – once we lost those, the rest was all over bar the shouting. What a difference an extra bowler would have made then. How unbelievable that no one is holding Dhoni accountable for this absolute refusal to even consider a fifth bowler.

Even the past few years, there have been three reasons why we have managed to survive with the 4-bowler formula. The first is that, until England’s emergence as a force over the past year, Australia was the only side that really had a batting line-up with 7 top-class batsmen who could each win a game off their own bat. And that too was only until 2007-8. Once Hayden and Gilchrist retired, and without McGrath and Warne creating pressure with the ball, Australia’s batting line-up was no longer that formidable. In 2004, with just 4 bowlers, we were toast against the Aussies, though we fared better in Australia in 2007-8 thanks to some exceptional bowling from R.P. Singh and Ishant Sharma. The second is that over the last 4 years, Zaheer has been exceptional, not just in creating the key breakthroughs himself, but in orchestrating the entire bowling attack and getting the best out of each of the younger bowlers. We have to realize that Zak is now near the end of his career – perhaps he has even already played his last Test match. We cannot count on his stewardship of the bowling attack anymore.

The third reason is something that has often been glossed over, which is the utility of Sourav Ganguly as a medium-pace back-up bowler, which has allowed us the flexibility to choose between a 3-1 seam attack or a 2-2 attack even while playing abroad. (Let us remember that the famous win in Headingley in 2002, on a green top, came about with only 2 frontline seamers and Kumble and Harbhajan in the attack. But backing them up were Ganguly and Sanjay Bangar). Hardly any of our current back-up bowlers – Sehwag or Tendulkar (on the rare occasions they bowl) or Yuvraj or Raina – bowl medium-pace. On Indian wickets, that is alright, but while playing abroad this severely curtails our options, both in team selection (because then selecting 3 seamers becomes a must, which leaves only one frontline spinner as an option) and in terms of who the captain can turn to in order to break a partnership. (Someone like Raina on an Indian dustbowl can be a partnership breaker; in England, he is simply an early Christmas gift to the batsmen). This is one of the many reasons why – if we were to play only 4 bowlers – then our no. 6 batsman should be Virat Kohli, who is the only part-time slow medium bowler in the country who is also a contender for a Test batting spot. (There are more substantial reasons having to do with Kohli’s batting as to why he should be first in line for the no. 6 spot, but I leave those to my next post).

4. Manage the middle generation

All the pundits have been talking about the transition from the seniors to the juniors. Some have been mentioning this in anxious tones, as in – what will happen when Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman retire? Other, more idiotic voices, have decided that it is time for the seniors to retire, as if it was Dravid being in the team that caused us to lose 4-0 in England. Both opinions are missing the point.

Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are three of the greatest players to have played for India, and there is no question that they have had a big hand in getting India to the top of world cricket. But in fact, they don’t form the core of the team anymore. For one, only Sachin really plays one-day cricket anymore, and he too cherry-picks his series. So while they have had a huge role to play in Test successes, they have not been central to limited-overs successes.

But more than that – the core of any team is its leadership generation. The Big Three are the senior statesmen of the side, imparting grace, maturity, providing something to fall back on and allowing the younger players the safety and security of their shadow to play under. But the core leadership of the side over the past 4 years, which has really been at the heart of India’s rise to number 1, has been the generation just below – specifically, Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni and Zaheer. These are not youngsters – two are in their 30s, the other two are nearly there – and two have played over a decade of international cricket. The Big Three had been playing excellent cricket for a decade or more before India’s rise to the top started in 2007-8. But it was the embellishing of the side by the Middle Four that really took India to the top.

India’s rise, indeed, started by a coming together of these four players, and four factors, between mid-2007 and early-2008. The first was the emergence of a fitter, craftier Zaheer Khan after his sojourn with Worcestershire. The inconsistent and frustrating talent had morphed into a bowler of skill and the leader of the bowling unit, which meant that for the first time since Kapil Dev was at his peak, India had a new ball bowler who could consistently get us an early breakthrough, usually of a key opposition batsman. The second was the emergence of a hungry Sehwag, who like Zak had also gone through lots of turmoil, but returned to play some of his best cricket between 2008 and 2010. This meant that India had an opening batsman who could dent the opposition – even a quick 30 or 40 from him would mean a 50-run opening partnership regardless of the wicket or conditions, and often we would get something much more substantial, a quick 150 for instance. These two made India potent at the top, whether batting or bowling. The third was a reliable opening partner to Sehwag, Gambhir, who also had to take the hard knocks early and needed 2 or 3 years to establish himself in the side. Gambhir 2.0 had the hunger and consistency of a Michael Hussey – a ruthlessly determined fellow who had to come up the hard way, and who clearly valued his India cap every time he went out to bat. He provided an ideal foil to Sehwag, capable of playing the sheet anchor while Viru was on song, but also capable to playing the attacking role if Viru got out early. From having openers who were a liability for much of our cricketing history (with the exception of Gavaskar), we suddenly had the best opening combination in world cricket. And fourth was Dhoni taking over the captaincy. The instinctual risk-taker who won us the inaugural T20 World Cup was quickly replaced by a more conservative leader who was willing to choke the opposition and determined first of all not to lose, but his real genius was in bringing the team together as a unit. In this he was no doubt helped greatly by Gary Kirsten, the icing on the cake.

These are the four who need to be managed. This is because the Big Three manage themselves. Two only play Test cricket, Sachin by now knows when and how much to play, and all of them are terrific at preparing themselves for series. They should be allowed to play as long as they have the hunger, and we should savor their presence while they do.

It is the Middle Four, however, who have been wrung dry over the past four years, and we saw the result in England – injuries, poor form, mental fatigue, more injuries. These four have played in all formats of the game, and supplement that by playing central roles in the various T20 tamashas such as IPL and the Champions League. The attitude towards them has basically been to play them whenever they are fit – Dhoni and Sehwag in particular are just too marketable for it to be even conceivable that they be rested. And they themselves – Dhoni in particular – have the sportsman’s instinctual self-imagination of themselves as supermen, willing to push themselves that little bit more, until they actually break down. With Viru and Zak already in their 30s, and Dhoni having captained and kept wicket in 3 forms of the game over the past 4 years, this has to stop. These are the four who are India’s leaders – batting leaders, bowling leaders, tactical leaders, personnel leaders – and these are the four that we need to manage the transition that is about to happen. Unless some strategy is devised to preserve them and ensure they are at their best for the games that matter most – even (especially) if it means curtailing what formats they play or how much they play – the Indian team will be in big trouble. I think it is too much to expect that those who run Indian cricket today will have the vision to manage them properly, but in terms of personnel, figuring out how to deal with these four now is far more critical than figuring out what to do with, or after, the Big Three.

5. Monitor contracted players, and have a clear second string handy

Nasser Hussein has talked about how England’s rise to the top has been founded on a rigorous monitoring of contracted players. Earlier, they would just be playing too much cricket, and fast bowlers would often show up knackered on a Thursday morning after having played county cricket earlier in the week. One of the things that began to be initiated in Hussein’s time was a system by which England cricket was placed above county cricket. In India, the national team needs to be placed above the needs of IPL franchises. This is much harder to do, because there is money and conflict of interest. So for instance, it is not in the interests of either of Chairman of Selectors or the Board President to rest Dhoni from the Champions League, since he captains a team that they are involved with. Yet, before another grueling season, surely Dhoni, of all people, needs and deserves a break? Especially given that he has to also keep wickets and captain when playing for India. Now the only way he will get a break before the big Australia series is if he is rested for the return ODIs against England, or against the West Indies. And that is a classic case of putting franchise ahead of country, encouraged, even mandated, by the top brass of the Indian cricketing administration.

But player management in England involved more than taking on the counties, and there are some other things that England has done since 2007 that are more easily replicable because they don’t involve crossing corrupt administrators. Hussein for instance talked about how Steve Harmison showed up for the 2007 Ashes series in Australia completely unfit and unprepared. Now, England has a system where all contracted players are constantly monitored. This is especially important for fast bowlers, where every ball that they bowl, whether in international cricket, domestic cricket, or the nets, is monitored. This ensures that when they play for England, they are in peak shape. There will still be the unforeseen injuries, as happened with Tremlett and Broad this summer. But there is no question that in terms of form, fitness and preparation, England was streets ahead of India. There would be no possibility of a player who was on the fringes of England selection today having to be pulled out of holiday in Miami and plumped into the middle of a Test match with a bulging waistline and absolutely no rhythm.

There is no reason why such a monitoring system cannot be replicated in India. And it could be run by something like a cricket committee, which Harsha Bhogle has suggested, who would effectively keep tabs on contracted players and be in conversation with selectors and team management about them. Bhogle has suggested that Anil Kumble be the head of such a committee. This would be an excellent idea, and would complement his role as head of the National Cricket Academy. Right now, the NCA is more or less a glorified gym, where players head to practice for a couple of weeks before a tour or when they are being rehabilitated from injury. Kumble could be given the authority to turn it into a central monitoring station for contracted Indian players. He could be helped by Sourav Ganguly, who is one of the most astute judges of talent in Indian cricket, and T.A. Sekhar, who knows a thing or two about preparation for fast bowlers because of his years of experience at the MRF Pace Academy.

Alongside the monitoring, it should be clear who is waiting in the wings to replace someone in case of injury. At this point, it seems like the selectors more or less dip their fingers into a hat and pull a name out when someone gets injured. When England tours, on the other hand, there is always a parallel England Lions tour. If someone has to be replaced in the regular tour, then there is someone who is already fit, match-ready and in form who can take his place.

This should be a no-brainer, especially with a huge series in Australia coming up. It requires no change in established structures, it doesn’t even require imagination. It requires the basic intelligence of a three-year old. Yet I have not heard a single person suggest this. “Preparation” for the Australia series now involves the BCCI asking the Aussie board for a second tour game. Why is it not obvious that we should also, simultaneously, be sending an A team to tour New Zealand? Everyone on the senior team should have a mirror on the A team. Everyone on the A team will be match-fit and ready, and would be playing on lively wickets that are more similar to Australian wickets than any they would encounter playing Ranji Trophy cricket. And it would be possible to assess who is in form, who is ready to step into an injured player’s shoes. If Gambhir, Sehwag and Rahane are openers in Australia, then Jaffer, Mukund and Vijay should be playing in New Zealand; Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Kohli and Badrinath should be shadowed by Yuvraj, Raina, Rohit, Pujara and Tiwary. And so on.

None of these basic principles require too much imagination to institute. All of them are basic, common sense suggestions, and have to do with instituting consistency, rewarding performance, setting up certain systems of preparation, and managing players so that they are at their most ready when they play for India. This should not be too much to ask for. The fact that most of these are, in reality, inconceivable, only proves the utter intellectual and moral bankruptcy of those who currently run the game in India, and provides the basic reasons why we were trounced so badly this summer.

Indian cricket at the crossroads Part 3

2011-09-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

PART 3: A MODEST PROPOSAL

One of the things I have lamented in the past has been the pernicious effect of IPL. I think quite simply that it is one of the worst things that have happened in the history of the game. But lamenting will do no good. More influential people than me lament, most recently Ian Chappell, who has written on cricinfo about the influence of T20 on both Australian and Indian grassroots cricket. T20 is nothing without the IPL – it will never get traction as simply a contest between national sides. So effectively, Chappell’s lament was against the IPL.

If I had my wish, then I would simply end IPL. There are many problems with it, but the fundamental one is as follows. As simply an addition to an annual cricket calendar, there is nothing wrong with an idea like IPL. It does of course add to an already cramped calendar, and it has led to the injuries and lack of match fitness of a number of our key players in England. But that is not its most pernicious effect. 50 over-games were threatening similarly to saturate the calendar in the 1980s and 1990s, and ultimately it was possible to accommodate them. A major source of that accommodation came from the development of certain specialists who would only play the 50-over game, while others would be Test specialists. A place was made for the Michael Bevans of the game, but the true joy still came from the V.V.S. Laxmans. And over time, some Test specialists were able to adapt to the demands of the 50-over game, which is what made Rahul Dravid, for instance, one of the best 50-over players of the mid-2000s. (The inverse, of a great limited overs players becoming a great Test player, has never happened, a point I will return to in my next post). So the overburdening of the annual calendar by the IPL requires some administrative vision and man-management – for all the empty talk about “rotation policies” and the like, somebody with integrity who can command the trust of the players has to make a call on those like Gambhir, Sehwag, Dhoni, Harbhajan and Zaheer who have been central to both the Test and limited overs sides over the past 4 years. That may not happen in the Indian context, but in principle the too-much-cricket and too-little-preparation problem is not the IPL’s fault. Or at least, it isn’t the most dangerous thing about the IPL: the IPL just exacerbates a problem that already exists of poor player management in Indian cricket.

The most dangerous thing about the IPL is the damage it is doing to grassroots cricket, and to the emergence of genuine Test quality players. Limited overs cricket has already had its damaging effect on bowlers: everyone is lamenting the lack of quality spinners in the country, but no one is pointing to why that is. (People will say we don’t have quality fast bowlers because our pitches aren’t conducive to pace. But our pitches are conducive to spin: why aren’t we producing the caliber of spinner we produced in the 60s and 70s, or even the 80s?). Now, the T20 version is creating a damaging effect on our batting, long our traditional strength.

This is because T20 – and the IPL in particular – entirely skews the incentive structures through which young talent can be spotted and nurtured. It is not that we don’t have the batting talent to succeed the likes of Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman: the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Subramaniam Badrinath have been staking their claims on the domestic circuits for years, as have the likes of Manoj Tiwary (who is someone who could easily succeed in all formats) or Virat Kohli (who is thought of as a T20 player, but who in fact had already served notice before the 1st IPL with fine performances in the Ranji Trophy and in the Emerging Players tournament in Australia). But the IPL skews who gets noticed. Even though the selectors are now getting paid to spot talent in domestic cricket, at the end of the day they too clearly get swayed by the likes of Suresh Raina making a quick 50 in the IPL; that is far more eye-catching than Badrinath grinding his way to 1000 runs in domestic cricket year after year after year.

For this reason alone, I’d like to see the IPL done away with. But this blog post is about my pragmatic position, and I know that there is too much money and power tied into the IPL for it to be done away with. Most of all, there is the money and power that is associated with bringing in corporate owners into a franchise model. This is not something that the BCCI will give up.

So the pragmatic question is as follows: if the fundamental bottom line has to be the unearthing of good, Test-quality talent for India, then how do we incorporate corporate money and power into doing so? Ultimately, the domestic structure, for all its flaws, does remain the best feeder into international cricket, not least because it allows the identification of players who can play the longer version of the game. (Those, like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina who went straight from under-19 cricket into the national side and who have yet to play a single full season of domestic cricket have not developed the ability to be good Test batsmen. On the other hand, Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly all played a few seasons of domestic cricket before breaking into the national side. Tendulkar is the exception, but he is an exception, full stop. One cannot use his trajectory as the model for identifying and grooming long-term talent).

The problem right now is the huge gap between the incentives that exist in playing domestic cricket and those that exist in the IPL. These incentives are partly financial, and one can see the effects of that already, most notably in the case of R.P. Singh, who seems to have lost the hunger or the drive to become a long-term successor to Zaheer Khan for India, and instead is happy making his millions with 6 weeks of IPL. But the incentives are also about credit and recognition. Saurabh Tiwary said it best when he said that he gets noticed more for making a quick 20 for the Mumbai Indians than he does playing an entire season for Jharkhand. That, somehow, has to stop.

It cannot stop by being morally outraged about the riches the IPL has to offer. Taking a position that advocates scarcity when the money exists is just not going to fly. And it cannot stop by making pious statements about how players should put country before IPL. All players want to represent their country, but the temptation to take the easy way out is human nature for all but the most committed cricketers. What one needs is to approach the problem the other way around: how can we make domestic cricket more lucrative, not just financially but in terms of visibility and recognition, that youngsters have the incentive to toil over 4-days for 5 months a year in order to be recognized as good enough to play for India?

To this end, I have a modest proposal. It involves ending the IPL as we know it – the BCCI has enough money to pay off the contracts that will be terminated – and of folding it into a new structure. This will not replace the regular domestic calendar, which will still remain as is, with the Ranji and Duleep Trophies as centerpieces. But it will be a new franchise structure that includes all three formats within its ambit. Instead of competing with the domestic season, as the IPL does, it will however be designed to complement it. There could be quibbles and modifications on the specifics of this, but the general outline of what I suggest would be as follows.

First, we start by thinking of the international calendar as not extending for longer than 10 months: September to July. (Once upon a time, not so long ago, it would often only extend for 6 months, and that was thought to be too long and grueling. Yet now it seems unthinkable to actually have two months off playing cricket for a national team. That is insane). Players deserve a proper holiday of at least a month; and they need at least a month to get back into training and fitness for the season ahead.

In those 10 months, the normal domestic season will be more or less as is: the Ranji Trophy from November to January, and the Duleep Trophy in February, with the various one-day domestic tournaments through March. That would also be the time for India’s international commitments, whether they be home series, or away series in the sub-continent / Southern Hemisphere.

Once every 4 years, there will have to be a summer series in places that play their cricket in the summer: England, West Indies or Sri Lanka. Those series should be held in such a way that they end by July. This is easy for the West Indies and Sri Lanka; it would involve insisting on the first half of the English summer when we tour England, not ideal in terms of weather, but having good weather didn’t help us much when our preparation was rotten and the team was in poor condition. Every fourth year, the team should actually have a break from March to September. We should never be scheduled to play back-to-back series in the summer after having played a full 9-10 months of cricket during the “regular” season, as happened this year.

My suggestion is that the period from September to the end of October be set aside for the IPL replacement tournament. It can still occupy the same 7 weeks, of which 1 week will be a T20 bash, 2 weeks will be a 50-over tournament, and 4 weeks will be set aside for a 4-day tournament. 8 corporate franchise owners can be identified – the likes of Vijay Mallya, Mukesh Ambani and co – and asked to make a commitment for a certain number of years to supporting a team in this tournament. 8 teams will qualify for this tournament, and those will be the 8 quarter-finalists in the Ranji Trophy. Given that this tournament will have a higher stature and visibility in some ways than the Ranji Trophy, not least because it will be the curtain raiser to a new season, this will provide some importance and interest to the Ranji Trophy. Each franchise owner then will get to sponsor one of the 8 teams. This will mean that occasionally an owner cannot sponsor the team that he might most want to be affiliated with: Ambani, for instance, would not be able to sponsor Mumbai if Mumbai fails to make the quarter-finals. But in the normal course, one would imagine the likes of Mumbai and Karnataka being fairly regular in the final stages of a Ranji Trophy, and one would imagine the usual suspects owning them. Perhaps there are corporate owners who are more entrepreneurial, or who like backing dark horses, who would back the more unlikely entrants into the last 8, the likes of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Railways, all teams that have done well of late. The basic point, however, is that to be a franchise, you would have to do well in the Ranji Trophy – and not, as the case is currently, simply build a big stadium on the outskirts of your town, or cobble together a coalition of rich people willing to do back-room bidding deals.

Each franchise would then, at its core, be the Ranji Trophy team, but with two critical modifications. First: each franchise would be allowed to bid on two Indian players who are not already involved in the tournament as part of their Ranji teams. This means, for instance, that if Hyderabad continues its abysmal Ranji performance, then V.V.S. Laxman and Pragyan Ojha will still be available to other franchises for this tournament. Second: each franchise would be allowed to bid on two foreign players. This would allow top international talent to be a part of the franchise league, which would increase viewership. But it would also mean that the franchise league would not become a refuge for retired international players (Gilchrist, Hayden, Warne), or for players who want to retire early to make big bucks (Flintoff, Bond). Only 16 international players would be allowed in each year. Those would be the best around, and will increase the quality of cricket on offer, while also allowing Indian talent to play with and against the best in the business.

So – had such a system been in operation this year, we could have started our domestic season with an 8-franchise tournament that included Rajasthan, Mumbai, Haryana, Tamilnadu, Baroda, Railways, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Perhaps then Dinesh Karthik would have been giving Tim Bresnan the new ball for Tamilnadu; perhaps Dhoni would have been captaining Mumbai.

There would be four or five benefits of such a structure, some of which I have already alluded to:

1. It would provide an incentive to players in the Ranji Trophy. Someone like Virat Kohli might be a part of the franchise tournament regardless of how well Delhi does in the Ranji; but for someone like Yere Goud, the incentive of a strong showing in the Ranji Trophy would be the recognition that comes from playing in the franchise league, and the opportunity to play with top international and national players. At the moment, the “talent” that gets to rub shoulders with the best in the IPL includes people like Kamran Khan, who are not even good enough to get into their state sides for a 4-day game. The people who deserve this chance are people like Goud, or Devendra Bundela, ordinary, journeymen cricketers who have played for their states, year in and year out, who are never going to be good enough to play international cricket, but who in fact provide the foundation upon which our domestic cricket structure is built.
2. Relatedly, it would allow our cricketers exposure to some of the best players in the world. This will be a learning experience for them, but also raise the standard of professionalism in domestic cricket. IPL does that to some extent; but in a format such as I am proposing, the franchises will be incentivized to only hire the very best international players in the world, not the has-beens like Hayden, or the never-will-bes like Kieron Pollard. And it will be good for domestic Indian cricketers to play alongside the likes of Laxman or Michael Hussey over all formats, not just 20-over ones.
3. It will provide our international cricketers cricket, real cricket, with which to start a new season. This would mean that they actually could get a proper break over the summer, and not have to worry about firing on all cylinders immediately when a new season starts. Over the past few years, the opening to a season has tended to be a meaningless 7-ODI series against Australia (or, this year, against England). Nobody remembers the result of these series, one meaningless ODI series melds into another (just as, increasingly, one meaningless IPL is starting to meld into another), and none of these series serve as any kind of preparation for the Test engagements that follow.
4. It will also provide an opportunity for those who are on the fringes of the national side to stake their claims properly, over weeks, in a competitive and highly followed tournament, where they are playing alongside and against the best cricketers in India and the world. Currently, at the start of a season, Indian aspirants get to stake their claims through a single Irani Trophy game. That is usually not enough to push the really strong claims. Ajinkya Rahane, for instance, started the season last year with some fine batting in the Irani Trophy, but one five-day performance usually doesn’t rate in the selectors’ eyes compared to a couple of dazzling 30s or 40s from a Suresh Raina in a meaningless one-day game happening at the same time. And so, Rahane remained largely forgotten for the rest of the season, in spite of piling on the runs in obscurity, and would never have gotten his break had it not been for the rash of injuries inflicting India in England. Also, if he had not grabbed his opportunity with a 60 on his T20 debut, he would have been discarded back into obscurity. That is not the way to pick and nurture talent, especially in a time of transition in Indian cricket. In the structure that I propose, Pankaj Singh will have to bowl over 7 weeks, in all formats, to the likes of Rahul Dravid and Suresh Raina (players he rarely encounters in domestic cricket in the normal course), or Ian Bell. We will know whether he has what it takes to cut it at the highest level before he is selected to play for India.
5. Finally, it will avoid the clash of purposes we have now, where money and corporate incentive is all about nurturing T20. It is all very well for Ian Chappell or Nasser Hussein to say that Test cricket should be prioritized: without the incentive structures, it won’t be. And in India, for the BCCI, the incentive structure is about eyeballs. If people don’t watch domestic cricket, domestic cricket won’t be nurtured, no matter how important it is for Indian cricket’s health. The way in which people can be made to watch domestic cricket is to have a short, targeted high-profile tournament consisting of all formats, which serves both as a curtain-raiser to a new season and which clearly affords aspiring talent a chance to prove themselves over a few weeks with and against the best in the world. The franchise tournament can be glitzed and marketed. There can be day-night 4-day games if need be, starting at 4 p.m. (when IPL telecast starts normally) and carrying on till 10 every day. There can be innovations such as 100-over limits per innings. There can be pink balls and colored clothing and cheerleaders, and Ravi Shastri can be allowed to holler inanities into a microphone at the top of his voice if he wants to. The key, however, is that there should be quality, across all formats, and the 4-day game should be made as visible and desirable as the T20 version. Then we can talk about identifying talent and building the grassroots infrastructure that will be necessary to manage the transition from the era of Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman to that of the Kohlis and Rainas and Rohits. And only then can we think realistically about regaining the no. 1 spot in the world, let alone holding onto it for any length of time.

Indian cricket at the crossroads, Part 2

2011-08-25T22:03:00.001-07:00

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.

Indian cricket at the crossroads: a blueprint in many parts

2011-08-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Third Test preview

2011-08-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have neither the energy nor the enthusiasm to preview the Third Test, because I think there is no point. We have been utterly, totally, comprehensively outplayed by a team that is better balanced, better focused, better prepared. I don't see how that will change. There is no point lamenting the absence of Sehwag and Zaheer. Those are outstanding players. But when England has missed someone, someone else has stepped in to take their place. No one has stepped in to take the place of our wounded, to "become a hero", in Dhoni's words.

This shows the paucity of talent on the bench. Sehwag might be irreplaceable; but what is clear is that, after 3 years, Ganguly and Kumble have proved irreplaceable too. We always knew that Harbhajan was no Kumble, but the way he let down the team in the first half of the series was, for a senior player, unconscionable. Kumble, even when not at his best, always gave 110%. Bhaj just seemed to be going through the motions. Similarly, after all this time, we still don't have an adequate replacement for Ganguly at 6. I think we should realize that Yuvraj is not a Test batsman - turning back to him at every conceivable opportunity has just hampered the development of a long term replacement who could hold the position. And Raina, who had a golden opportunity to cement his place, blew it at Trent Bridge. He has serious technical shortcomings, the question always was whether the temperament was strong enough to overcome them. The way he got out in the second innings, done in, predictably, by a bouncer that he handled terribly, suggests that the questions are going to keep hanging. Badrinath, who has the technique to play Tests, and who started his career with a 50 against Steyn and Morkel, has effectively been thrown to the dogs without being given a second chance, at the altar of Yuvraj and Raina being tried again and again and again.

In the long term, I think we need to realize that Virat Kohli has better potential to be the no. 6 that we want than either Raina or Yuvraj. (I have given up hope that Badri will ever be given a fair deal, and sooner or later he will give up hope too and stop motivating himself to perform at the domestic level). It is time to turn to Kohli properly, give him the chance to fail a bit and to establish himself. But I don't see him walking into the team tomorrow. The least we should do, though, is play Mukund ahead of Raina.

Mukund too has technical shortcomings, but temperamentally, he already seems, at 21, to be far stronger than Raina. And his 100 against Northants should stand him in good stead. Most importantly, he provides flexibility to the batting line-up. This is because, all said and done, Sehwag is human, and Gambhir is rusty, so we cannot expect miracles from them. Having Mukund in the side gives us a number of options. He could slot in at 6, where he would be able to tackle the second new ball, which has been a nemesis for us so far. Or, he could bat at 3, as he did at Northants, and allow Dravid and Laxman to bat at 5 and 6. This will add depth to the batting, which otherwise looks ready to shut shop the minute the 4th wicket falls. Raina, even if survives long enough, cannot shepherd the tail, whereas Dravid and Laxman are masters at doing so. Or, especially if India bats first, he could front up with Gambhir and allow Viru to bat at 6. This will take some pressure off Viru, and of course that too will mean we have an opener around for the second new ball, and will also mean greater depth. Raina doesn't offer any of this flexibility, but he is the captain's pet, so may still get the nod.

Nonetheless, while we can lament the injuries all we want, ultimately we are losing because those who are in the side are not doing the job. Gambhir, Tendulkar and Laxman have been key to India's fortunes in recent years, and none of them has gotten going. Gambhir is clearly out of touch after his lay-off; Tendulkar looks less than match-ready after his break; and Laxman, as he has always done against England, has flattered to deceive. Nothing happened in Northants to change that: Sachin decided to take the game off in spite of clearly needing more time in the middle; Gambhir continued to look rusty; and Laxman flattered again to deceive. Dhoni looks completely jaded, and the less said about Harbhajan the better. The fast bowlers have bowled their hearts out, but there is only so much they can do against a line-up of England's depth and quality, especially without adequate spin bowling support. For England, only Cook and Swann are yet to get going, but they are such quality players that they are bound to cash in at the till sooner or later.

Enjoy this week, folks, because after this, we're not going to be world no. 1 any longer.

India team for ODIs

2011-08-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

For some reason the selectors, in their infinite wisdom, are meeting half-way through the Test series, and nearly a month in advance, to select the team for the ODIs.

In my mind, the selection ought to be fairly straightforward, but I include a couple of critical caveats. I have mentioned this in a previous post, and I reiterate: I think that Sehwag and Dhoni should not be playing the ODIs. With Viru, this is a long-term consideration: he is now in his 30s, and his body is just too precious for us to waste him on limited overs games. He needs to be wrapped in cotton wool and preserved. I think that we have to treat Dhoni carefully too. At this point, he looks jaded mentally and physically. His fortunes continued to dwindle in the game against Northants, and I wonder whether the decision to include Saha and have Gambhir captain the side is an indication that he plans to drop himself from the Edgbaston Test. Regardless, this is clearly a man who is just not in the space at the moment to be playing high-intensity competitive cricket. There is a lot of cricket to come this next season, and it is high time Dhoni was given a proper break.

Most of the team other than that selects itself. Gambhir, Tendulkar, Kohli and Raina are automatic choices, as is Yuvraj if fit. And Rohit Sharma did enough in the West Indies to suggest that he might finally be ready to fulfill his potential as an international player. Certainly he did enough to move ahead of Yusuf Pathan, who has done nothing whatsoever of note since South Africa. I don’t see Saha as being a good enough bat to be the keeper in Dhoni’s absence, so Parthiv Patel should come in there. (Indeed, Parthiv should never have gone out; I don’t see Saha as being good enough to bat at 7 in Dhoni’s stead in a Test match either).

My only controversial selection would be the reserve batsman. I think it is important to have a third opener in Viru’s absence, and I would retain Abhinav Mukund. He hasn’t set the world alight yet, but I actually really like what I have seen of him. There are some technical deficiencies, notably a tendency to push at the ball rather than play with soft hands, which is a vulnerability when the ball moves around. But that is something he can grow out of with proper guidance and the experience of playing in different conditions. What I like though is a basically tight, unfussy technique, and most importantly, very good shot selection. Poor shot selection has been the bane of many of our talented young batsman, such as Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik, Rohit, and still, after 6 years in international cricket, Suresh Raina. For a 21-year old, Mukund has admirable temperament. Therefore, he should be played as much as possible, in all formats. He is a tight batsman, but does have all the shots. We need to make him feel a part of this team. This was the mistake we made with Vijay, bringing him in to be water boy, then dropping him for one-day games, then bringing him back in … a very hard, and ultimately unsustainable, state of affairs for a youngster. Mukund may not play every game of the series, but let him be a part of the side. It will give him confidence, and be good for Indian cricket in the long run. I would also have Manoj Tiwary on stand-by in case Yuvraj doesn’t recover from his fracture. Tiwary didn’t make the most of his chances in the West Indies, but he only got two. In terms of natural talent, he is right up there with Kohli and Raina and Rohit, and needs to stay in the mix.

With the ball, this is an ideal time to keep Harbhajan out of the side, regardless of whether he recovers from his injury or not. Amit Mishra has been carrying water for much of the past two months; let him get some cricket, in all forms, over the next month. And in Ravichandran Ashwin, we have a readymade back-up for Bhaj. In the pace department, Zaheer, Munaf, Praveen and Ishant are certainties. (For me, there’s no question of dropping Zak to protect him. He is somebody who actually gets fitter the more he bowls, so the best way of preparing him for the season ahead is by playing him). I think we should give up the myth that Sreesanth is a one-day bowler, a myth that nearly proved very costly for us in the World Cup. And I also see no cause for bringing back Ashish Nehra, who has mysteriously disappeared from the scene after his broken finger in the World Cup semi-final. (It must be the most broken finger in the history of sport). Regardless, he has not bowled since, so I see no basis for recalling him. Better to stick with Vinay Kumar. He is never going to be India’s answer to Dale Steyn. But he is a good, honest, hardworking bowler, ideal for limited overs, likely to thrive in English conditions, and in good bowling form, being amongst the wickets in the Emerging Players Tournament in Australia at the moment. On every count, he has more to offer in the shorter versions than Sreesanth or Nehra, and it is a good idea to try and build the bench a little in the bowling department.

And finally: I didn’t like the idea of Raina being appointed captain in the West Indies, and his captaincy didn’t give me any cause to change my mind. So I will stick by what I said then, which is that India’s long-term captain is Virat Kohli. So he would be the deputy to Gambhir in my team.

My team:

1. Gautam Gambhir ©
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Virat Kohli (V)
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. Rohit Sharma
6. Suresh Raina
7. Parthiv Patel (W)
8. Praveen Kumar
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Amit Mishra
11. Munaf Patel

Reserves:

12. Abhinav Mukund
13. Ishant Sharma
14. R. Vinay Kumar
15. Ravichandran Ashwin

Standby:

16. Manoj Tiwary (for Yuvraj Singh)

Oh joy!

2011-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

The first piece of good news on this tour. No more Harbhajan or Yuvi!

I think it's important that we get a proper look at other spinners. And I think - gut, but also cricketing sense / knowledge - that Kohli has what it takes to be a Test batsman, while Yuvi has what it takes to play the occasional Test innings. Here's to hoping that Kohli gets his chance, and makes the most of it.

I don't think we will level this series, but there is still a chance of not giving up the no. 1 ranking. And at least the chance to regain some pride. Here's to hoping.

One of my worst days as an India cricket fan

2011-07-31T18:12:00.001-07:00

Being an Indian cricket fan is one of the more difficult jobs in the world. It involves unwavering commitment, many sleepless nights, anger at inept and corrupt officials and administrators, watching so many advertisements that they should come with a health warning, and many, many moments of frustration and of wondering what might have been. The incidence of the last has reduced in recent times as the stature of this team has grown. But this has to be one of the worst days I have experienced as an Indian cricket fan.

This is because, on most days when India has a disastrous outing, there is something to get angry about, someone to point a finger at. In this case however, we were purely and simply outplayed by a team that looks infinitely better. There is only one team here that looks like the no. 1 team in the world, and it’s not India.

And this is what is so depressing. If we lose because of our stupidity and ineptitude, we can write it off, saying that everyone has a bad day, and the next day we will wake up and do better. And that has happened often – hence our record of poor first Tests followed by fine turnarounds. (After Nagpur 2010; Centurion 2011; Colombo 2010; Melbourne 2007; to name just some). But we have been taken by the collar and had the life wrung out of us today; and at this point, I don’t see how we can come back into the series from here.

Since 2000 (except during the Dark Chappell Years, when we were consistently bad), there are only two other occasions when we have been similarly outplayed, and where I have felt similarly hopeless. The first was when Australia toured in 2004 to conquer the final frontier; and the second was during the unveiling of Ajantha Mendis in 2008 in Sri Lanka. The second situation was less painful in some respects. It was clear that we were seeing the unveiling of a potentially great young bowler; we have never done terribly well in Sri Lanka anyway, so this wasn’t too much of a surprise; and in spite of that, Sehwag’s brilliance ensured that after two Tests, the series was level 1-1, even though Sri Lanka was clearly the better team even then and would go on to easily win the series. But in 2004, with a huge series at stake, it was clear from the outset that Australia was so much better prepared, and just so much better, than we were only one result was possible. And the whole series pretty much saw out the unfolding of that scenario, in spite of India pulling back a Test at the end on an underprepared Mumbai wicket.

This series reminds me of 2004. There have certainly been brilliant England performances individually – Bell’s innings today was as sublime a knock as any I have seen, and Stuart Broad is having the sort of all-round impact batting at 8 and 9 that Andrew Flintoff had batting at 6 – but it is the team as a whole that looks a complete package. Unlike earlier England teams, who, if they won, did so without capturing the imagination, this team has players of tremendous flair, there is almost something Australian about the outfit. And the self-belief in the outfit clearly runs very deep, so even when India strings together a partnership, or gets a few quick wickets, you always sense that England knows they only need a slight opening to turn things around. That kind of self-belief goes a long way towards being able to keep your foot on the opposition’s throat.

There are four things here that don’t bode well for India. One, which I have already mentioned in the preview to this Test, concerns the differential levels of preparation, physical and mental, shown by the two teams, and I won’t rehash that. Indian administrators have tended to believe that the natural ability of the players in this team will paper over any deficiencies in planning and preparation, and so have felt that their only job has been to milk to golden geese for as much as they are worth. That philosophy was bound to have its consequences one day, and it is now. Gary Kirsten taught this team how to win, or at least not lose, even when playing to just 70-80% of its ability, knowing that it is not always possible to be at the top of one’s game mentally and physically all the time given how much cricket is played. But against the strongest opposition, you can’t go in at 80% and expect to escape unscathed.

The second is the huge difference between the teams in terms of the batting quality of the tail. The depth of this England line-up is phenomenal – the likes of Bresnan, Broad and Swann are technically good enough to bat at 7 for most teams. India’s tail has shown more gumption in recent times than before, but they don’t have the technique to negotiate an attack of this quality in these conditions. And, beyond a point, one cannot expect them to do so. The really big difference for me, though, is not so much in number 8-11, as it is in the two no. 7s. Matt Prior is batting like Adam Gilchrist in his heyday. That would have been bad enough, but it is stacked against Dhoni, who looks like a walking wicket and is struggling. This means that even if the Indian top order puts together a big partnership or two, England knows that once the 5th wicket falls the end of the innings is in sight. Some of Dhoni’s struggles come from a lack of technique against the moving ball. But in the past, he has overcome that with tremendous temperament and self-belief. At the moment, however, he looks jaded. Keeping wickets in these conditions is taking its toll; some of his field placings have been frankly ridiculous; and mentally, he just doesn’t look like the sort of person who can be depended upon to either save a situation or counter-attack from no. 7. This is not entirely surprising – he is just coming off a season where he has led India to the World Cup and then led Chennai to an IPL title, back to back. He just doesn’t have gas in his tank. And that, especially when compared to the value Prior is bringing to England in front of and behind the stumps, is proving a huge difference.

The third is the difference in the bowling quality. This England attack has good bowlers, but not great ones. Indeed, Laxman said after Lord’s that this is not an unplayable attack, and simply in terms of quality, I think Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel are more potent bowlers than anyone in this attack. The difference is that the English are relentless, and don’t have a weak link. In South Africa, there was a sense that if you could see off the strike bowlers, then the others could be handled. Here, even without Swann at his best, there is a sense that the pressure won’t let up.

But with India, you know that it will. And here the biggest culprit is Harbhajan Singh. English conditions are not going to allow him to run through opposition line-ups, so one can’t expect big 5 or 6 wicket hauls from him in this series. But what one expects from a spinner – any spinner, whether experienced or young, whether with 400 wickets or 40 – is that he gives you control. There have been many times when Anil Kumble has been ineffective against the opposition, but even on his worst days, as a captain, you could expect him to bowl 50 overs and not give more than 150. What this would have allowed, in this case, would have been for the fast bowlers to remain fresh from the other end. Sreesanth, Praveen and Ishant have been lion-hearted in this game; but by the time Prior walked out to bat today, they too had no gas in the tank, even to utilize the new ball with. It’s during overs 50-80, when the pitch is flat and the ball is old and nothing much is happening, that you need your spinner to come in and at least keep things tight; and in the past, when we haven’t been getting wickets, Dhoni has at least been good at applying the choke, and manufacturing a wicket through pressure or frustration. But Bhaj has completely failed on this count. What was he doing all afternoon clutching his stomach? If he wasn’t fully fit, why did he play? (Compare that to Gambhir, who recognized that playing at less than 100% fitness would be doing the team an injustice).

It is clear now, more than ever, that Bhaj has to be dropped from the side for the Edgbaston game. Even Sourav Ganguly, one of his most ardent supporters, said as much on commentary. But somehow, once Bhaj is in the touring party, he becomes a sacred cow. Even Kumble, who was always a far, far better bowler than Bhaj, had on many occasions to sit on the bench while the younger Bhaj was given a game. Yet, somehow, this is never done to Bhaj. What this means is that no younger spinner is really allowed to develop. Amit Mishra himself is not a control bowler, so I’m not sure that he will give us what we need if he replaces Bhaj in the 11. But the fact is that part of the reason why we don’t have an obvious successor to Bhaj is because, especially when we tour, a second spinner is simply taken along as a water-boy, unlikely to get a game unless Bhaj is injured. (Or, as apparent from current evidence, is unlikely to get a game even when Bhaj is injured). Neither Mishra nor Pragyan Ojha therefore has really been allowed to develop, and in any case the selectors keep playing musical chairs between them; and Ravichandran Ashwin, who could be a long-term off-spin prospect who can bat usefully at 8, has not even gotten a look into the Test side. (And of course, one spinner who has enormous experience in English conditions, and who could have been a very useful person to fall back on in this series, is not even on the selectorial radar anymore. I refer to Murali Kartik, who at least as horses for courses, is theoretically the best 4th bowler I can imagine for Edgbaston and the Oval).

The fourth and final thing is for me the most depressing. And that is that this series has shown just how dependent we are on Sehwag and Zaheer. Up to a point that is fair enough; Viru in particular is a genius, and such people are not easily replaceable. But it is worrying because both are now in their 30s; neither has had the best of bodies to begin with; and it clear that even if both are at the top of their games still, they are entering the twilight of their careers in terms of their fitness. Zak has now broken down three of four times this past year; Viru’s shoulder had been dodgy for more than a couple of years. I certainly don’t see Zak playing international cricket for more than a couple of years, and don’t know how often he will break down in that time.

And the worry here is the lack of depth in India’s ranks. With opening batsmen, that might be tackled – the likes of Abhinav Mukund and Murali Vijay are not finished products, and neither is even close to Viru’s caliber, but both could develop into useful openers for India in the long run (as could Ajinkya Rahane). But in the bowling department, this really does not bode well for a team that aspires to remain no. 1. Once you go beyond the five fast bowlers on tour in England, for instance, there just is not that much quality. Abhimanyu Mithun and Vinay Kumar are hard working, honest bowlers, but neither looks exceptional. R.P. Singh and Irfan Pathan should have been reaching the peak of their careers as potential successors to Zak, but both are languishing in the wilderness and not even picking up wickets in domestic cricket. Compare that to England. Steven Finn, Ajmal Shahzad, Chris Woakes, Jade Dernbach – these are the quality of fast bowlers who have not even managed to make it into the 14 in spite of Chris Tremlett’s injury. Any one of them would walk into the Indian 11. It is that kind of bench strength that makes champion teams. Add to that the fact that every major team in the world today except Australia probably has a better spinner or two than our so-called no. 1 spinner (England: Swann; New Zealand: Vettori; Pakistan: Ajmal; and youngsters like Mendis for Sri Lanka, Imran Tahir for South Africa, Devendra Bishoo for West Indies), and the long-term prospects don’t look good.

The reason for England’s depth is that word that Kirsten and Dhoni have repeated so often, process. They have a strong domestic structure and it is taken seriously. We on the other hand hope that talent will shine through regardless of the system. Our current idea of spotting fast bowling talent is to see if someone manages to bowl 145 kph over 4 overs in an IPL game: hence, the selection of Umesh Yadav for the tour of South Africa. There are two young fast bowlers who did outstandingly well in our just concluded domestic season: Pankaj Singh and Deepak Chahar. Singh is a strong, fit, tireless lad; Chahar swings the ball like PK. Both combined to take an unheralded Rajasthan side to a remarkable Ranji Trophy win. Yet neither has the glamour of bowling fast in the IPL, and neither is even in the current Emerging Players side in Australia. (Yet, both Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, whose only credentials are those 4-over bursts of 145 kph in IPL, are). It may be that neither Rajasthan lad is going to be a long-term successor to a bowler of Zak’s quality; but if we don’t build a bench strength using the scraps of process that do exist, how are we going to get five seamers of international quality to tour in years to come?

This is probably the day we lose our number 1 ranking in Test cricket, because I don’t see us chasing 450+ to win this game without Sehwag, or batting out 5 sessions to save it. And after such a defeat, I don’t see how we can bounce back in the rest of the series against opposition of this quality and self-confidence. But even if we somehow hang on to that ranking (maybe with a 2-1 series defeat thanks to the return of Gambhir, Sehwag and Zak for the second half of the series), it is only a matter of time before we lose it. Much is being made of what will happen to this team when the Big 3 retire, but that is the least of my worries. No one can match the sheer quality and cricketing integrity of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, but the likes of Raina, Yuvraj, Kohli, Pujara, Badrinath, Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary have it in them to constitute a useful middle-order between them in the years to come. The worry is the absence of bench strength in the pace bowling department; the fact that the two or three spinners who do have potential are not being allowed to develop because of the sacred cow status bestowed upon Bhajji; and because there is no one to back up or relieve Dhoni behind the stumps in any serious manner. (Neither Parthiv Patel nor Dinesh Karthik is particularly reliable behind the stumps; it is inconceivable to imagine Wriddhiman Saha batting at 7 in a Test line-up; and there is literally no keeper of quality in India once one goes beyond these four).

At least two or three things could be done in the short term if we had foresight. First – we could actually have the courage to drop Harbhajan Singh and give somebody else a proper chance to establish himself as a lead spinner, whether that be Mishra, or Ojha, or Ashwin, or even Kartik, who is only 33 and conceivably still has 3 or 4 years of cricket ahead of him. Second, we should now play Viru only as a Test batsman. He is indispensable in Tests, but is dispensable in limited overs games, where there are a lot of talented youngsters vying for batting spots who deserve a longer look. This could add a couple of years to his international career, and those would be invaluable years for Indian cricket. After all, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and Kumble were dropped from the one-day side in their early 30s, so it is not like there is no precedence for this; and we have won the World Cup, so most other one-day games in the immediate future are fairly meaningless in the larger scheme of things. And third, we should similarly start resting Dhoni from limited overs games. Four years of captaining and keeping wicket in all three formats is taking its toll, and given the lack of an adequate replacement at least as a Test keeper, and the fact that he too is not a spring chicken anymore, we need to protect him as much as we need to protect Viru. This will also allow us to develop a back-up wicket-keeper, whoever that might be, by giving him proper international exposure; and allow us to take a closer look at Gambhir as captain in the shorter format. Most international captains tend to lose their edge after 5-6 years at the helm, because it is such a high-pressure job, so even though this team is very much Dhoni’s at the moment, I think it is important to start thinking about a time when it no longer will be. We don’t want a situation where the Big 3 and Zak are all retiring together, and a brand new captain is taking over, all at the same time. Of course, none of these things will happen, because people like Bhaj and Viru and Dhoni are too marketable, and in India short term marketability matters much more than long-term planning.

Four years ago, in England, India took the first steps to recovering from a disastrous World Cup campaign, and went on over the next four years to scale the heights in all forms of the game. Today might be the day, and this series might be the series, when having scaled those heights, we start our movement in the opposite direction. This England side looks like a world champion outfit. South Africa, under a new captain and with Kirsten as coach, is likely to rival them in the years to come. Both these teams deserve their success, because both have cricketing structures that respect the game. Meanwhile, we will continue to be dazzled and blinded by our IPL floodlights, and can look forward to many more days of lamenting what might have been.

Trent Bridge Test preview

2011-07-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

There is a narrative doing the rounds after India’s defeat at Lord’s, and it goes something as follows: India does badly on the first match of a tour. But this is a team with great mental strength and resilience, and they are bound to bounce back in the second Test. They have done it often before in their march to no. 1, and there is no reason why they won’t do it again at Trent Bridge.

There is a certain element of truth to this line of reasoning. But there are a number of things going against India. Some of these are outlined below.

The biggest is lack of preparation. England has prepared for this series with a tough series against Sri Lanka. Half the Indian team, on the other hand, was sitting at home, either nursing injuries or simply resting, instead of playing in the West Indies. The difference showed. Indeed, pretty much all the Indian players who had played in the West Indies – Dravid, Laxman, Raina, Praveen and Ishant – looked good at Lord’s. On the other hand, those who sat out – Gambhir, Tendulkar, Zaheer – looked unfit and / or out of sorts. You do not gear up for a big series by playing in the nets or bowling a few half-baked overs at less than full pace against a county side. And even great players like Tendulkar cannot suddenly turn on their A game against top quality opposition in alien conditions after a couple of months on the bench. What makes this particularly jarring, of course, is that all of these players played in the IPL, and indeed many of the niggles that were picked up were IPL niggles. In any sensible world, the cricket board of a country would insist that players put their country before corporate franchise. But here, it is the BCCI that is pushing their players to put IPL before country. It is all very well to be critical of the players; but while Michael Clarke or Mitchell Johnson can say that they would rather concentrate on playing for their country than play the IPL, would Shah Rukh Khan, or Vijay Mallya, or Mukesh Ambani, tolerate it if the likes of Gambhir or Zaheer or Tendulkar decided to do the same thing? More importantly, would N. Srinivasan tolerate it?

Does anyone even remember who was in the semi-finals of the IPL this year? Does anyone even remember which team Ishant Sharma or Praveen Kumar played for? Will anyone forget who won the 2000th Test match in a battle for the number 1 Test ranking? A team that comes from a structure that is so perverse in its priorities doesn’t deserve to beat a team that has professionally prioritized and planned for this series, and treated it as one would expect a series between two top teams to be treated.

There is only one Indian player who played the entire West Indies series and still looked out of his depth at Lord’s, and that is Harbhajan Singh. And he is the second reason why India is not up to scratch compared to this England team. Everyone is lamenting the absence of Sehwag, and indeed genius like that is hard to replace. But we won in 2007 without Sehwag being part of the team. A big difference between then and now is the relative strength of spin in the two sides. For most of the past three decades, England has been represented by mediocre journeyman spinners. Now, they have the best spinner in world cricket. Harbhajan will keep pointing to the 400 wickets against his name, but the fact remains that, too often, when the team really needs him, he fails to step up to the plate. This is the difference between him and someone like Zaheer. Zaheer’s stats are far less impressive than Harbhajan’s, but he makes the telling blows that turn games when the team needs him to. More than half the time, Bhaj doesn’t. This is also the difference between Harbhajan and Anil Kumble. I am surprised that no one is pointing out just how much we are missing Kumble, who was always a colossal presence in England. Kumble v. Giles or Panesar is a very different match-up from Harbhajan v. Swann. If you line up the two teams on paper, this to me is the most glaring difference. Of late, Bhaj has at least contributed to the side with the bat. But his technique doesn’t lend itself to tackling swing, so don’t expect any swashbuckling centuries from his blade at Trent Bridge. More generally, what this means is that England has a bowling attack without any weak links, and so the pressure can be applied consistently. This is not the case with our attack.

Of course, adding to these fundamental differences – of preparation, and of spin quality – is the fact that we missed Zak and Sehwag. This is not to make an excuse. It is just the simple fact that Zak has been our main match-winner with the ball, and Viru has been so with the bat. You cannot take out your two match-winners from the equation and expect not to feel the pain. Sure enough, we felt the pain.

Still, one feels that India could have saved the Lord’s Test with better batting on the final day. After all, we have done so before in recent times. The problem is that almost all of our 4th innings heroics in the past year or two – whether to save Tests or win them – have had one common denominator, V.V.S. Laxman. And Laxman has an England bogey. He was still the best of our 4th innings batsmen at Lord’s. But I am almost convinced that against another side, what was a promising but insufficient 50 would have turned out to be a match-saving 100. He has done it against Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies. But somehow, he has just not managed to come good against England.

More generally, in addition to India being slow starters, they also have a Lord’s bogey. In the past 25 years, Lord’s has been one of India’s two worst venues (the other being the MCG). It is probably not coincidental that Tendulkar also has a Lord’s bogey, and it seems virtually certain that he will now end his remarkable Test career without ever having made a 50 there. With Viru’s match-winning abilities missing, and Laxman’s match-saving abilities curtailed, Sachin was the other man India would have turned to in normal circumstances. But not at Lord’s. The viral fever no doubt added to his misery, but it was still sad to see him play his most perplexing knock since Cape Town 2007.

All of this would seem to suggest that India don’t have a hope in hell of coming back into this series. After all, Viru and Zak are still absent at Trent Bridge, and Strauss isn’t going to hand the ball to Mitch Johnson, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus when Laxman takes guard. And Harbhajan remains our only realistic spin bowling option, especially given the mauling Amit Mishra received against Somerset. (Frankly, if I were the tour management, I would take the risk of playing Mishra. He can’t do worse than Bhaj did; he can take wickets; and he is more of an unknown quantity, someone who in principle could unsettle a couple of the England batsman. But the fact remains that this team management will never drop Bhaj, his place is regarded as sacrosanct regardless of his performance or lack thereof).

But in fact, all is far from lost. Here are some of the things that the team has going for them.

The biggest is that we are not playing at Lord’s but at Trent Bridge. I do think that grounds carry histories, and if Lord’s has been one of India’s worst grounds, then Trent Bridge has been one of the best. Again, not coincidentally, it is one of Tendulkar’s favorite grounds. If he has never made 50 at Lord’s, then he averages in the high 70s at Trent Bridge. More than anyone else, India needs Sachin to lead the batting from the front if we are to level the series; and if he is likely to do so anywhere, it is in Nottingham.

The second is the oft-repeated, but not untrue, cliché of mental toughness. If lack of preparation is par for the course for series abroad, then the mental toughness that has come with it has become equally so. That is why we are the no. 1 team in the world. We are not no. 1 the way Australia was no. 1 for the past two decades or the West Indies were before that, taking opponents by the scruff of the neck and bullying them. Our no. 1 ranking owes itself to bloody-mindedness, a never-say-die attitude and incredible self-belief. Our pundits may be writing the team off, but in the dressing room, I am sure this team will be backing itself to come back. And that is an invaluable attribute, and also our best hope.

There are three people who epitomize this mental toughness for me more than anyone else. One is Rahul Dravid, whose return to form is one of the most pleasing things about the summer so far. The second is Praveen Kumar, who was simply heroic at Lord’s in Zaheer’s real absence and Harbhajan’s virtual absence. The way he doubled up as strike bowler and stock bowler was incredible, and added to the stature he already acquired after a strong showing in the West Indies. Dhoni said that the injuries plaguing the team provide someone the chance to become a hero. PK, more than anyone else, is grabbing that chance, and if we win this series, then I am willing to bet that it will be on the back of his bowling. The third, to me, is Gautam Gambhir, even though he looked completely rusty at Lord’s. But he is one of those people who never gives up, and, in Viru’s absence, having him at the top of the order will be crucial. Even if his elbow is hurting him, even if he is less than 100% fit, he must play. Otherwise the entire balance of the side is hurt. Our experience of opening with Yuvraj has been painful in the past; and it is not fair to ask Dravid to open the innings yet again as that upsets the entire batting order. And for all of Yuvraj’s heroics in the World Cup, the fact remains that his technique as a Test batsman, especially against the moving ball, is suspect; and even more than that, he has spent all of 5 balls in the middle since the IPL. A half-fit Gambhir is worth ten times more.

Finally, as replacement for Zaheer, Munaf Patel must play. I am aghast at all the cricinfo previews that suggest that Sreesanth should be Zak’s automatic replacement. At his best, Sreesanth is a wild card; and given that Harbhajan is a wild card too, playing him will mean that we are effectively going into the game with two bowlers we can count on. But like Yuvraj and all the other IPL casualties, Sreesanth has hardly bowled for the past couple of months; when he did, against Somerset, he went for 8 an over. How does that give him the credentials to take the new ball in a must-win game? Munaf has been outstanding for India in limited overs the past year; when he played at Dominica, he was unlucky to miss out on the wickets, but was the pick of the bowlers. His tight, back of a length bowling will give India control, give Dhoni a stock-bowling option, and allow him to use PK and Ishant as strike bowlers. If he plays, then we at least have a workable seam attack. If Sreesanth plays, then we are granting England a twelfth player.

In conclusion then, this is a game India can play. But we need Gambhir to take those painkillers, we need Munaf to play, and we need to be at our very best. This promises to be a Test match for the ages, and it is one we cannot afford to lose.

India team for England Tests

2011-07-02T04:29:00.001-07:00

The team for the England Tests will be announced today. This will be one of the sternest tests for India’s claims to be the no. 1 Test team in the world today, and hence this selection is a big deal. Here is my team.

With most of our front-line players likely to be fit again, a lot of the team selects itself. There is some doubt about Virendra Sehwag’s full fitness; but even a half-fit Viru is worth more than most fully fit openers in the world. So the top five would read: Gambhir, Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman. Raina has done enough to retain the no. 6 spot. His technique is limited, but like Sourav Ganguly before him, he is showing that temperament can make up for that. England will be a sterner examination for him, but he is at least up for the test. Dhoni will be at 7, Harbhajan takes the lead spinner’s spot. Ishant Sharma is coming back into a nice rhythm, and Praveen Kumar as a Test bowler has been the pleasant surprise of the West Indies tour. So they are the obvious choices to partner Zaheer.

This leaves the question of the reserve players. I know that Yuvraj Singh is on everyone’s lips, but I would insist that however well he has played in one-day games, he is not a Test batsman, and we have seen him enough to be aware of this fact. Virat Kohli hasn’t covered himself in glory yet in the West Indies, but two Tests are not enough to judge someone of his ability, and he deserves to be retained. Also, neither of the two openers we have seen, Murali Vijay nor Abhinav Mukund, really looks like making the cut in international conditions. Mukund at least has shown the temperament to grind it out; Vijay has been thoroughly exposed, both in the West Indies and earlier in South Africa. Neither looks equal to the task of facing the likes of Anderson and Tremlett. So rather than have another opener on tour, I would retain Subramaniam Badrinath, who, like Kohli, hasn’t been given a proper run, and who I still think has the technique to be Dravid’s long-term successor at 3. In terms of ability, Raina’s place is under most scrutiny, and we need adequate back-up for him in case he is found wanting. Parthiv Patel can be picked as the 17th player, as he can double up as both a reserve keeper and a reserve opener. He has worked hard on his batting and made lots of domestic runs; I don’t think he will be any worse at the top than either Vijay or Mukund.

In terms of bowling, Munaf Patel is the obvious back-up to the three seamers, which means that in fact we have a seam attack of considerable quality and variety. Ishant can seam, PK can swing, Munaf can hit the deck, and Zak can orchestrate it all. It may not quite match up to England’s attack in pace, but certainly does in skill and versatility. Amit Mishra, in his latest coming, has also been outstanding, and deserves to stay part of the mix. The last seam bowler’s slot is the only one in question. Sreesanth is due for a recall, but I don’t see what he has done to earn one. He is the Ajit Agarkar on contemporary Indian cricket, constantly recalled because of his purported talent, only to never deliver. It is much better for India to build its bench strength, and take along an unknown quantity. My own preference is for Pankaj Singh, who has done everything possible to earn an India cap. Even if he doesn’t get a Test, going along on tour will be an invaluable learning experience for him.

Hence, my team:

1. Gautam Gambhir (V)
2. Virendra Sehwag
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. V.V.S. Laxman
6. Suresh Raina
7. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Praveen Kumar

Reserves:

12. Virat Kohli
13. Subramaniam Badrinath
14. Parthiv Patel (W)
15. Munaf Patel
16. Pankaj Singh
17. Amit Mishra

West Indies 1st Test preview

2011-06-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, Indian cricket was at its nadir. Now it is at its peak. Then, we had just ended the reign of the most destructive coach in Indian history. Now, we have bid a sad farewell to the most successful one. Then, a tour to the West Indies would have seemed a big deal. Now, it seems that everyone thinks about it as not much harder than one to Bangladesh.

Certainly, that seems to be the perception of the BCCI, who has made its priorities clear – 6 weeks of meaningless IPL cricket, it has indicated, is more important than retaining the world no. 1 ranking in Tests. This is not surprising – the Chairman of the Board is the owner of IPL’s champion franchise. The Chairman of selectors is its brand ambassador. In India, the idea of conflict of interest does not exist. But really, what would it matter to Messrs Srinivasan and Srikkanth if India loses in the West Indies, as long as Chennai keeps winning the IPL?

The thought of India losing in the West Indies, to the cricketing cognisetti, is unthinkable. We are the no. 1 team in the world, and the West Indies has of late struggled to put 11 world class players on the field. What we forget is that we became no. 1 because of a combination of quality players and a rigorous process. The quality players, in this series, are missing in action. And process is easy to forget when one gets overconfident. England learned this the hard way after the 2005 Ashes. I fear that we are going to learn this the hard way in the West Indies.

On paper, even a second string Indian team might seem stronger than the West Indies. But cricket matches are not won or lost based on rankings. Once the two teams step onto the field, it is what they do on the field that will decide who wins. And at this point, I feel the cards are stacked against India.

No team can be without the services of players of the caliber of Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar and Zaheer and not feel it. India has become no. 1 largely on the backs of the starts Gambhir and Sehwag have provided with the bat, and that Zak has provided with the ball. Take those starts away, and things stop looking so invincible. To add to India’s woes, it seems likely that Murali Vijay and Munaf Patel will both miss the Kingston Test because of injuries. Vijay has been the back-up man India has gone to over the past couple of years whenever Gambhir or Sehwag have been missing in action. Munaf has emerged as India’s best limited overs bowler, and his form and ability to hit the deck just short of a length and seam it around would have been a handful in West Indian conditions. The situation was ripe for Vijay to stake his claim to being a Test batsman; and for Munaf to establish himself as a Test bowler.

In their absence, India will have as their openers one debutant in Abhinav Mukund, and Parthiv Patel, who is only on tour because of his back-up wicket-keeping abilities. Neither will inspire fear in Kemar Roach and Ravi Rampaul, who are a more than useful new ball pair. Dravid and Laxman provide class in the middle order, but both are coming off a six-month layoff when no Test cricket has been played by India. The BCCI of course doesn’t believe in arranging warm-up games on tours, so both will be coming in cold and expected to prop up an inexperienced batting line up. They will be supported by two of Raina, Kohli and Badrinath. I think the latter two need to play – Raina’s vulnerabilities against the short ball are all too evident, and he struggled even in the one-day games. But one can’t expect these two youngsters, attempting to establish themselves in the side, to be match-winners straight off the bat.

The bowling is even more worrying. The Kingston pitch is expected to provide pace and bounce, yet we have only two fast bowlers to choose from in Munaf’s absence. One of them is Praveen Kumar, who has neither pace nor bounce, and who has never played a Test match. These are not conditions where a bowler who bowls at 125 kmph, and who becomes ineffective once the new ball has lost its shine, is going to thrive. With so much Test cricket coming up, and the lack of depth in our fast bowling attack extremely stark, the selectors could have used this opportunity to build bench strength. Pankaj Singh should have been on this tour, at least when Zak and Sree pulled out. He was the form bowler of the domestic season, is tall, strong, and can move the ball both ways. He would have been a much better partner to Ishant in West Indian conditions than Praveen Kumar, and we could have seen whether he has what it takes to be part of the bench in England.

Meanwhile, things don’t look too bad for the West Indies, certainly not at Kingston. India starts series badly, and in terms of both physical and match fitness, India is on the mat. The wicket is likely to be fast and bouncy. Sarwan and Chanderpaul aren’t the batsmen they used to be, and the West Indian batting is brittle. But Zaheer Khan was the man who could have exposed that brittleness most ruthlessly, and in his absence West Indies can breathe a lot easier. Where the West Indies looks really strong is in their bowling. Kemar Roach and Fidel Edwards are genuine quicks. Rampaul and Sammy are more than useful back-ups. They are good enough to expose this Indian line-up, certainly at the start of the series.

I predict a likely Indian defeat in the series, and a certain defeat at Kingston. It is possible – especially if Vijay and Munaf regain fitness – that we can come back into the series later, and a drawn series is not out of the question. But either way, one would have to concede that this is a terrible way to prepare for a huge series against England, who is looking more and more likely to be the team that ends our reign as world no. 1.

There are only two silver linings for India as I see it. The first is that the series should provide a proper opportunity to test Badri and Kohli as Test batsmen – assuming, of course, that we don’t make the mistake of playing Raina ahead of them. Badri deserves a proper run, and in my mind is the man who should be in line to replace Dravid at 3 in the long run. And I am genuinely excited to see Kohli play in the longer version of the game – he looks mentally ready to make the transition from limited overs, and the time is ripe for him to make the most of this opportunity.

The second is that this provides Ishant Sharma the chance to lead the attack. Ishant was running into a nice rhythm in the IPL, consistently hitting the high-140s. And conditions in the West Indies, especially in Kingston, will suit his bowling. We desperately need Ishant back at his best for the series in England and Australia later this year. Perhaps the added responsibility of leading the attack in the West Indies will be the shot in the arm he needs.

Other than that, I have little hope.

Indian team for WI tests

2011-05-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

The big news as the selectors sit down to pick the team to the West Indies is the injury to Gautam Gambhir. This has to raise the question of whether Gambhir hid his injury to play in the lucrative IPL. That is a serious question to ask given that Gambhir is heir apparent to the Indian captaincy whenever Dhoni decides he has had enough. And it shows that the IPL is not simply a pointless tournament but also a dangerous one. India’s success in Tests in recent years has been built in large measure on an outstanding opening partnership. Now, India will have a new opening pair. They may get by on this in the West Indies, but this is going to present real problems in England, with neither Sehwag nor Gambhir certain to recover in time for that huge series.

This does present a huge opportunity for Murali Vijay to show what he is made of, though asking him to take over the mantle of senior opening partner straight away is not entirely fair. One of the biggest decisions the selectors will have to make will concern his opening partner. I would go with Abhinav Mukund. He is an immensely talented youngster, one who has piled on the runs in domestic cricket, and already has a terrific understanding with Vijay. The Chennai duo might not have as much experience as the Delhi duo they are replacing, but the silver lining of Sehwag’s and Gambhir’s injuries should be the opportunity to give these extremely exciting youngsters a chance to prove their worth.

Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are certainties in the middle order, so the only question concerns the last middle order spot. I think this spot is very much up for grabs. Suresh Raina has been in the picture for the past year, and certainly deserves to stay in the mix, even though doubts remain about his ability against the short ball. But I would argue that Cheteshwar Pujara hasn’t done enough to retain his spot. He is technically solid; but he is a one-dimensional batsman who is not able to force the pace when needed. Hence, he can get bogged down against good quality bowling, as happened in South Africa. He looked solid while he batted, but didn’t make runs. He just doesn’t stack up, yet, next to Subramaniam Badrinath, who has all the technical ability that Pujara does, but also has more dimensions to his batting. I think Badri is the long-term successor to Rahul Dravid at no. 3, and indeed we should give him a chance to bat at 3 in the West Indies.

There is some talk of Yuvraj Singh getting another look into the Test side on the strength of his World Cup one-day exploits, but that is nonsense. The World Cup exploits confirm that he is an outstanding one-day player when in form. But he has never proven that he has what it takes to be a Test player, and a strong World Cup doesn’t change that. I think we should accept that, like Michael Bevan, this is someone who is cut out only for the shorter form of the game. The person who does look good enough to graduate to the five-day version is Virat Kohli. He has the technique, the temperament and the hunger; he has been knocking at the doors for three years now. He deserves to come into the mix.

Hence, that last middle order spot, in my mind, has to be a toss-up between Raina, Badri and Kohli. Kohli is still one for the future, and Badri is technically far stronger than Raina, so he’s the one I’d give the first chance to. And, with a long-term perspective in mind, I’d try him out at 3, with the more experienced players backing up the Tamilians at 4, 5 and 6. Parthiv Patel is the obvious back-up to Dhoni behind the stumps, since he will already be in the West Indies, and, unlike Wriddhiman Saha, can also double up as a back-up opener.

When it comes to bowling, Zaheer and Harbhajan are automatic selections, and Zak, as de facto bowling captain, should also be vice-captain in the absence of Gambhir and Sehwag. Sreesanth may be a disaster in limited overs, but his talent is immense, and he is a strike bowler in the longer form of the game, so I would retain him as Zak’s new ball partner. The question is over the third seamer. Ishant Sharma is the man in possession, and given the recent rhythm he has shown, he should be allowed to retain his spot for now. But he will face hot competition from Munaf Patel. There are questions about Munaf’s fitness and temperament for Tests, but he has grown immensely as a bowler in the past year, and it’s worth considering him again. The other person to consider is Pankaj Singh. He was the outstanding bowler in the Ranji Trophy, bowling Rajasthan to an unlikely title triumph. Both Jaydev Unadkat and Umesh Yadav, the two who went to South Africa, are jokes, are there are no other obvious candidates waiting in the wings. Pankaj is the form man, someone who has staked his claim through sheer performance, and he should be rewarded for it.

That only leaves the question of the second spinner. That’s a straight toss up between Amit Mishra, who is in form again and in the one-day side, and his Deccan Chargers teammate Pragyan Ojha, who has been Bhaj’s back-up in Tests for the past year. I like Mishra in the one-day side, but over longer spells, Ojha is the more consistent. In the sub-continent, Mishra’s big spin makes him a factor, but on tours abroad, I just think Ojha is the safer bet. He has done nothing wrong in the chances that he has received, and he deserves to stay in the picture.

My team for the Tests, then:

Playing XI:

1. Murali Vijay
2. Abhinav Mukund
3. Subramaniam Badrinath
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Rahul Dravid
6. V.V.S. Laxman
7. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Zaheer Khan (V)
10. Ishant Sharma
11. S. Sreesanth

Reserves:

12. Suresh Raina
13. Virat Kohli
14. Parthiv Patel (W)
15. Munaf Patel
16. Pankaj Singh
17. Pragyan Ojha

Indian team for West Indies ODIs

2011-05-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

The selectors meet on May 13 to pick the team to the West Indies. Once upon a time, this would have been a big deal. Even a decade ago, a tour to the West Indies would have been regarded as a major challenge. But the West Indies has fallen so much that this tour is mainly seen as a prelude to the bigger challenge later in the summer of playing England. It would be a good idea not to take the West Indies lightly; but in reality, anything other than comfortable wins in both the one-day series and the Tests would be a disappointment.

The one-day series therefore provides an opportunity to rest some of our key players, most of whom have been playing virtually non-stop cricket since the tour to South Africa. I believe that a no. 1 Test team has to put out its best side at all times; but in the shorter version of the game, there is room for some laxity. Hence, it would be desirable (and likely) to give Tendulkar, Gambhir, Dhoni, Zaheer and Harbhajan a break for the one-days. Sehwag in any case will miss the entire tour because of his shoulder surgery.

Given this, I want to make two general arguments. The first is less controversial, but probably will not be heeded. And that is that, in choosing the replacements for these big guns, we should actually go for players who have proven their pedigree over time, and not just go for the latest IPL sensation. It is important for us to build proper bench strength. This is necessary for any quality side, but especially for a team where a number of star Test players will be retiring in the next year or two, and where even some of the next generation, like Sehwag and Zaheer, are now approaching the latter stages of their careers. Such bench strength is not built by picking the latest sensation. One saw that last year, when the likes of Saurabh Tiwary were selected purely on the basis of a few successful knocks of 20-odd in the IPL. It led to nothing, and Tiwary is not even able to replicate those knocks this year. Hence, the names of Ambati Rayudu, Paul Valthaty and Rahul Sharma are doing the rounds, but those are not the people I would pick, because none of them (except to some extent Rayudu) has really done much outside the IPL to merit an India cap. I think the IPL can help judge whether someone is in good form or rhythm or not; I just do not think it is an absolute judge of a cricketer’s quality. That has to be established over a period of time in longer, less carnivalesque, forms of the game.

The second argument that I want to make is more controversial for sure. In the absence of all the senior players, Yuvraj Singh would emerge as the senior-most figure and hence the most likely player to be captain. But I would actually make Virat Kohli the captain. This is because this series provides us the possibility of actually taking a look at possible long-term leadership options post-Dhoni. Yuvraj is never going to be a long-term captain of India. He is as old as Dhoni, and therefore not likely to be his successor. He is still not sure (indeed, I would say, not deserving) of a place in the Test side. And, as he has shown in captaining both Punjab and Pune in the IPL, he is a terrible captain. Kohli on the other hand is the most matured Indian cricketer over the past couple of years, and he is definitely a future Test player once the likes of Dravid and Laxman retire. He deserves a chance at the helm.

With that, some of the core players in the side who select themselves are Kohli, Yuvraj, Raina and Yusuf Pathan with the bat (though, as I will argue below, not all of them are automatic choices for the playing 11). Parthiv Patel stepped in for Dhoni against New Zealand late last year, and acquitted himself perfectly well, so he should be the automatic choice to keep. In Zak’s absence, the suddenly mature Munaf Patel will obviously lead the attack. Harbhajan has a straightforward replacement in Ravichandran Ashwin. So it’s only the blanks that have to be filled.

I would argue that Kohli should promote himself to open. He is one of those people who bats best when he has a long time to bat, and he indeed started his one-day career for India at the top of the order. Murali Vijay is his obvious choice for opening partner. Vijay is a good one-day batsman who has never been given a proper run in the shorter forms of the game, and having a specialist opener to partner Kohli would be good. Vijay is also a certainty as Gambhir’s opening partner in the Tests in Sehwag’s absence, so having him play the one-dayers to get a feel for West Indian conditions will be useful. Yuvraj should slot in at 3, again on the principle that our best batsmen should get as many overs as possible to play. So the question concerns the heart of our middle order – 4 and 5.

This is where I would go for long-term performance. First, I would assert that Suresh Raina doesn’t walk into one of these slots. He is a talented player, but his technical vulnerabilities remain. In the World Cup, he came into key games and did the job as a finisher, with good cameos of 30-odd batting at 7. But that’s a very different skill set from batting at 4, and Raina still hasn’t convinced me that he has what it takes to bat consistently in the top 5 in one-day games. I want two people with a little more substance, and certainly much better technique.

One, obviously, must be Subramaniam Badrinath, my constant favorite, and the man who is still the worst treated cricketer on the planet. He was discarded from the one-day set-up on the specious claim that he is a “Test” batsman. After making a 50 on debut against the likes of Dale Steyn and co, he was discarded from that format as well. He has responded in the way that he has always done; by going back and performing. He churned out the runs in the Ranji Trophy, ending as the season’s top scorer. And he has played critical knocks in the IPL, showing that he has added dimensions to his batting, and has the ability to shift gears when needed. Technically, only Cheteshwar Pujara amongst the youngsters is his equal. But Pujara, like the early Dravid, hasn’t yet figured out how to shift gears, and as we saw in South Africa, this can get him bogged down against good bowling. This is why, in the long term, I see Badri as the man best equipped to succeed Dravid as no. 3 in Tests. It is why I also see him as the best man to fill the role Dravid so brilliantly played in the mid-2000s at no. 5 in the one-day side – of someone who could accumulate if needed, but also accelerate in the end overs. More often that not, since Dravid, Dhoni has played that role in the one-day side. But with Dhoni tending to bat himself at 6 or 7 more often than not, Badri is the ideal man to play that role. Indeed, in this IPL, even Dhoni was grudgingly moved to admit that Badri is the “unsung hero” of the Chennai side. After that, he promptly dropped Badri down the order and promoted Raina for the next game.

My other middle-order pick would be another fine batsman who has been given a raw deal, the other Tiwary, indeed the real one, Manoj. He was discarded after failing to negotiate a single fiery over from Brett Lee in Australia, and has never been given a look-in since. But there is no doubt about his fundamental ability. Indeed, Sourav Ganguly, one of the best judges of cricket talent in the country, said a few years ago that Tiwary was the “future of Indian batting”. Perhaps Tiwary’s trajectory will also follow Ganguly’s – selected too early for a tour of Australia, a failure, and then in the wilderness for 3-4 years before coming back to becoming one of the team’s batting mainstays. If one compares Tiwary’s treatment with the number of chances Rohit Sharma has gotten in the same period, it becomes obvious how badly he has been treated. In the meantime, he has matured as a batsman, becoming a quietly consistent performer for Bengal. What is most evident is what Gautam Gambhir recently pointed out, which is how much better his shot selection has become. Poor shot selection is the problem that has always plagued the likes of Rohit and Dinesh Karthik, and indeed still plagues Raina. Tiwary had added dimensions to his game, and the talent was always considerable, so he deserves a proper run now.

This means that the no. 6 spot is a straight toss-up between Raina and Yusuf Pathan. This is a gut pick, but I would go with Yusuf. I just think he is a better batsman. Raina is good for the odd 30 or 50; but Yusuf is capable of nearly chasing down 300 while walking in at 100 for 5 against a South African attack in South Africa. Both can be frustratingly inconsistent, but Yusuf wins out for me on raw talent. He is also a far better bowler than Raina, which is a useful consideration for a team whose weak link is still its bowling attack, even more so in the absence of Zak and Bhaj.

In terms of bowling, Munaf and Ashwin are automatic selections. In addition, one of the most exciting things about the IPL this year has been watching Ishant Sharma get back into the groove. He can still be inconsistent, but he has bowled some torrid spells, and has consistently hit the mid-to-high 140s. Ishant is a rhythm bowler, and in this kind of rhythm he should walk in as Munaf’s new ball partner. Ashish Nehra’s hand should have healed, and he’ll be the obvious choice for third seamer.

The questions concern the back-up bowlers. Sreesanth is still someone who can bowl game-changing spells in Tests, but in limited overs games he has proved himself to be a complete liability. At this point, he is not even getting into Kochi’s playing 11; he can’t possibly for considered for an India spot, even in Zak’s absence, though as I said, he’d be an automatic choice for the Test series afterwards. Praveen Kumar is the other obvious candidate, but I have my doubts about him as well. At his best, he is a very good bowler with the new ball, but struggles to do anything once the ball gets older. But just as the IPL has shown Ishant in good rhythm, it has shown Praveen in the opposite light. He has generally looked rusty and off-color, and when bowling later in the innings he has simply been cannon fodder. Because of his lack of pace, he is someone who needs to be spot on with his rhythm and accuracy to be effective; and at the moment, he isn’t. He needs more cricket under his belt before he is brought back into the side.

The problem is, once you get past these obvious candidates, the fast bowling cupboard is remarkably bare. And this remains the biggest obstacle to India remaining world no. 1 against contenders like England and South Africa. So the final fast bowling spot, in my reckoning, would go to someone who has not had much chance in the IPL, but who has been hovering on the fringes of Indian selection for a while, and who was simply outstanding in the recently completed domestic season – Pankaj Singh. He is a big, tall, strapping lad, capable of moving the ball either way, and his performance was almost singularly responsible for Rajasthan’s stunning triumph in the Ranji Trophy. He’s had the odd chance in one-day games for India, but never a proper run, and I think it’s worth taking him along and taking a closer look at him.

There are a couple of other spots on the bench at stake. One is the second spinner. Here, the World Cup pick, Piyush Chawla, was found wanting. However, the idea behind his selection – that having a leg-spinner in the mix is good for the balance of a one-day team – was a sound one. Especially given Yuvraj’s maturation as a bowler, a leggie adds more value to the side than another left-arm spinner, which is why for me someone like Pragyan Ojha would still miss out. (Though in a Test context, he would very much be in the picture for me, having played the supporting role to Harbhajan extremely well over the past year). There has been some buzz over Rahul Sharma, who has bowled some tight IPL spells for Pune. But that is precisely the kind of selection I would discourage. Leg-spinners mature over time, and one has to make long-term investments in them. And the best leg-spinner in India does remain Amit Mishra. He can be occasionally expensive, but he’s a wicket-taker; and that’s why leg-spinners are selected, to take wickets. It’s important that he’s not just discarded and forgotten. Indeed, he’s almost a better bowler in limited overs than Tests; sometimes, in Tests, he starts dropping away over long spells, bowling gimme balls and releasing the pressure on batsmen. But over a short, sustained spell, he has the ability to make a difference. Indeed, given the West Indian vulnerability against leg-spin, one could make a case for Mishra playing in the 11 ahead of a third seamer.

The last spot is the reserve batsman’s spot. I think Ambati Rayudu’s strong performances in the IPL make him a contender; but Rohit Sharma has performed equally strongly, and his pedigree means he is always in the picture. Both have done little outside of the IPL context to justify their selection, but both have enormous talent. I personally would stick with Rohit – we have invested in him for 4 years, and I am reluctant to throw away that investment in such a special talent lightly. But he’s going to have to start showing a return on investment, otherwise everyone’s patience will wear very thin.

My team for the West Indies one-day series:

1. Murali Vijay
2. Virat Kohli ©
3. Yuvraj Singh
4. Manoj Tiwary
5. Subramaniam Badrinath (V)
6. Yusuf Pathan
7. Parthiv Patel (W)
8. Ravichandran Ashwin
9. Amit Mishra
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Munaf Patel

Reserves:

12. Suresh Raina
13. Rohit Sharma
14. Ashish Nehra
15. Pankaj Singh

IPL predictions

2011-04-10T21:27:00.001-07:00

After the World Cup, I am utterly uninterested in the IPL, but I have traditionally made my predictions, so I'll make them here, without elaboration.

Semi-finals: Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai

Finals: Chennai v Kolkata

Winners: Chennai

5. Deccan
6. Pune
7. Kochi
8. Delhi
9. Rajasthan
10. Punjab

(Of course, so far, I am three for three - all three years, the team I have predicted as wooden spooners has lifted the IPL. This probably means that this is Punjab's year)

After the win

2011-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

In terms of world-historical significance, the election of Barack Obama was probably a greater event that our winning the World Cup. But in terms of happiness, that is the closest event I can think of that compares in any way with this.

I think back to my memories of all the other World Cups before this. I was at my grandfather’s house in 1983, all of 9 years old. I had just been introduced to cricket a few months previously, but somehow I was already passionate about it. I already knew that nobody beat the West Indies, certainly not India, which by accounts was a pretty rotten team with a couple of outstanding players that had no business getting as far as it had done. So I was surprised and amazed. The picture of a smiling Kapil Dev, in blazer and whites, lifting the cup was an iconic one that remained throughout my childhood. But otherwise, my own relationship to the 1983 win was entirely virtual.

It therefore amazes me that it was a win that set up a desire within me that has taken 28 years to quench. And it is a desire that has been shared by hundreds of millions of my fellow country-people. What is it about a sport that can make this happen? What it is about this sport, in this country, that can make this happen? All that I know is that this World Cup is so important, to me, and to Indians, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of whether they regard themselves as nationalist or not. That is the sublime power of cricket on the sub-continent – it can unite people in desire, in aspiration, and for 28 years it has united us, more often than not, in longing and despair. To see the joy on the faces of the Indian cricket team on April 2 was to see how, over the past weeks and years, these and others who have donned the Indian colors have, every time they have stepped on to a cricket field, had to play not just for their desire to win, but for the desires of these hundreds of millions. Of the desires of people like myself, who stay up all night because of time differences to watch them play. I cannot imagine their pressure, or their joy, or their sense of accomplishment. In the future, I will find things to criticize about them, we’ll all start pointing to their mistakes and hurl abuse at selectors and wonder who should be retained and who dropped. But at the moment, they are, simply, heroes. As they should be.

The cast of characters

Aamir Khan was one of the most visible and vocal supporters in the stands in Mumbai. But even he couldn’t have written a better script than that which unfolded. This was Lagaan in real life, and if there was a glitch, it was only that the vanquished adversary wasn’t an old colonial power. Otherwise, it was the perfect Bollywood romance, down to the last ball six.

There was leadership. M.S. Dhoni, the man who has turned everything he has touched to gold. He has changed over the last four years, the dashing, long-haired batsman being replaced by the careful, short-haired reliable accumulator. The instinctive captain being replaced by a primarily conservative one. Dhoni the batsman has, over the past couple of years, played the role in the one-day side that Rahul Dravid had played: uber-reliable, capable of consolidation if required, and of aggression at the death when needed. Dhoni the captain is no longer the instinctive risk-taker who gave Joginder Sharma the last over in the 2007 T20 World Cup final. Indeed, Dhoni the batsman was under fire, being the one player in the Indian line-up to have failed consistently through the World Cup. And Dhoni the captain, in addition to being basically conservative, had also made some moves through the tournament that were downright questionable, the most jarring one being the selection of Sreesanth for the final ahead of the immensely talented and far more reliable Ravichandran Ashwin. When he walked in at number 5, ahead of the sublimely in form Yuvraj Singh, his reputation as both batsman and captain was on the line. But where a Dravid might, in such a situation, have allowed the weight of the world to settle upon him, Dhoni ensured that there would only be one result the minute he walked out to bat. Just the look on his face, the way he thumped fists with Gautam Gambhir between overs, made it clear to everyone who was looking that this was not a battle he intended to lose. And that is where Dhoni proved his mettle as a leader. Leadership is not just about strategy and tactics; it is about standing tall and being counted when it matters most. It is about earning the trust of a team that knows that when most needed, their captain will rise to the occasion for them. In the finals, Dhoni showed, more emphatically than he ever has done, that this is his team.

There was redemption. Yuvraj Singh is an easy one to dislike. Success had come all too easily to him. He was the under-19 golden boy, the person who never had to deal with the hard yards of domestic cricket. For someone like myself, it was far easier to like people like Subramaniam Badrinath, who had to work for scraps. At his best, Yuvraj was sublime. But every time he promised to turn a corner, it turned out to be a false promise. The last year, for him, was nothing short of disastrous. It was clear that he was only in the World Cup squad on prior reputation. And because there was no obvious alternative, since the person who had been groomed for much of the last four years, who could have taken his place for good, Rohit Sharma, had himself so spectacularly squandered his talent. For Yuvi to emerge from that mess to assert himself the way he did on this tournament was nothing short of fictional. He was no longer just the dazzling batsman; he was also the responsible one, his hundred against the West Indies in a potentially tricky encounter the epitome of the new Yuvraj. But it was the match-winning 50 against Australia that showed us that the old Yuvraj hasn’t disappeared, and it had to be one of the innings of the tournament, one of the innings of his career, matching his Natwest Trophy final efforts from 2002. And the pie-chucker had turned into a spinner of guile, getting wickets not just with a golden arm, but because of thought and aggression and ability. Suddenly, out of the blue, we had an all-rounder, allowing us to play seven front-line batsmen, a luxury that no other team in the tournament had. And suddenly, Yuvi had become a champion.

There was poetry. How else does one describe the perfect encapsulation of Sachin Tendulkar’s career, with that much-desired World Cup win, on his home ground? If there was anyone in the world who really wanted this, it was Sachin. If there is anyone in the world who truly deserves this, it is Sachin. The fact that he himself failed in the final, and hence remained at 99 international hundreds, only adds to the perfect symmetry of the occasion. For too much of his career, Sachin has played a remarkable hand in a losing cause. It is only fitting that, for the biggest win of his career, others in the team put their hands up. Indeed, this team won it for Sachin.

There was the maturity of youth. Virat Kohli’s statement at the end of the game about Sachin: “he has carried the burden of a billion people on his shoulders for 20 years. It is time he was carried on our shoulders”. Could one imagine Kohli saying words as wise as this two years ago, when he was distracted by the lure of IPL and threatening to turn into one of those talented youngsters who go nowhere? These were the words of a future Indian captain; the way he has batted over the past year smacks of a future Indian Test batsman. Amongst all the youngsters to have emerged in the post-T20 cricket world, Kohli is the most exciting on the Indian scene. Not just because he is exciting, but because he already has a maturity beyond his years. (Of course, Kohli’s own statement was immediately qualified by Harbhajan Singh’s unique supplement – “woo-hoo-hoohoo-hoooooooooooo INDIA!!!!” – suggesting that not everyone grows up. But what would this team be without Bhajji? Except, possible, a slightly more incisive spin-bowling unit?).

There was craftsmanship. No, Zaheer Khan is not Wasim Akram. Wasim-bhai is genius, and genius comes along once in a generation. But genius is also not imitable – it can induce awe, but it cannot inspire in the same way as an ordinary mortal can who has mastered his craft. When India needed Zak, he was there, and he delivered. His spell against England was a defining moment for the team in the whole tournament – an easy defeat there, and everything would have looked different. But his opening spell in the final was as important, and showed just what a long way he has come since that opening spell in the 2003 final. Zak is more than just a class act as a bowler; he is one of our leaders, our bowling captain, an inspiration and a mentor and a guide to the younger bowlers. He is the person who has turned our mediocre bowling attack into an incisive one, in more ways than one.

There was character. What other word can one use to describe Gautam Gambhir? Even when not in the best of form, this is one man that we cannot imagine dropping. (Even though some idiots who claim to know cricket suggested during the tournament that we do exactly that). His performance in the final was the epitome of a class knock under pressure – precisely because it wasn’t classy. It was stubborn, bloody-minded, determined. It was everything that the sublime knock from Mahela Jayawardene wasn’t. That’s why we won – it was an Australian knock, and Gambhir is an Aussie-type cricketer. He, perhaps more than anyone, represents our transition from pretty losers to determined winners. It is tragic that he missed his 100, but also, in some ways, fitting. Because he has never played for individual glory, he has emerged as the infrastructure around which the batting revolves. The final was Dhoni’s game. But Gambhir made it possible for Dhoni to even have a game. In more ways than one, he is the obvious choice as Dhoni’s long-term vice-captain going forward.

There was insouciance. Virendra Sehwag continues to disappoint as a one-day batsman, but even he made some telling contributions. That effortless cameo in the semi-final had a much bigger impact on the result than he is credited for. And the fear that he inspires in the opposition is significant in structuring the mental dimension of any game India plays. Everyone knows they are not safe as long as Viru is at the crease. And that makes a huge difference. If Gambhir provides Aussie-like substance, then Viru provides Aussie-like aura.

But, perhaps more than all these stars, what really made India win was the support act. This is what we lacked in the past – depending, first, just on Sachin, then, later, on Sachin and co. This was Sri Lanka’s weakness: it was clear that, to win, they needed certain people to play a match-winning role. Jayawardene played his part; but the really great teams don’t just depend on their really great players. That’s what Australia has taught the world over the past decade; and it is what India is beginning to learn.

And so, this tournament also belongs to the likes of Suresh Raina, who came into crunch matches and batted with maturity under fire, but also raised the level of the entire Indian fielding unit. To Munaf Patel, who has spent much of his career under-achieving with a hang-dog expression on his face, but who provided the perfect, and perfectly reliable, foil to Zaheer Khan in the seam department. To R. Ashwin, who only got a couple of games, but made telling contributions in them, especially in the key quarter-final against Australia. To Ashish Nehra, who started the tournament injured, bowled a disastrous final over against South Africa, yet came back to bowl with verve and guile in the high pressure semi-final against Pakistan. Even the likes of Yusuf Pathan, who had a low-impact tournament, and Piyush Chawla, who looked undercooked after 3 years in the wilderness, seemed a part of the team, even when fielding as substitutes. The only true failure, who truly looked like he didn’t belong in this format, was Sreesanth. We certainly missed Praveen Kumar, but others raised their games at key moments to make up for his absence, and for Sreesanth’s presence.

And as for the real support unit, what can one say? The commitment, the drive and the humility that Gary Kirsten and his team brought to this team over the last three years cannot be overstated. This win was for Kirsten as much as for Sachin. By the end of this tournament, surely, Kirsten was identifying with India as much as he had with South Africa during his playing years. We will miss him enormously, and his shoes will be impossibly big to fill.

But finally, there are other heroes to mention, who are easy to forget in the euphoria, and in the narrow-minded, present-focused vision of the Indian media and cricket fans. Dhoni was generous in acknowledging Sourav Ganguly’s contribution to Indian cricket as it now exists. None of the mental strength and verve that this team has shown, now in both forms of the game, over the last three years would have been possible without Ganguly. He was the one who taught Indian cricket self-belief, both while playing abroad and in adverse conditions. It wasn’t quite enough to make India world champions, partly because his captaincy coincided with the high noon of one of the great Australian teams of all time, but partly because he had merely started a process that others needed to complete. He also was the person who first gave a leg up to many of the key people in this generation: Sehwag, Zaheer, Yuvraj and Nehra have all come up because of the faith that Ganguly showed in them, especially when their initial raw talent gave way to teething troubles. In the past, players like these would have been abandoned at the first sign of inconsistency; but Ganguly really built the nucleus of a team for the future. It was fitting that Ganguly was present as a commentator in the final, and his pride was all too evident.

Of course, Ganguly was helped by the nucleus of great players surrounding him – Dravid, Laxman and Anil Kumble, the last of whom was present and watching live in Mumbai. But he too had a great coach in John Wright. Wright had all of Kirsten’s attributes – humility, determination, a deep commitment to the Indian cricket team – but in terms of culture and ethos, he had less to work with than Kirsten. He molded the team, and provided Kirsten the raw material with which the latter could work wonders. It is good to see him at the helm of a national team again, and already the impact of his presence could be seen on the New Zealanders – no-hopers even in Bangladesh just a few months ago, before Wright took over, and semi-finalists in the World Cup.

And finally, let me mention one unsung hero who has been entirely forgotten – Lalchand Rajput. As India made the transition from the dark Chappell years to the Kirsten ones, it was Rajput who stepped up to the plate, who started healing the wounds and repairing the distrust within the side that Chappell had generated. The likes of Ravi Shastri, who has become an increasingly loud and garish media presence, shied away from this responsibility when they could have taken it on and made the difference. Rajput was dropped without ceremony, in a brusque manner that is typically sub-continental, and has never really been given any thought since. But it is people like him, as much as people like Tendulkar, who have given Indian cricket a new direction, and who have turned a group of talented individuals into a team that could yet grow in to being a great one.

India-Pakistan

2011-03-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

I haven’t had any time to blog about the World Cup so far, and this is going to be a brief one. But in the quarter-finals, the World Cup came alive for India, and this makes tomorrow’s match – purely in cricketing terms, regardless of the hype – a mouth-watering prospect. Pakistan’s bowling v India’s batting. Pakistan’s mercurial brilliance v India’s increasingly steely temperament. Sachin Tendulkar v Umar Gul. Of course I have allegiances, but all I can say is, may the best team win.

What has made this World Cup so memorable is, simply, that it is impossible to predict who will win any given game. Much of this is because of Australia’s decline, from a champion team to a merely good one, and the fact that no team has definitively staked its claim to be the successor. On paper, the best team by far – and certainly the only genuinely balanced team in the tournament – was South Africa. And they managed, yet again (but perhaps more spectacularly than even they have managed before) – to provide a dictionary definition of asphyxiation in their quarter-final.

So, what can we predict about the India-Pakistan game? Nothing, though the facts seem to be as follows:

• Pakistan undoubtedly has the better bowling attack than India; yet
• India arguably is the one team with the batting line-up equipped to deal with that attack; yet
• It is a batting line-up that has registered scores of 7 for 33, 9 for 29, and 7 for 51 in late order collapses in this tournament;
• India has the coolest captain in the game;
• Pakistan has the most passionate captain in the game;
• India, temperamentally one of the stronger teams in the tournament, has been extremely erratic in its group games;
• Pakistan, one of the most erratic teams in the game, has been amongst the most consistent in the tournament;
• India’s finding its A-game against Australia is an indication they have peaked at the right time;
• India’s thrilling win against Australia has taken so much out of its players that they have nothing left to give, as was the case in 1996 after the quarter-final win against Pakistan;
• Pakistan’s clinical demolition of the West Indies shows that they are a brilliant team in awesome form;
• Pakistan’s clinical demolition of the West Indies shows how far West Indies cricket has fallen, and that means Pakistan go into their semi-final undercooked;
• Pakistan has never beaten India in a World Cup, so India is bound to win;
• A host nation has never won the World Cup, and since Pakistan is the only non-host nation left, it is bound to win.

There. Easy as pie.

Though, more seriously, India needs two people to step up to the plate, both of whom have been disappointing so far. One is Harbhajan Singh, who has been out-bowled by both Yuvraj and Ashwin so far in this tournament. Tight wicket-less overs won’t do – he needs to give Zaheer support as a strike bowler. And the second is Sehwag, who, after that 175 against Bangladesh, has done precious little in the tournament. He has a phenomenal record against Pakistan, and he needs to bring that game to the ground with him tomorrow.

May the better team win. Though Tendulkar’s 100th 100 and a final in Mumbai wouldn’t be amiss.

World Cup predictions

2011-02-18T20:13:00.002-08:00

I have had no time to do a proper prediction, so here is a quick and outrageous set of predictions for the World Cup:

Australia: doesn't have a chance. How nice it is to say that! They seemed to be getting their mo-jo back in the ODI series against England, and Brett Lee's return is scary to all opposition. But on sub-continental tracks, even strong bowling attacks can be out-batted. What one needs is a strong batting line up. That's how Sri Lanka won in 1996. And Australia's batting is riddled with holes and full of worries. Losing Michael Hussey is the final nail in their coffin. I don't think they'll get beyond the quarters.

The sub-continental teams: Only India has a realistic chance. Pakistan is talking themselves up, occasionally even comparing themselves to Imran's team of 1992, which is a joke. Yes, there is the odd talent. But the technique of most of their batsmen is laughable, and while they have some good bowlers they just don't have the mental strength or cohesion to go any further than the quarters.

Sri Lanka is a good team, but they are not scary. They have some quality batsmen, but not the depth of the best Lankan teams. Malinga and Murali are always going to be a handful with the ball. But this is not an intimidating side. The 96 side was.

I'm not even taking Bangladesh seriously. Sehwag was right a couple of years ago - they are an ordinary side with one outstanding player in their captain. Enough said.

India has the team to go all the way, at least with the bat and with their motley collection of spinners. But two things will hurt them. The first is the poor quality of their seam attack, especially at the death. Only Zaheer commands any respect there, and even he can leak runs in shorter formats, in addition to always being a fitness concern. The second is the pressure of playing at home. There's a reason why a home team has never won the World Cup. And the pressures of playing in India will be huge. This is a stronger team than previous ones, but I don't know that such pressure can be handled over a 6-week period. It's just too much to hope for. I predict a semi-final exit.

Of the conventionally strong teams, that leaves South Africa and England, and I pick New Zealand as my dark horses. NZ has had a rough time of it of late. But they have always been good in big tournaments, and their top 4, of Guptill, McCullum, Ryder and Taylor can give anyone a run for their money. They have played two ODI series in the sub-continent of late, and while they were hammered in both, it means they have greater recent experience of these conditions than most. And they now have John Wright as their coach, who is as good as Gary Kirsten or Andy Flower. Vettori is a quality bowler, and he needs backing from his quicker bowlers. But a couple of wins and some confidence, and this is a team that could surprise. I see them as a more legitimate dark horse than Pakistan.

England is being written off after their defeat in Australia. But they were full of injuries, and were coming off the adrenaline high of the Ashes. I don't think that's a reflection of their quality. They are a fine, well-gelled unit, and have a very versatile bowling attack. Their middle-order is a concern, and losing Eoin Morgan is a huge blow. But they are certainly a better team than Australia, whatever else Ian Chappell might think.

SA is always written off as "chokers". But purely in terms of team balance, they are the best team in world cricket right now. Their batting is as strong as India's and their bowling is far better. They have competed well in the sub-continent. Hashim Amla is arguably the best form batsman in world cricket at the moment in any format. India matches them by compensating for their bowling weaknesses with mental strength, but 6 weeks of home crowd pressure will dent that advantage. Comparatively, SA has nothing to lose. Their middle order of Kallis, de Villiers and Duminy is talented and versatile, backing up Amla at the top. I think they can go all the way.

My predictions:

India v South Africa and New Zealand v England in semis.

South Africa v New Zealand in finals.

South Africa wins, and Hashim Amla is man of the series.

World Cup predictions

2011-02-18T20:13:00.001-08:00

Looking back, looking forward

2011-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

There is a lot that is creditable about India’s Test performance in South Africa. The win in Durban was remarkable, the draw in Cape Town was gritty, and, had it not been for the BCCI’s continued and inexplicable unwillingness to insist on tour games before major series, we would have acquitted ourselves better at Centurion as well. So the biggest culprit that prevented a series win for India was, as always, the BCCI. But they will never be held accountable for anything, so why waste one’s breath on them? This team has become no. 1 in spite of the board, and that is a more formidable achievement than beating even Australia at its prime.

Having said that, we did let South Africa off the hook on Day 4 at Cape Town, and if we are truly going to be a great team, a long term number 1, then we have to look at that closely. When the series ended, I felt a pang, thinking how close we were to a series win. The players, however, seemed happy to take the draw. And that’s the difference between this Indian team and the truly great teams of the past decades, the Aussies of the last 10 years, or the West Indians of the 70s and 80s. What we have developed of late is a gritty, never say die approach that was sorely lacking in previous Indian teams, especially when on tour, and it has allowed us to draw games we would earlier lose, and win games we would earlier draw or lose. (As an aside, it is interesting that India has developed grit just as England has developed flair, turning these two vastly improved sides into arguably the two best teams, on paper and mentally, in world cricket at the moment. The series in England this summer can’t come soon enough). But what we lack, still, is the ruthlessness of the truly great teams. Truly great teams are not happy at the end of a drawn series, however creditable and hard-fought the draw might have been.

What we also lack, still, is a quality bowling attack, and this is where, in the long term, a four bowler strategy is not going to work. At the end of the day, we were let down by our bowlers in Cape Town, regardless of Kallis’s brilliance. We have managed, more often than not, to pull through with four bowlers, largely on the strength of Zaheer Khan’s individual brilliance and his ability to coax the best out of the others. Largely, also, on the strength of Dhoni’s passive aggressive captaincy, where he is often willing to play the waiting game with in and out fields and hope for a batting mistake. It has been a surprisingly successful strategy, but against really inspired batting – Kallis in this series, Hashim Amla earlier in the year in India – it doesn’t always work.

The main problems with the four-bowler strategy, though, are two. The first is that it depends excessively on Zaheer Khan, who is now 32 and who does constantly develop niggles. And the second is that it leaves very little margin for error. So if Zak is injured and out, the attack is left entirely rudderless, as it was at Centurion. And if he is less than 100% (as he clearly was in the second innings at Cape Town), or if any of the other bowlers goes off the boil (as Ishant dramatically did in an insipid Cape Town performance), there just isn’t any back up. This, as much as anything else, is why we need a fifth bowler. It just makes sense to back up your weaker department, and yet we play an extra batsman, backing up arguably the strongest batting line-up in the world.

Our no. 6, over the past couple of years, has rarely added value. Yet the fact that we insist of playing 6 frontline batsmen reflects a mindset – and again, it is not the mindset of a champion team. Indeed, that mindset was reflected in Dhoni’s interview after the botched 1st ODI, where he defended a four-bowler strategy even in one-day games, even to the exclusion of an all-rounder like Yusuf Pathan. In actual, empirical terms, though, since Ganguly’s retirement, none of the no. 6 batsmen who have taken his place have actually played a game-defining innings unless they have been in the company of one of the top 5. Dhoni, and even Harbhajan Singh, have. The only partial exception is Suresh Raina in Sri Lanka, but there he was shepherded by Laxman. Otherwise Yuvraj has been found wanting as a Test batsman; Raina has shown himself to be a flat-track bully; Pujara hasn’t really done anything in South Africa to advance his claims; and Badrinath, who did creditably in the two Tests he got, was promptly dropped, never to be considered again.

It could be argued that Pujara, in particular, hasn’t had enough chances yet and that dropping him on the strength of two failures would be unfair (even though worse has been done to Badri). But the question here isn’t about fairness to individuals – it is about what adds best value to the team. Indeed, if Pujara plays, then we become painfully thin even in the part-timers’ department – Sachin is barely good enough for more than 2 or 3 over spells these days, so is, at best, a partnership breaker, not a real part-timer who can bowl 5 or 6 overs and give the main line bowlers a rest. And Viru has virtually stopped bowling because of his shoulder. So Pujara doesn’t even add the bowling value that Raina or Yuvraj do.

I have earlier argued that Irfan Pathan is the solution to our problems of team balance, but that looks entirely unlikely to materialize. He has gotten a $1.9 million IPL contract on the basis of nothing, but the fact remains that he hasn’t played at all this season because of injury, so fitness issues and concerns over bowling ability that has progressively dwindled over the years means that he is unlikely to be our all-rounder solution in Tests for the foreseeable future. And there are no other genuine, Test-quality all-rounders in India today.

This is why I think it is time for the selectors to seriously consider Ravichandran Ashwin for all formats of the game. Purely as a bowler, Ashwin is one of the most exciting talents in Indian cricket today. He is a more attacking spinner than Pragyan Ojha, and bowls with lovely loop and flight. He could develop into an ideal complement to Harbhajan. But his more than useful batting skills make him an even bigger asset, and will allow us to play 5 bowlers with a little more confidence in the strength of our lower order. I just think that if you stack up Pujara, who, in places like the West Indies and England, where we tour this summer, is likely at best to give you a gritty 50 at 6, to Ashwin, who is likely to give you 30 and bowl 30 overs, then it should be a no brainer as to who provides more value to the side. But one has to have the mindset to actually make that realistic calculation, instead of automatically retreating into the fear that we will get caught out if we are a batsman short.

This will mean moving Harbhajan up to bat at 7. Dhoni has voiced his reservations about treating Bhaj as an all-rounder, and I respect that. Bhaj is not a no. 7 batsman, and shouldn’t be expected to perform as one. But he is a senior member of the side, and a fighter, and in the interests of team balance, he should be asked to take up the challenge of moving up the order and trying to contribute more consistently with the bat. I suspect that it is a challenge he will be up for, since the prospect of a scrap does bring out the best in him.

One-days and the World Cup

So much for the Test side. But now the immediate focus is on ODIs and the impending World Cup. Frankly, this to me is far less exciting than the Tests that are in store. The key event of 2011 is for me the England tour, not the World Cup, and how we do there will matter far more than whether we can lift the Cup or not. There are only two reasons why the World Cup holds interest for me. The first is that it is the most open tournament in recent memory, since Australia isn’t assured of the title. (If anything, it seems almost a sure thing that they won’t win). And the second is that this is probably the last chance for Tendulkar to fulfill his dream of having a World Cup title on his resume. That alone should be inspiration for the team to go that extra yard.

India’s World Cup team will be announced in the next couple of days, and in this case, really, most slots are already decided. In the batting line-up, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir and Dhoni are certainties. Yuvraj Singh hasn’t done himself any favors over the past year and a half, but he too is a certainty because of his reputation. I do think his career is at a crossroads. He is 30, and he can either step up to the plate and perform like a senior member of the side, or become genuinely vulnerable to the youngsters sniping at his feet. But a player of Yuvraj’s stature in the shorter forms of the game isn’t going to be dropped before such a big tournament. If drastic decisions are to be taken, they will have to taken afterwards.

The all-rounder’s spot was always going to be a question, but Yusuf Pathan has done enough against New Zealand to suggest that he’s a shoo in now for that spot. His talent has always been far superior to his only serious contender, Ravindra Jadeja, and there are signs now that the performance might be emerging to back up that talent.

In the bowling department, Zaheer Khan and Bhaj are certainties, and so too, really, is Ashish Nehra, in spite of a few bad games recently. Partly, this is because we are not spoilt for choice in the fast bowling department. But more generally, if one looks at the past couple of years as a whole, Nehra has been a very consistent contributor. He knows how to make the most of Indian conditions, and his experience will be invaluable, so really his selection is a no-brainer. I am less sure of Praveen Kumar. He is currently injured, and really hasn’t done that much of late to justify selection. Also, he is someone who really is only effective with the new ball, which means we will then have a lot of similar bowlers who are good at the top but less good in the middle or late overs. PK is a good cricketer, and a fighter, and had he been in top form he would have walked into my side. But at the moment, he’s a question mark. Ashwin as Bhaj’s spinning partner is also a no-brainer for me. Ojha is a good one-day spinner, but Ashwin has really impressed over the past year, and his far superior batting credentials clinch it. Having Ashwin in the side allows us the choice of playing a batting all-rounder or a bowling all-rounder at 7, and that’s the kind of flexibility and bench strength that is useful to have for a tournament like this.

What that really leaves are the back-up fast bowling spots, and the last couple of batting spots. To me, the first represents the much bigger problem, because there really is a lack of depth and talent in the fast bowling department in the country. Sreesanth and Munaf Patel have both been in the picture of late, and that alone, at this point, should be enough to see them through. Both have turned in the occasional sharp performance along with considerable mediocrity, but that has been their pattern throughout their respective careers. At least we know they have the ability to do well at the highest level when they get out the right side of their beds, and they will be directly competing with each other for the third seamer’s spot. My inclinations are slightly towards Sree, only because he is an attacking, wicket-taking bowler who can get under the opposition’s skin, but we all know how easily he can backfire, so at the end of the day, there’s nothing in it in that choice.

The batting choice seems far easier to me, though for some reason it doesn’t to the journalists at cricinfo, who seem to think that Raina has a lock on that last batting spot. Yet it is Virat Kohli who has by far been the most impressive of the young contenders. In terms of ability, he is stronger than Raina technically; in terms of temperament, he has developed an impressive maturity over the past year, and a real hunger for runs; and simply in terms of performance, Kohli has scored 2 hundreds and 5 half-centuries in his last 10 innings. Raina has scored 1 half-century is his last 18. Raina has since his debut been the favored boy of Indian cricket, given a far longer rope than his competitors even when his performances don’t justify it. And the fact that he plays for Chennai in the IPL helps him further, putting him in the good books of everyone from Dhoni to Srikkanth to Srinivasan. But having him in the side ahead of Kohli would be simply egregious. Kohli looks the ideal no. 4 – someone who has learned to pace his innings, who is capable of consolidating or accelerating as the occasion demands, really someone who has developed into a fine limited overs batsman. I think it’s only a matter of time before he will be pushing hard for a spot in the Test side as well. For me, he is a critical part of this outfit.

This means that the only two contentious spots are for the back-up batsman, and the last reserve seamer. The people who have been seriously in the running for the former spot include Raina, Rohit Sharma and Murali Vijay. (Saurabh Tiwary and Shikhar Dhawan, who played as part of India’s recent second string team, aren’t really in the picture as serious contenders). But none of these three have really turned in the performances to suggest that they deserve to be part of a World Cup squad. Also, for such a long tournament, having a back-up keeper to Dhoni becomes essential. Dinesh Karthik has now received a number of chances to make that spot his own, and failed to grab them. This year, even his domestic form has been abysmal. So that spot should go to Parthiv Patel, who is the other serious wicket-keeping option in India today, and who has been a quietly consistent performer on the domestic scene over the years.

The last bowling spot is the hardest, simply because there is no one good enough. PK’s form, fitness and ability to bowl beyond the 15th over of an innings are all worries. R.P. Singh has disappeared into oblivion. The likes of Vinay Kumar, Ashok Dinda, Sudeep Tyagi and Umesh Yadav just don’t look good enough for international cricket. Two good hit-the-deck bowlers, who could provide some variation to the predominant swing-focused tone of our attack, are Ishant and Mithun, but both struggle in limited overs games. So, simply, there is no obvious candidate for that last bowling spot.

This is why I would just take a punt on that spot and bring in V. Yo Mahesh. For some reason, he’s not been in the limelight, but I do think he’s a genuinely talented bowler. He reminds me more of Javagal Srinath than any other bowler I have seen in the past decade. He’s nippy, has a nice high arm action, hits the deck, has a sharp in-cutter, and the ability to have one go straight through. Given that Sreesanth, Munaf and Nehra all have question marks, and that Zaheer’s ability to go through a six-week tournament without a niggle is definitely in doubt, having that extra seam bowling option is going to be important, and I would take the gamble on Mahesh. He won’t make it, of course, since he’s not even in the 30 probables. But he’s a name that I want to put out there, as someone who should be in the picture and who should be nurtured, especially given the paucity of fast bowling resources in the country. And it is that paucity, more than anything else, which makes it unlikely that we will go all the way and lift the Cup. Unless all our temperamental support bowlers suddenly find their mo-jo, and find a way to retain it for a much longer period of time than they have ever managed in their careers so far, it is going to be hard for our batsmen to carry the burden of a nation’s expectations for 6 weeks against the likes of England and South Africa.

My World Cup team:

Virendra Sehwag (V)
Sachin Tendulkar
Gautam Gambhir
Virat Kohli
Yuvraj Singh
Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
Yusuf Pathan
Harbhajan Singh
Zaheer Khan
S. Sreesanth
Ashish Nehra

Reserves:

Parthiv Patel (W)
Munaf Patel
V. Yo Mahesh
Ravichandran Ashwin

1990s deja vu

2010-12-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

In recent times, the Indian team, even while typically starting series badly, has shown the resilience and character to bounce back, even – or especially – when they have been written off. So, in spite of the hammering that we received in Cape Town, there is some kind of silent, bated, hope that India will come back into this series and show why it is the number one Test team in the world. This time, I think those hopes are misplaced. Our performance at Centurion was one of the worst that I have ever seen from an Indian team in the nearly three decades I have been following cricket, a game in which we were comprehensively outplayed in every department of the game. I see no return from here, and in this post, I’ll say why.

The first set of reasons has to do with venue and conditions. I do believe that teams, over time, take either a great liking or a great dislike to certain venues. In India’s case, there are three venues that have over the past couple of decades been graveyards – Bridgetown, Melbourne and Durban. That our next game after the shellacking we received at Centurion is in Durban doesn’t bode well.

The conditions at Durban don’t bode well either. By all accounts, the pitch is greener than at Centurion – Dhoni says it’s the greenest he has seen. There are apparently cracks under the surface. And the infamous wind at Durban will add to seam-friendly conditions. The weather has also been gloomy and overcast. This means that the wicket is likely to seam, swing, bounce, and bounce unpredictably. This is not good. Indeed, our only hope might be that it rains enough that we can escape with a draw.

The second set of reasons has to do with our bowling, which was cruelly, cruelly, exposed at Centurion. Some of this has to do with one of the most ludicrous selections in India’s spectacular selection history, that of Jaydev Unadkat as the team’s fourth seamer. Selectors often hope that such choices don’t have to be exposed – here, it was, at the start of the series, and cruelly. Unadkat’s dibbly-dobs took one back to the dark days when Paras Mhambrey was pretending to be India’s third seamer. At least Mhambrey followed Srinath and Prasad, who were a pretty potent new-ball pair. Unadkat had to follow Sreesanth and Ishant, who would do well to learn the basic principles of line and length.

The sad thing is, even if Unadkat has potential, we will never know, because now he will be consigned to the dustbin of history based on this performance. He was selected far too early – he is only 18, has four first-class matches behind him, and has never bowled in these conditions, let alone to players of the caliber of Smith and Kallis. But he will effectively be made redundant, because he didn’t manage what Wasim Akram managed when he burst on to the scene at the age of 18. Yet the people responsible for the blunder of selecting him will be held completely unaccountable. They will probably just receive a raise in their salary, as they cast their eyes around for the next fast bowler whose career they can ruin. There is supreme injustice in this.

The problems in our bowling, though, run far deeper than Unadkat. Without a doubt, Zaheer for Unadkat is a huge switch. But if our problem had been an inability to wrap up the tail, or a slight lack of edge against the top order, then this switch could have done the trick. To win a Test match, one needs 20 wickets. That means, usually, having the ability to bowl the opposition out at least once for under 300. South Africa made 620 for 3. Forget bowling a side out twice – we couldn’t even get to their lower middle order. Zak at the top of the attack will certainly make a difference – but even he can’t turn that kind of a hammering into a match-winning performance. His support act just doesn’t have the quality. Centurion provided a glorious chance for Sreesanth to step up to the plate and show the potential to lead the attack in Zak’s absence, as R.P. Singh did so brilliantly in Australia in 2008. And he failed miserably. The fact that we cannot even contemplate dropping him in spite of such a pathetic display shows how bare the cupboard is. Abhimanyu Mithun and R.P. should have been on this tour instead of Unadkat and Umesh Yadav. Certainly that would have helped. But the core problem remains. Except for Zak, when you stack up India’s bowlers against South Africa’s or England’s, the quality just isn’t there. And this is the biggest problem to India’s remaining no. 1 for a long period of time.

The third set of reasons has to do with our batting. Everyone has gone on so much about how badly our bowlers fared that we seem to have forgotten the small matter of 136 all out. And given the conditions in Durban, and the fact that in the past we have managed to be bowled out for 66 on this pitch, even 136 might be something to aspire to.

Again, this is a question of quality – many of our batsmen are just not good enough to succeed on genuinely seam-friendly wickets. Usually, this doesn’t matter, especially because there are fewer and fewer such wickets in the world, with pitches in Australia and the West Indies slowing down considerably over the past decade. And I won’t hold this weakness exclusively against the Indians – England showed at Perth that they too still don’t have the ability to negotiate such seam-friendly conditions (though, unlike India, they do have the bowlers to exploit them, especially when Stuart Broad is fit). But when we are confronted with pitches with this kind of juice in them, we don’t have an answer.

Technically, there are only three batsmen in India who really have the ability to negotiate genuinely bouncy wickets – Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman. Even Sehwag, genius though he is, has been consistently found out by quality short-pitched bowling. Of these three, Dravid is still a fighter, but even his staunchest fans such as myself have to admit that he isn’t the player he was five years ago. And Laxman, for some reason, has always struggled against South Africa. So it all boils down to Tendulkar again, just as it did in the 1990s. There is irony and poignancy to the fact that he made his 50th Test century in circumstances, and with results, that were uncannily similar to many of his hundreds abroad in the first decade of his career.

In addition, it looks like Gambhir, who at least has the temperament to weather a storm, will be unfit for the Durban Test, capping a year when he has been injured as often as he has been fit to play. Murali Vijay is a good replacement, but it is a lot to ask of him to keep coming in to play in this stop-gap fashion, against a quality fast bowling attack, while knowing that however well he plays he will be dropped again once Gambhir gets fit. Vijay needs to be handled better – he needs to be one of India’s top 6 batsmen on a regular basis, not just as a filler when an opener is injured. But in these circumstances, to expect him to turn things around for India’s top order is just too much to ask. Raina has been completely exposed as a flat-track bully, but that’s something that a lot of us knew long before this exposure took such graphic form. Only the selectors and team management seemed oblivious to this.

The fourth set of reasons, though, has to do with our opposition. Sometimes, one just has to admit that the other team is much better than one’s own, and that is the case with South Africa. After all, this is not just a team that we have failed to beat over a series in South Africa; in the last two home series, we have failed to beat them in India as well.

SA has always been a good team, but there are two reasons why they have never been a great one. The first is that this has always tended to be a dull team to watch, and so has never captured the imagination the way that top quality Australian, West Indian, Indian or Pakistani teams of the last two decades have. And the second has been their tendency to choke, or to under-perform – somehow, the whole has always been less than the sum of the parts.

Both of those things are changing. SA has the most exciting new ball pair in world cricket today, and if Wayne Parnell plays, as he should, then they will have three genuine strike bowlers, each of whom offers something different. But what is new is the quality of their top order. Smith and Kallis have of course always been consistent. But in Hashim Amla, they have not just the best no. 3 in world cricket, but also one of the most attractive batsmen in the game. And de Villiers has the ability to take attacks that are far more potent than India’s apart. Someone of the enormous talent of J.P. Duminy isn’t even able to find a place in the playing 11.

In addition, SA’s performance at Centurion shows ruthlessness that one has not associated with this team in the past. That is going to be an enormous shot in the arm for them, and if they carry that momentum forward, as they should, they are going to be very difficult to stop – not just in this series, but in their quest for the no. 1 spot in Test cricket, and perhaps, even, in their quest for a World Cup, given that the next one is the most open tournament since 1996. What we are witnessing may not just be India’s humbling, yet again, in South Africa, but, finally, the emergence of the Proteas as a truly world class cricket team, one that can lay legitimate claim to being the best in the world.

South Africa 1st Test preview

2010-12-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

I haven’t had much time to blog, and have hardly any time to write a preview of the 1st Test. But this is a big series, and so I have some thoughts to share.

Basically, while I think India is a much more competitive side this time than on previous trips to SA, I don’t see how we can win this series. We might be able to come back and pull off the odd Test win, but winning at Centurion feels like a Herculean task. This is a ground on which South Africa has only ever lost one Test, so is as close to being a fortress as any. It is looking like a green top with overcast conditions. Even with a couple of weeks to acclimatize, this is going to be a very different proposition from playing on flat sub-continental tracks. None of the Indian batsmen has a great track record in SA – Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman all average considerably less there than their career averages, and Gambhir has no Test experience there. Dhoni meanwhile is looking less and less like a Test batsman, and I think at this point is really in the Test side by virtue of his captaincy.

Indeed, more than the bowling, it is the batting that worries me. India doesn’t have as strong an attack as South Africa, but they do have bowlers who can create some trouble for SA if they are on song. Sreesanth in particular can move the ball both ways, and a good swing bowler when in rhythm can trouble any batsman. But whether India’s batsmen have the ability to handle the combination of fast swing bowling and short pitched stuff they are going to face is the question.

In my mind, there are two things that really swing things South Africa’s way for the first Test if you stack the two teams up. The first, obviously, is the absence of Zaheer Khan. That is a huge loss in itself, and the lack of venom in India’s bowling in Zak’s absence was seen both in Sri Lanka and against New Zealand. He is, simply, irreplaceable. Against South Africa, even more so, because of the hold he has on Graeme Smith. In Zak’s absence, Smith becomes a very dangerous factor. Here, the selectors have compounded things by selecting two greenhorns in the side in Jaydev Unadkat and Umesh Yadav. Unadkat certainly has potential, and is likely to make his debut, though one wonders whether this is too much, too soon for someone who doesn’t have a single first class season behind him. But on what basis has Yadav made the grade ahead of Abhimanyu Mithun? Mithun has come off an excellent first season, and then, in Sri Lanka, on heartbreaking wickets in Zak’s absence, he bowled with great heart and persistence. He is a tough, strong lad, his late order batting would have been more than handy, and his hit the deck bowling would have been useful in South African conditions. What kind of a message is being sent to a young fast bowler by this kind of treatment? In any case, the thinness of India’s bench when it comes to fast bowling is a major concern, and it’s one thing that is going to keep India’s hold on the no. 1 spot tenuous.

The second thing is the persistence of Suresh Raina at 6. He does have talent, but I just don’t think he has the technique to survive in Tests on South African pitches. Murali Vijay is a far better bet, and an ideal line-up would have Vijay coming in at 3, and Dravid dropping down to 6, where he would be under less pressure. But somehow, it seems like Raina’s spot is held sacred – he has certainly been a favorite of both the selectors and Dhoni. With Dhoni’s own batting abilities in these conditions in some doubt, this means that effectively, if South Africa can get 4 wickets, they are into the lower order. And against this bowling attack in these conditions, we can’t count on Harbhajan’s all-round heroics to save us. Player for player, Vijay is a technically sounder batsman than Raina; and playing Vijay will allow Dravid to drop down to 6, thereby adding overall depth to the line-up. But I don’t see the team management making that call. Vijay made 139 against Australia in his last innings. Raina has made 26 in 3 Test matches against New Zealand. Yet for some reason it is Raina, not Vijay, who seems to be the obvious choice for the playing 11. That doesn’t make sense.

And as always, I am scared of Hashim Amla. Man for man, India’s batting line up more or less stacks up with South Africa’s, since Raina’s counterpart Ashwell Prince is also under pressure for his spot. But, much as I still think Dravid has a lot to offer, there is no question that Amla at the moment is by far the better no. 3 – indeed, is the best no. 3 in world cricket. He has a phenomenal average at Centurion, his form has been outstanding, and he is going to take some stopping.

All in all, I don’t hold out much hope, and can only hope that I’ll be surprised.

A quick thought on UDRS

2010-11-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Virendra Sehwag, in his typically candid fashion, has bucked conventional BCCI wisdom (and the wisdom of his hero and mentor, Tendulkar) in speaking out in favor of India adopting the UDRS. I am interested in people’s thoughts on this – do you think this is a good thing or not?

Personally, I am on the fence as far as the technology itself is concerned. I do not know enough about the specific technologies involved to know how foolproof they are, and generally am not of the belief, as technological determinists are, that technology can ever be entirely transparent and value-neutral and capable of the interpretive intricacies that human beings are capable of.

But in this case, I do think that India needs to go along, simply because we are the one country who has refused to adopt the system. Whether the cricketing world goes along with this system or not, what is important is consistency and standardization in all countries and across all series. (Would we consider it acceptable if Test matches all around the world were played with neutral umpires, but Cricket Australia decided that any Test matches played in Australia would only be officiated by Australian umpires?). For too long, the BCCI has treated the cricketing world the way George Bush treated the rest of the world, believing that it is above the law, and believing that it does not need to heed to the consensus of others. That is boorish and shameful at the best of times, and is simply puerile when it comes to an issue like this that really doesn’t require such a non-negotiable stand. Of course, one can never imagine the BCCI doing the right thing on anything; but in this case, I hope that somehow pressure can be brought to bear to insist that the UDRS is at least adopted for the series in South Africa.

Indian team for New Zealand tests

2010-10-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

I still need to do a proper post on the wonderful Test series win against Australia, but just haven’t had the time. (Or, to be honest, the words. How does one describe something like Laxman’s innings at Mohali without such a description being absolutely inadequate?). But now it is time to look at the forthcoming series against New Zealand. And the selectors, really, are faced with only two tricky selections.

The first concerns what to do with Gautam Gambhir when he is fit. And I would say, at this point, leave him out, and retain Murali Vijay in the 11.

This is a hard thing to say, because Gambhir is one of my favorite players. And this has been a tough year for him, plagued by injuries. But each time Gambhir has been injured, he has come straight back to competitive cricket, and has been short of match practice, then injured again. This happened in the IPL, it happened in Sri Lanka, and it happened against Australia. At the other end of the spectrum, Vijay is in the form of his life across all formats of the game, and his 100 against Australia at Bangalore showed that he is moving beyond the pretty cameos to start playing innings of substance. Had he been a complete neophyte, a case could have been made for Gambhir’s experience. But Vijay has been around for two years now, and he has stepped into the breach admirably whenever called upon to do so. Now, he deserves a full series when the opening spot is his. I would of course love to see Gambhir on the plane to South Africa. But that spot has to be earned on performance, not reputation, and his cause will be much better served by having a few domestic games out of the spotlight to get his match form back. Pulling Gambhir straight back into the 11 is unfair on him and on Vijay.

The second is a trickier selection, because it concerns two youngsters who are both in form and very talented, Suresh Raina and Chateshwar Pujara. And here, I would stick with Pujara for the no. 6 spot.

This is hard on Raina, who hasn’t done anything wrong, and who has waited a long time for his Test debut. But I just think, quite simply, that Pujara is the better Test prospect. He has the stronger technique, his temperament is most impressive, and after a debut like the one he had in Bangalore he most definitely deserves a longer run. Raina’s weaknesses against the short ball remain, and in South African conditions I would back Pujara over Raina to succeed. Also, it could be argued that Raina didn’t quite make the most of the series against Australia as he could have. In the second innings at Mohali, his short ball vulnerabilities were exposed; in the first innings at Bangalore, he threw away his wicket when in command of the situation. Finally, Raina does get a lot of match time in India colors in the limited overs game. Whereas simply asking Pujara to sit on the bench and carry drinks for a series, at the height of the domestic season, is unfair on him. Raina will get his chance when one of the big 3 retire. For now, let us give Pujara the opportunity and see what he does with it.

The only other questions concern a couple of people on the bench. There is no point having Gambhir carrying drinks – he would be much better served getting some games in for Delhi. So we need a reserve opener. Here (see my previous post) I thoroughly disagree with the selection of Abhinav Mukund, which is a move done purely out of regional bias. A far more deserving candidate is Ajinkya Rahane, who really does need to be in the picture for an India call-up. He is an extremely talented young opener, has been scoring runs by the ton in domestic cricket for the past 3 years, and has made the best possible start to this season, with a 100 against Australia and a 100 against Rest of India. What more really can he do to earn a call up? Continuing to keep him out of the side the light of the sheer weight of his performances is a travesty, and I hope he isn’t made to go the way of Subramaniam Badrinath, who will likely never get a game for India again in any format.

I would also replace Amit Mishra with young Piyush Chawla. Mishra has talent, but it is fair to say that he hasn’t really made the most of the opportunities he has received in the two years since Anil Kumble retired. He is still far too inconsistent, bowls an alarming number of no-balls and four-balls, and was awful in Sri Lanka. Chawla is not as big a spinner of the ball as Mishra, and he was selected for his first stint with India when still too young. But he has worked hard on his bowling since, and is developing into a far better bowler. He is certainly one to consider for the long term. And his lower-order batting is an added asset, which means that could conceivably be groomed into being a very useful bowling all-rounder.

So, my team against New Zealand:

Playing XI:

1. Murali Vijay
2. Virendra Sehwag (V)
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. V.V.S. Laxman
6. Cheteshwar Pujara
7. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Pragyan Ojha

Reserves:

12. Ajinkya Rahane
13. Suresh Raina
14. S. Sreesanth
15. Piyush Chawla

Indian team for Australia ODIs

2010-10-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

Here is my Indian team for the three one-day internationals against Australia. Sehwag and Tendulkar as openers is a no-brainer. But at 3, I would have Murali Vijay instead of Gautam Gambhir, as my first contentious selection.

One has to feel for Gambhir. After a couple of years of being the most consistent batsman in world cricket, 2010 has been a tough year for him. This is largely because it is a year that has been marred by injury. Every time he has recovered, he has gone straight back to international cricket, usually with very little match practice, and it has shown. It is quite likely that Gambhir won’t even be fit for the one-dayers. But even if he is, it would make more sense for him to go back to the domestic game and get some match practice rather than rush back yet again to the international arena. This is especially because Vijay is in such a fine vein of form, making runs both in the Test against Australia and for CSK in the Champions League. It is time that he was given a proper run in the one-day side, because he definitely has it in him to be a good one-day player for India. I would much rather have Gambhir be a 100% match fit and in form for our tour to South Africa than have him play every international game that he is declared fit for, regardless of his preparedness.

No. 4 is also a tricky selection because of the question marks that hang over Yuvraj Singh. For more than a year now, there have been questions about his form, fitness and temperament. But it is also true that in limited overs cricket at least, an in form Yuvraj is one of the most dangerous players in the game, and neither Rohit Sharma nor Virat Kohli has done enough to definitively take his place away. And so, I would give Yuvraj a long rope until the World Cup. He has started this season with a 200 in the Irani Trophy game, and one can only hope that will prove the shot in the arm that he needs for his confidence.

5 and 6 will obviously be Raina and Dhoni, so the next question concerns the perpetually vexed all-rounder’s spot. Here, the TINA factor comes into play, and I would have to stick to Ravindra Jadeja. Irfan Pathan is in terms of talent the best all-rounder in Indian cricket today. But he hasn’t been given a single game in the Challenger Trophy, and it’s hard to see how he’ll get into the side without any performances to back him up. Yusuf Pathan has been given any number of chances in the Indian one-day side, and has entirely failed to translate his domestic or IPL performances onto the larger stage. Compared to the Pathans, Jadeja is a limited player. But he is at least a gutsy performer, capable of striking a few down the order and bowling a few tight overs. Our lack of depth in the all-rounder department will hurt us come the World Cup. But at this point, I don’t really see an alternative to grooming Jadeja and giving him some confidence.

The rest of the bowling attack takes care of itself. Zaheer, Praveen Kumar and Ashish Nehra are pretty much our first-choice bowling combination in one-dayers, with Harbhajan certain to be the lead spinner.

The only question concerns bench strength, and this is where I would consider a couple of newcomers. This is because I think there are still a few slots up for grabs, especially on the bench, for the World Cup, and this is the time to look at a couple of other youngsters and see if they have what it takes to make the transition to the international stage.

Before I talk about the newcomers, let me make two safer selections. One is Ishant Sharma as back-up seamer. He is still not in the best of form, but glimpses of form were to be seen in his telling spell at Mohali. More than his form, it is his lion-hearted temperament that is most impressive – a stark contrast to the likes of Sreesanth, R.P. Singh and Munaf Patel. If he has recovered from his knee injury, he should definitely be part of the picture. So too should Pragyan Ojha, who has leaped ahead of Amit Mishra as India’s definite second-choice spinner. Jadeja edges him out in the 11 because of his batting, but there is no question that Ojha will be part of the 15.

Two youngsters that Srikkanth and co have brought into the mix by picking them for the 15 in Bangalore are Abhinav Mukund and Jaydev Unadkat. I disagree with both selections. Unadkat certainly has talent. But he has yet to play a single first-class season. Indian cricket is replete with examples of talented 18-year old fast bowlers who make waves as soon as they are picked, and then who drift away and are never properly developed. Why make Unadkat the latest example of that? He can certainly afford to have a proper run in domestic cricket first. Even one good season will do him a world of good. Mukund meanwhile has a couple of good seasons behind him, and is a talented bat. But there are other young openers in India who have shown good consistency over a longer period of time.

The one who deserves a call-up now is Mumbai’s Ajinkya Rahane. He has scored tones of runs over the past 3 or 4 seasons, and has started this season with a big 191 against Rest of India in a losing cause in the Irani Trophy, preceded by a 100 against the Aussies in the tour game. The only conceivable reason for Mukund leapfrogging over Rahane is that Mukund is from Tamilnadu, which, in the eyes of this selection committee, seems to be the major qualification one needs to get an India cap. It is as blatant a case of regional nepotism as any I have seen, and yet another example of what a disaster Cheeka is for Indian cricket.

Having said that, I would give another seamer’s spot to a youngster from Tamilnadu, and that is V. Yo Mahesh. This is my surprise pick, because Mahesh probably hasn’t been at the forefront of national contention like some others. But he has been on the domestic circuit for a few years, and I really like the way he bowls. He is reminiscent of Javagal Srinath, bowling straight, hitting the deck and seaming it about. His stock ball comes in, but he has a good straighter delivery as well, and bowls at a lively pace. Someone like him who has 3 or 4 seasons of domestic cricket behind him is a better bet than someone who has just played a handful of games. Mahesh was the top wicket-taker in last year’s Ranji one-day competition, and has looked in good form in the Challengers as well. As we look to build bench strength, he is a good person to take a look at and consider seriously.

My team:

Playing XI:

1. Virendra Sehwag (V)
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Murali Vijay
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. Suresh Raina
6. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
7. Ravindra Jadeja
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Praveen Kumar
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Ashish Nehra

Reserves:

12. Ajinkya Rahane
13. Ishant Sharma
14. V. Yo Mahesh
15. Pragyan Ojha

A brief note of joy

2010-09-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

This is a ridiculously brief post. But all I want to say is - good on you, Pujara!

For once,performance has trumped reputation. So Yuvraj might sulk. What of it? Did Viru sulk when dropped? Did Zak sulk when dropped? No, they came back as amongst the best players in the game.

If Yuvraj simply sulks - as he is most likely to do - he doesn't deserve to play for India, ever again. In any form.

But let's give him the benefit of doubt. Let us see.

Meanwhile, a rare occasion - let us commend the selectors for giving Pujara the positive reinforcement he needs.

Sri Lanka Test series review

2010-09-01T02:40:00.000-07:00

It is rather late in the day for an India – Sri Lanka Test series review, especially given how the game has been overtaken, yet again, by distressing issues that don’t have to do with bat and ball, but rather with money. However, I send this review nonetheless. This is partly because I don’t care much for the meaningless one-day series that followed it, and partly because this review, hopefully, can serve as a prelude to the new cricket season to come, especially with Tests against Australia and South Africa in store.

The Tests in Sri Lanka ended well, leaving a pleasant taste in the mouth. At the end of the day, the Indians did show guts and determination to level the series in spite of obviously having the worse team on paper. They overcame injuries and bad luck with the toss. They may not have played like a world no. 1 Test side. But in the absence of any obvious claimant to that particular position, India’s performance was in at least some measure heartening. Going into a new international season though, there are still many cracks, and it is not clear as to how they will be papered over. Here then is an analysis of some of the silver linings, and a diagnosis of some of the weak spots – some of which, of course, one knows will never be rectified.

1. The biggest culprit – BCCI

Before pointing any fingers at the players, one has to hold the BCCI culpable as the biggest failure of this entire series. This is because the entire series was ill-conceived. First, the BCCI had not scheduled enough Test matches for the year, indicating their low prioritization of Test cricket in the larger scheme of things. Then suddenly, in December, it all changed once India acquired the no. 1 ranking, and slap-dash Test series have been hastily arranged. Indeed, pretty much all of India’s Test arrangements in 2010 have that ill-planned and insignificant air about them. The series in Bangladesh was as per the ICC’s FTP, but that is hardly one to get the adrenaline pumping. The two-Test series against South Africa was hastily arranged and conceived. And those against Sri Lanka and Australia follow the same pattern.

For one thing, having a two Test series is itself a travesty, and arranging two Test series against major Test powers like Australia and South Africa does not encourage Test cricket, it insults it. Indeed, just as the series against South Africa was nicely heating up, it ended; and the absence of a third Test to bring closure to what was developing as a fine contest was a slap in the face of genuine cricket fans, especially as it was followed immediately by the IPL farce. The series against Australia will be a similarly truncated affair. What is the point of denigrating what has developed as one of the great cricketing contests of the past decade in this fashion? One could argue that slotting in a couple of Tests is a better alternative than playing 7 meaningless ODIs; but the entire idea of such series is ill-conceived.

The series in Sri Lanka at least provided the consolation of being a 3-Test affair. But frankly, watching us play Sri Lanka has just become boring – it seems like we watch the Lankans play as often as we watch our own boys, so frequent have been the encounters. And the utterly vacuous nature of the whole summer has been further established by the meaningless ODI series that book-ended the Tests. It is as if the BCCI cannot bear to see any blank days in the year when the Indian team is not playing cricket, because for them the idea of a blank day implies lost advertising revenue, nothing else. And so, we get quantity substituted for quality. Too many hastily arranged series, so that at some point soon, even India – Australia series will saturate us all and lose their meaning; but also too many series that are brief and decontextualized, and that give a lie to the very idea of a proper series where two teams can feel each other out and really develop a contest against each other over a period of time.

2. The biggest problem – lack of balance

That then is the major administrative problem. On the field of play, however, there is one single factor that will prevent India from holding on to its no. 1 spot in the long term, and that is that the balance is wrong. I have harped on this point often enough before, but hopefully, by repeating it over and over again, somehow, magically, someone will hear.

The point really is an obvious one. Test matches are not won by scoring more runs than the other side. They are won by taking 20 wickets. And this fundamental fact seems to have been lost on those who pick or manage the team. I think that, more than anything else, this is the most pernicious effect of the limited overs game – it has fostered a mentality whereby it is assumed that if you score more runs than the other team, and hope that their wickets will incidentally fall in the process, you will win the game. Hence the ploy of going into a team with only 4 frontline bowlers; hence the widely spread, defensive fields that marked both captains’ strategies on the field in this series, with sometimes 3 or 4 men patrolling the boundary on a turning track.

The great Australian teams of the late 90s and early 2000s could get away with this ploy of playing with just 4 bowlers because two of them were Warne and McGrath. Even a fully fit Indian bowling attack, with due apologies to Zaheer Khan, doesn’t have bowlers of that quality. And the Aussies had a batting line-up that would consistently score at 4+ runs an over, giving their bowlers time to bowl out the opposition. But even the Aussies, in the latter part of their dominance, were boosted immensely by the likes of Andrew Symonds, whose bowling skills were really quite comparable to that of a frontline bowler.

India cannot hope to achieve sustained dominance in Test cricket by playing 4 bowlers on a consistent basis. It’s as simple as that. Even with a full-strength bowling attack, it just isn’t a viable long-term strategy. And playing 5 bowlers without seriously compromising the batting involves playing an all-rounder. The only Test quality all-rounder in India today is Irfan Pathan. He must be brought back. It’s as simple as that.

Even knowledgeable commentators, when confronted by the Irfan dilemma, keep going on about how his bowling form has dropped away, and he is not the bowler he was when he came on the scene first. But that’s not the point. He is not being taken for his bowling; he is being taken for the balance he provides to the side. Even an Irfan without the pace and in-dip of his early days is a better bowling option than a Yuvraj Singh or a Suresh Raina. We won’t need him to perform like Kapil Dev, or bowl like Wasim Akram. Those were unfair comparisons to start with, and built up expectations that have hurt his own development as a player. All we need is for him to perform like Angelo Mathews – give us a reliable, quick-fire 40 or 50 down the order, and bowl 10 consistent wicket-to-wicket overs per innings with a wicket or two thrown in. If those are set down as the expectations, Irfan will deliver, he will likely exceed them, and the Indian team will have the balance that it currently sorely lacks.

3. The bowling conundrums

In this series, the 4-bowler formula was further exacerbated by the fact that we had such an inexperienced bowling attack. So, the lack of quantity was supplemented by a lack of quality. Given that, the fact that we finally managed to take 20 wickets at the P. Sara Oval was commendable. But we were helped there by a Sri Lankan second innings collapse, and for the rest of the series, our bowling attack was about as penetrative as Bangladesh’s.

One thing that this shows is just how important Zaheer is to the side. It isn’t just the quality that he brings with his own bowling; it is also the leadership that he brings, and the way in which he is able to steward the other young fast bowlers in the team. Hats off to Zak for all that he has brought to this team since his comeback to the side three years ago; I don’t know what we will do without him, and his fitness must be one of the most important things to take care as he enters his 30s.

On the flip side, this even further highlights the failures of Harbhajan Singh. It is true that he wasn’t really fully fit even for the games that he played; but too often, Bhaj just fails to show up when the team really needs him. He turned in a stellar, match-winning performance against South Africa in Calcutta; but all his other performances this year have been simply rubbish. He himself will be the first to point to the 300+ wickets that he has taken; but if you add context in, then 9 times of out of 10, his wickets are cheap wickets and he lets the team down when he is really needed. Again, once in a while, there is a match-winning performance hidden in there – as against South Africa this year, and often against Australia.

One can point to the TINA factor – there is no obvious alternative to him in the spin department, with neither Pragyan Ojha nor Amit Mishra looking like the finished product yet. But that is partly the selectors’ fault, as they never allowed the development of an alternative. Both Murali Kartik and Ramesh Powar were – indeed, still remain – fine bowlers. But neither was given a fair run as Bhaj was played over and over again in spite of non-performance. Indeed, Kartik and Powar are both still in their early 30s, a time when spin bowlers have often matured and are at their best; so one could still make a case for either of them over Bhaj. But such a case will fall on deaf ears, because Bhaj is one of the sacred cows of Indian cricket, and will never be touched regardless of performance. Maybe it is his friendship with Tendulkar that gives him this exalted status. Whatever it is, I can’t help concurring with Bishen Bedi that Virendra Sehwag is probably the best off-spinner in Indian cricket today!

This is the huge difference between Anil Kumble and Harbhajan. Harbhajan himself has no qualms about comparing himself with Kumble. But Kumble was a leader, even in the majority of his career when he was not captain. He was at his best when the going was tough, and even when he went through ineffective phases (especially in Sri Lanka, where he always struggled), he would never bowl stupidly, and he would always be a talisman for younger bowlers to look up to. Bhaj is none of that, and currently his feet are floating around in some very big shoes that he is utterly incapable of filling.

4. The younger bowlers

Given that the senior bowler failed to show up, the performance of the younger bowlers wasn’t too bad. There are some worries there in terms of quality, but at least one can’t fault the young attack for effort, especially as the series progressed.

The most encouraging performance was probably Pragyan Ojha’s, though whether he is penetrative enough to be a long-term Test prospect remains a question. There is no doubting his enormous utility in the shorter version of the game, and he is a spinner who gets his basics right. He has nice loop, nice flight, good control over line and length, and can get enough spin to trouble batsmen. And when the pitch offers assistance, as it did at the Sara, he can be quite a handful. What he doesn’t have is too much variety, and his lack of an arm ball is a serious weakness for a left-arm spinner. Kartik is certainly the more versatile bowler – he does, after all, have a decade more experience – but Ojha is one to groom for the long haul. If treated properly, he certainly has it in him to be a very effective limited overs performer for India, and perhaps more.

Abhimanyu Mithun’s performance follows the same template – someone who impressed with the basics, but who didn’t show much more than that. He was gutsy throughout, stuck to good lines and lengths, and whenever he had an opportunity, gave it a 100%. He started the series strongly, but by the end, was probably getting under-bowled by Dhoni. And his lower order batting was refreshingly correct and straightforward. Again, he is someone to look out for the future, and it is important that he be groomed properly and not allowed to fall through the cracks as so many other bright young fast bowlers who were discovered when they were 19 have done.

As with Ojha, however, Mithun didn’t really show any dimensions to his bowling other than a good grasp of the basics. This is a man who came into the Indian side on the strength of a domestic season filled with sharp bursts of genuine speed; yet he was barely clocking 130 in the Tests. Why is it that bowlers who have the ability to bowl in the 140s in domestic cricket suddenly turn into trundlers when playing international cricket? And why is it, then, that we don’t just play Praveen Kumar instead? He is constantly criticized for not being “quick enough” for Tests, but he is no slower than what Mithun was in this series – and he can at least swing the ball both ways. I think part of the problem here is the 4-bowler plan – it doesn’t allow the captain to use one bowler as an out and out strike bowler, just allowing him to bowl fast and in short bursts. And the risks of one bowler getting hit out of the attack are too great, because that leaves you with only 3.

For me, the more experienced bowlers, Mishra and Ishant, were the bigger worries. Mishra has talent; but he bowls an alarming number of no-balls for a spinner, and the rhythm and the basics weren’t there. He deserves persistence, but Ojha certainly outbowled him in this series. And Ishant too, in spite of lots of perseverance and the occasional genuinely sharp burst, just had no rhythm to his bowling. I think he will benefit from a season away from the limelight, bowling a lot in domestic cricket and perhaps getting a few weeks of county cricket under his belt next summer. Having him lead a Test attack in this sort of form is unfair on him and on the team.

5. The unqualified successes

Ultimately though, this series was won for India by its batsmen. And most of the successes were the usual suspects – Sehwag, Tendulkar and Laxman. Tendulkar is continuing his post-2007 purple patch. If this is the twilight of his career, then we are most certainly witnessing a glorious sunset. He now just knows his game so well, and knows the game of cricket so well – each innings he plays is perfectly thought out, a perfect response to the opposition and to the situation the team finds itself in. It really is vintage stuff, and the next couple of years, as he moves into retirement, will hopefully continue to provide us some batting to savor. In the midst of much mediocrity and the take-over of cricket by crass commercialism, Sachin is the gift that keeps on giving.

So too, indeed, is Laxman. It is wonderful to see him, at 35, playing as well as ever. It is also wonderful to see him finally have a settled place in the side. He has adapted beautifully to the no. 5 position. He is, at heart, I think a no. 3, best when he can set the pace of the innings. But he has settled into this role very well, and indeed he finally has the security of a batting spot that is dictated by his seniority, and not by him moving around to accommodate someone else. No. 6 was just too low in the order for him, as he was invariably left with the task of shepherding the tail. It is something he learned to do well, but it was not really a position suited to his batting. Now at 5, he has more of an opportunity to play with the top-order batsmen, and depending on the situation he is able to either set the tone for an innings or dig in and play the rearguard role. He did the latter in the company of Suresh Raina in the 1st innings at Sara, and the former in the company of Sachin in the second. His series-leveling 103 was one of the finest of many fine knocks he has played in his career, and his broad smile of reaching his 100, and on the team reaching victory, said it all. As Dravid’s career edges towards its end, it is Laxman who has become the rock of this batting line-up, playing the same role for India that Paul Collingwood and Michael Hussey play so well for England and Australia respectively. These are all batsmen who never get the accolades that their more illustrious colleagues get; but, arguably, these three are amongst the best Test batsmen in world cricket today. And Laxman’s 2010 average of nearly 90 tells a tale in itself. Laxman is much more than a class batsman – he is an ambassador to the sport.

Sehwag, of course, is Sehwag. There is bristling genius there, and his comeback to the side nearly 3 years ago, along with Zaheer’s, was responsible for India’s transformation from a nearly-there side to world champions. In the second generation of Indian cricketers, these two are the leaders in terms of performance, even if Dhoni’s captaincy is equally important in terms of inspiration.

But the surprise and the silver lining of the tour was Suresh Raina. I must admit that I had questions about his suitability for Test cricket; but as with Sourav Ganguly, Raina has answered questions about his technique with a surprisingly steely temperament. He will face better bowling attacks and more difficult conditions; but he has certainly established himself as the brightest of the young crop of batsmen in Indian cricket, and has most definitely pushed ahead of Yuvraj Singh as Ganguly’s likely long-term successor in the Test line-up. And that is a major gain for India from this series.

6. The disappointments

The remaining players were disappointing. Yuvraj Singh doesn’t quite deserve to be in this category, given that he did chip in with a 50. But when he was injured, he wasn’t at all missed; Raina grabbed his opportunity perfectly to move ahead of him; and hopefully the selectors will finally realize that Yuvraj is surplus to our Test requirements. Harbhajan was a disaster, but I have already labored that point earlier, so there is no point repeating myself. The other disappointments for me were Gambhir, Vijay and Dhoni.

Gambhir of course didn’t have much of a chance to shine, though in both innings he played at Galle, he got out in uncharacteristic fashion, playing across the line. He has certainly gone off the boil this year, and injuries haven’t helped him. But he is too good a player to worry about too much. After two sensational years, the law of averages has caught up with him; but hopefully he will be back with a bang sooner rather than later.

Vijay, when he stood in for Gambhir, looked as good as he always does. His technique is sound, his confidence is wonderful to watch, and he plays fluently and straight. His problem is that which plagues too many of our younger set of batsmen (Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma most notably) – shot selection. We saw it against South Africa earlier this year, and we saw it here – flawless knocks of 20, 30 or 50, and then a poor shot to throw it away. He is too good a player to fritter away starts like that, and until he can turn those pretty cameos into big 100s he is not going to be a certainty. That is the transition that Gambhir made so beautifully a couple of years ago.

Dhoni disappointed as a captain. He is still very much the master of this team, and his calm and collected demeanor remains as impressive as ever. But some of the early magical aura has gone, and he does look more mortal. More disappointing is how ordinary much of his captaincy was. His captaincy in the 2007 T20 World Cup was marked more than anything else by a desire to win, and a willingness to take the risks and the hard decisions needed to win. He is still a good manager of men, but his field placings were almost as defensive as Sangakkara’s (who was just a disaster I thought, completely failed to take the initiative at many points in the series), and his bowling changes largely unimaginative. He is secure in his position as leader, of course, and he remains the best keeper in India by far. But as he enters middle age and becomes more of an establishment figure, some of that edge as a leader seems to be done.

7. The biggest question

The biggest question, though, revolves around the most obvious and tragic failure, Rahul Dravid. A series that yielded less than 100 runs is bound to raise questions about anyone. But for someone who is 37, the questions are bound to be more acute. This is especially so because, more and more, Cheteshwar Pujara looks like an ideal successor to him, and as Dravid struggled in Sri Lanka, Pujara looked in fine fettle on the A tour to England, suggesting that he has it in him to succeed abroad. He has now been on the top of the heap in domestic cricket for a few years now, so the time to blood him is sooner rather than later.

Yet, I would still persist with Dravid for the time being. Admittedly, some of this has to do with sentiment. Someone who has been as fine an ambassador to the sport, and to the country, as Dravid has, should be allowed to retire on his own terms and not be unceremoniously kicked out. There would be something appropriate, indeed, to Dravid playing another season, notching up lots of runs, and then retiring of his own accord after the Lord’s Test of 2011, hopefully with a match-winning 100. (Well, we can dream, can we not?). But if sentiment was the only thing backing my decision, it would not be good enough – after all, the top teams are the ones that are able to make tough decisions.

What is really behind my support for Dravid, however, is belief in his abilities. Two years ago, Dravid looked in really dreadful touch, and everyone was ready to write him off, myself included. But he fought back, and much of last season saw Dravid at his confident best. What was striking about the Sri Lanka series, though, was that at no point did Dravid actually look like he was struggling. Somehow, he didn’t play the long innings, and there were moments of bad luck (like the run out in the first Test) that contributed to that. But while he was there, he looked solid in defense, and his timing was top-notch. So I do think that this was just one of those rough series, and not a basis on which to end a great career. This is very different, from say, Gundappa Viswanath’s last series, in Pakistan in 1982-3. There, Vishy, once one of the imperious masters of the game, just looked completely inadequate, and it was clear to everyone that his time was up. That is not at all clear with Dravid.

And so, going into the new season, these are some of the things that I would be hoping or looking out for, knowing that some of these are bold decisions that are unlikely to be implemented:

1. A return to full form and fitness for Gambhir and Zak. We need them both, at the top of the batting and bowling line-ups respectively.
2. A proper chance for Dravid to exit on his own terms. He should be assured of the rest of the season should he want it, and not made to have an axe dangling over his head every time he goes to bat, like Ganguly had in the final days of his career.
3. A consistent policy to play five bowlers, and, related to that, a recall for Irfan Pathan. However bright the start to Raina’s Test career may have been in Sri Lanka, I am still convinced that Irfan will add more value to the side on balance.
4. A Test call-up for Praveen Kumar. He is one of the fittest fast-medium bowlers in the country, and a genuine swing bowler. These attributes more than make up for a lack of pace.
5. A recall for Murali Kartik. We just don’t have the spin bowling quality in this country to keep such a fine bowler out in the wilderness.
6. A call up for Cheteshwar Pujara as back-up to Dravid. His time is near. Murali Vijay has done well in the chances he has had, but he still needs to tighten up his shot selection.
7. A break for Ishant Sharma. However hard he may try, international cricket is not the arena in which one tries to regain lost form, confidence and rhythm. A year’s good domestic cricket, and maybe some county games next summer, would do him a world of good.

Hence, my team for the Tests against Australia would be:

1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Virendra Sehwag (V)
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. V.V.S. Laxman
6. Mahendra Dhoni © (W)
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Praveen Kumar
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Murali Kartik

Reserves:

12. Suresh Raina
13. Cheteshwar Pujara
14. Abhimanyu Mithun
15. Pragyan Ojha

Another Indian fiasco, and a plea for Pathan

2010-07-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

There is a part of me that is relieved to be seeing Test cricket again. Too much cricket since the Test series against South Africa has been utterly meaningless. The IPL was shown up for the sub-standard fraud that it is, in every sense of the word. And since then, India has been playing utterly meaningless one-day tournaments and T20 games. There may be some consolation in the Asia Cup win – but really, a year from now, who is even going to remember? Once again, the BCCI has proved itself to be utterly devoid of any kind of vision or planning. Of course, shouting oneself hoarse about the jokers who run the game in India is pointless. Unless the whole lot of them is impeached, there is no hope for Indian cricket.

That is why there is also a part of me that isn’t too excited about this series. For one thing, I am a little tired of watching us play Sri Lanka all the time. And for another, there is a big difference between a series that is properly planned and anticipated, in the middle of a season, and one that has just been stuck in there because there are some free days in the calendar. This is not the way to develop Test cricket, or to develop the Indian Test team. Many players in the Test side are coming into this series cold, without any competitive cricket for 5 or 6 months, except for the occasional knock in the IPL. And it shows. Of course, allowing the Indian team proper preparation for a Test series is not something the BCCI has ever held much stock in – remember how they sent the team to Australia for the huge 2007-08 series with only one tour game scheduled before the first Test? So again, there is no surprise here.

Given that, the result of this First Test was probably a foregone conclusion before the game started, and at the point of writing (India following on) things are going pretty much according to the expected script. Muralitharan is likely to end his career with 800 Test wickets (which would be something to truly celebrate), and India is likely to be one down in the series in resounding fashion.

Part of this performance can be excused, for reasons mentioned above. At the end of the day, Test cricket is serious business, and you can’t expect to succeed at it if you come into a series half-baked. Nonetheless, the performance so far has been disappointing. The wicket has no devils. Sri Lanka has a good bowling attack with lots of variety and a couple of real stars in Murali and Lasith Malinga; but they are still not as deadly an attack as South Africa’s or Australia’s or even England’s. And some of the dismissals in the first innings – those of Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman and Harbhajan – were really soft and inept. So even given the lack of preparation, a better performance than this could have been expected.

I feel that this performance diagnoses deeper structural problems with the Indian Test side. These problems are not new – I have remarked upon them often before. But it is worth repeating the obvious again.

The basic problem is that we don’t have a bowling attack worthy of a top Test side. Zaheer Khan has performed yeoman service since his comeback three years ago to paper over this fact; but in his absence, the paucity of bowling strength is all too evident. This means that you are already going into a situation where you know that if you lose the toss, you are going to be chasing the game. A situation where a team is already in the mindset of hoping for a draw before the game has begun, because they know that they don’t have the bowling attack to take 20 wickets, is not a good situation from which to start a Test series.

There are no obvious or immediate solutions here. Beyond Zaheer, there is some talent in India, but none of the talented people are in the sort of form that makes them obvious answers to our problems. So the sensible thing to think is – if you don’t have quality, go for quantity. And that is what our selectors refuse to do, out of stupidity or bloody-mindedness or both.

Even with good bowlers in the ranks, a balanced Test match side should have 5 bowlers. Very, very rarely have consistently successful Test teams played with only 4 bowlers over a sustained period of time. The great Aussie teams of the past decade have managed it, but that’s because two of those four were Warne and McGrath. The West Indies teams of the 70s and 80s also managed it, but we know the caliber of the fast bowlers who donned the mantle for them then. Today, no team in world cricket has the quality of these two historically great sides. And for the merely good sides, consistently getting 20 opposition wickets has to mean playing with five bowlers as the rule.

This is why, for the sake of balance, it is so, so, so important to play with an all-rounder in the side. And Irfan Pathan remains the only Test class all-rounder in Indian cricket today. Hence, his continued exclusion is inexplicable, and truly damaging to India’s hopes of retaining that no. 1 Test spot over a period of time.

If you look at the teams that are bunched up near the top of the Test table, then the difference between India and the others is precisely the lack of a good all-rounder. Jacques Kallis and Shane Watson make a huge difference to South Africa and Australia. And even Sri Lanka, who has an outside chance to make it to the top of the table by the end of this series, derives enormous balance from Angelo Mathews. Kallis, of course, is a superstar, and players like him don’t grow on trees. Irfan cannot aspire to that kind of ability. But all we need, really, is a Mathews – someone who can consistently give the captain 10-15 overs of honest medium pace, chip in with a couple of wickets, and be relied upon to play straight and score 40 or 50. Irfan can most certainly do that.

The problem is that Irfan was built up too early to be too much. Indian cricket only likes superstars – when we think all-rounders, we want only the next Kapil Dev, even though Kapil’s contemporaries, Ravi Shastri and Manoj Prabhakar, were integral parts of the Indian team at the time in spite of being far more modest talents. Irfan will never be India’s next Kapil Dev, and in building him up as that when he first arrived on the scene, both he and Indian cricket were done a grave injustice. And now, there is a studied refusal to accept him for what he is – a useful cricketer who has won matches for us in all forms of the game, and who even if not at his best will provide vital balance to the Test side. “Lack of form” has been trotted out as an excuse for his continued exclusion; but in fact, his form for Baroda this past year, while not earth-shattering, has been more than useful. He has picked up 25-odd wickets and scored a few runs this year – a performance that indicates a semblance of form and some fitness, and one that is considerably better than Munaf Patel’s 16 wickets for the season (combined with an utter inability to bat or field). Yet, Munaf is in Sri Lanka, and Irfan nowhere in the picture.

Given the lack of quality or experience in this attack; given the loss of a left-arm seamer with Zak’s injury; and given the long-term need for an all-rounder to balance this side; there is no earthly reason for Irfan not being an integral part of the picture here. And it is costing us.

Team for Asia Cup

2010-06-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

No time to evaluate the disastrous performance in Zimbabwe. In any case, it was a second string team, in a meaningless tournament and a completely unexciting format. All we know is that, except for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, there is little quality amongst the younger stock. So all I will do, in suggesting the team for the Asia Cup, is say two things. First - Suresh Raina has potential, but his one-day performances are far less compelling than his T20 performances. Both Kohli and Rohit have stronger claims to be in the playing 11. And second - something that is obvious to the meanest intelligence and therefore completely invisible to Srikkanth and co - the only all-rounder worth his salt in India is Irfan Pathan. Neither Yusuf nor Jadeja are up to scratch. Not that this obvious point will be heeded.

Also, as said before - what has Yuvraj done to get a place ahead of Kohli (average above 50 after 25 games), Rohit or Raina? Just drop him and be done with it.

Playing XI for Asia Cup:

1. Virendra Sehwag (V)
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Gautam Gambhir
4. Virat Kohli
5. Rohit Sharma
6. Mahendra Dhoni (C) (W)
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Ashish Nehra
11. Pragyan Ojha

Reserves:

12. Suresh Raina
13. Praveen Kumar
14. Ishant Sharma
15. Ravichandran Ashwin

Indian fiasco

2010-05-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

There are many, many things to blog about, especially the highs and lows of the IPL (with the lows far outweighing the highs on that one). But right now, the immediate agenda item is to do a quick post-mortem of India’s failure, for the second year running, in the T20 World Cup. I think there are four things that are highlighted by this failure, which in many ways exactly mirrors the way we failed in England last year.

First – not having Virender Sehwag at the top of the order makes a huge difference. Viru may not be the most reliable opener in the game, certainly in the shorter versions. But he has the ability to win big games single-handedly, and his very presence in the side is a tonic to the other batsmen and a psychological hurdle for the opposition to overcome. And technically, he is one of the better players of short bowling in the Indian side, and certainly wouldn’t repeatedly get out playing hopeless pull shots like many of the others keep doing. Murali Vijay is a good player with lots of potential, but there is no way he is in the same league. And as with Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma in England last year, after looking a class act on flat Indian tracks, he has been caught short (literally) on livelier wickets abroad. Vijay is still young, and hopefully he’ll learn if he can keep his head screwed on. But his performances in this World Cup and in the Tests against South Africa earlier this year show that he still has a ways to go before he is the finished product.

Vijay’s fundamental problem is the same problem that besets all the younger generation of Indian batsmen, be it Raina, Rohit, Virat Kohli or Dinesh Karthik, and that is shot selection. Each may have certain technical vulnerabilities, but other than Sehwag, Dravid and Tendulkar, pretty much every Indian batsman of the past decade has had some serious technical deficiency or the other. The thing with the more senior batsmen is that they know when to play their shots and when to hold back – and the thing is, the likes of Dravid and Tendulkar knew that pretty much since they started playing international cricket, it wasn’t something that they acquired with age. And even someone like M.S. Dhoni really is a master at picking the right ball to hit, even though his technique is not something you’d see in any coaching manual. Unless these youngsters learn the art of shot selection, they will not cut it at the highest level over a period of time. And I am not hopeful, since Raina and DK have now been playing international cricket for nearly 5 years, and have played some fine innings, yet still haven’t learned this art. It is this, more than anything else, which will determine which if any of these batsmen are able to make the transition to Test cricket for the long haul. And it is this, more than anything else, which allows the likes of Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis and Mahela Jayawardene to be such successes in T20 cricket without slogging the hide off the ball. I think of how Sachin cut out the cover drive entirely during his marathon 241 not out in Sydney in 2004 because he had fallen to that shot in the previous Test. And think of how none of the present side is able to cut out the pull even for 20 overs, in spite of repeatedly getting out to it. That is the difference between the great batsman and the ordinary batsman.

The second problem concerns Yuvraj Singh. A couple of months ago, I said that time is finally running out on Yuvraj as a Test batsman, especially given the claims being made by the likes of Vijay and Subramaniam Badrinath. Now, I would extend that and say that time is running out of Yuvraj as a member of the Indian team, period. It has been months now since he has made any significant contribution in any form of the game, and the excuse of injury is beginning to wear thin. This is especially because there are others who can quite adequately take his place. Taking Yuvraj to the West Indies has meant leaving out the likes of Virat Kohli, who has scored three ODI centuries this past season; Badri, who in spite of being labeled a Test player played a number of crucial innings for Chennai in the IPL when the team needed it most; and Robin Uthappa, who has become a much stronger batsman and can play the quick-fire innings like Yuvraj, and who can also provide a back-up wicket-keeping option. (It’s a different matter that the selectors haven’t even seen fit to send him to Zimbabwe as part of a second-string Indian side). So we have other batsmen who can play long innings; who have the temperament to adjust their game to the needs of the team; who can play that quick-fire cameo at a strike rate of 200. All of these are things that Yuvraj could do at his best, but it is a long time since we have seen him at his best, and his body language and attitude also deflate the team. There was once a time when Yuvi was at least worth 20 with his fielding, but now he has almost become a liability in the field, and all his potential replacements are far better fielders. This means that Yuvraj remains the most overrated player in Indian cricket today, and it is high time he was shown the door. He is 28, the age at which most batsmen are reaching the peak of their abilities. Yet Yuvraj is looking like an also-ran.

The third problem concerns our all-rounders. Neither Yusuf Pathan nor Ravindra Jadeja looks international class. Jadeja has shown glimpses of genuine potential in his career, but this year has just been a disaster for him, first with his IPL ban and now with his terrible all-round performance in the Super Eights. It suggests that his mind is on anything but cricket – again no doubt the effect of too much glitz and glamour and money at too young an age without any proper nurturing or direction. Unless Jadela is given a swift kick up the backside, he could well go the way of Sadanand Viswanath or Vinod Kambli. Yusuf, meanwhile, is the quintessential flat track bully. If the pitch is slow and the ball pitched in the slot, he is a devastating hitter. But in any other circumstance (either lively pitch or good bowling), he has no plan B. So in fact, he is a genuinely limited batsman, which is why Shane Warne’s assertion that his 100 against Mumbai was the best innings he’s ever seen was such rubbish. Indeed, I think his brother Irfan is a far better batsman (in addition to being a far better bowler). Irfan may not be as murderous a bat as Yusuf, but he is technically very correct, is a nice straight hitter of the ball, but also has the ability to play short pitched bowling quite well.

So this leads directly to the fourth problem, which is Srikkanth and co’s vendetta against Irfan. He may not be the bowler that he was when he first entered international cricket, but regardless of that, there is absolutely no cricketing reason to persistently keep him out of the team like this. “Injury” was the official reason for him not being selected in the list of 30 probables for this World Cup, but in fact he wasn’t injured as he played every game in the IPL. And while he might unfortunately be remembered for that last over to Dhoni in Dharamsala, the fact remains that he was amongst the top 5 wicket-takers in the league stage of the tournament, in spite of playing for the wooden spooners. For team balance alone, regardless of form, Irfan is the best man to occupy that no. 7 spot (I would say in any form of the game, including Tests). But in fact, his form warranted his inclusion. Not only was he excluded, but Srikkant, claiming that he was injured, actually told a barefaced lie – yet was never called on it. Pathan’s continued exclusion, and the continued media silence on it, is surely one of the great scandals of contemporary Indian cricket, and in the absence of any other all-rounder of quality, it is hurting us really badly in all forms of the game.