Spare us, spare Indian Cricket

By the time the selectors had closed their over-hyped meeting on November 9, 2007 evening, my worst fear had already come true. The most dreaded news was out and it was being flashed in all the news channels. Anil Kumble, the senior most test player of the country had been entrusted with the top job.

Only a couple of days back, Kumble was heard confessing to a news channel that he had always nourished this secret desire to lead India. And that he was ready for the job, if asked to do it. What did this statement mean? Was it not clear that the man had played his last trump card to somehow lay his hands on captaincy? He knew very well that he was running out of time. It had to be now or never as Mahendra Dhoni was closing in with all his appreciable performances leading the team in the shorter and the shortest version of the game. He had produced really good results in both the versions. And to Kumble's relief, Sachin Tendulkar had already declined it. Had the selectors applied a little commonsense, they would have given the test captaincy to the Jharkhand lad, who by now had captured the imagination of the entire nation.

We badly needed Dhoni’s aggression in test cricket. That would have brought in a much needed freshness to the approach of Indian campaign in tests. We have already had enough of defensive mindset which had seen India not enforcing follow on, not declaring at the right time giving an even chance of winning a test to both the sides (and thus creating more wining opportunities) on numerous occasions over the past decade. As a result we have played out as many tame draws in places where we could have certainly won. We have always played as safe as possible. There is no point in cribbing about the fading interest in the traditional format of the game unless we are prepared to take sensible decisions to make positive results happen. Dhoni would definitely have tried it differently given the kind of fearless leader he has been. And to say the least, it would have been a long term investment.

But to the aid of Kumble, in came the statements from Sanjay Manjrekar, Ravi Shastri and a few other so called wise men of the game. While Sanjay said that Kumble had to be rewarded for his long service to Indian cricket, Shastri’s comments were that Dhoni is not ready for the job yet and we should not over-burden him. Even Greg Chappell was of the same opinion.

Now who are all these wise men to decide if Dhoni is not ready for the job? Only Dhoni can decide that. And he had already played enough tests to have a feel of the format. He had already shown that he is a fast learner. If his on and off field behavior during his captainship tenure for the shorter version of the game is anything to go by, he was all but perfectly ready to take up the next challenge. Also, for the comfort of those big guys who advocated against it, there had been people (take Graem Smith as one example) who had led their countries at younger age with success.

But as it turned out to be, the selectors gave in to the argument and finally it was Kumble who was given the green signal. What they caused by doing this is an irrepairable damage to the game of cricket. To be a leader you have to command some respect amongst your team-mates. Kumble may have been a decent bowler in suitable home conditions, but we all know about his on field personality. Whenever India has been under attack he has been the first man to drop his shoulders and portray a poor body language. And talking about his fielding skills, he is never in a position to command any respect even from his own team mates, leave alone the opposition. No wonder, on of the basic plans of all the opposition teams has been “To push the ball to Kumble and run a couple”. And whenever we travel abroad, if anybody decides not to give a wicket to Kumble, he goes wicket less almost always.

And why are we even talking about his cricketing skills? We all have seen the results of the recently concluded India – Pakistan test series. In the second and third test, despite of scoring over 600 runs in the first innings, India was not able to enforce victory. Alongside various other reasons, Kumble’s decision making skills or the lack of it was there for everybody to see, which was the decisive factor in the final result. In the third test of the series, Kumble delayed the declaration inexplicably for at least a couple of hours to allow Pakistan to get away with a draw. Also the batting approach of India in the second innings was pathetic. Any layman could have told that they were playing for a draw to make sure that we win the series 1-0. This had to happen. This was the mindset of our leader and the result followed. There was no point is hanging around on the ground when bad light had been offered to the batsmen. The damage had already been done in the morning by wasting precious time. Kumble shamelessly issued a statement in the closing press conference that bad light saved Pakistan. But hello, in reality, it was not bad light; it was Kumble’s desire of personal captainship record and his approach to the game that made India settle for yet another draw.

Mr. Manjrekar, Captainship is no long service award or retirement benefit. It has to be given to somebody who will be able to lead a team effectively rather than to somebody just because he had served long. If we need to reward Kumble we could well have awarded him with some life time achievement awards or whatever from BCCI. Why play politics in cricket? If it is not politics, it is foolishness.

At this point of time, the Indian team has already left for Australia and the statements of our warriors including Kumble have started doing rounds. Says Kumble, “We would win because Australia is without Glen McGrath and Shane Warne. We would win because all our batsmen are in terrific form. We would win because Aussies are traditionally weak players of spin bowling. We would win because for most of our senior players, this, in all probability is the last tour of Down-under and we would like to make it memorable." The claims just go on and on.

Sorry to remind you Mr. Skipper, on your last tour too McGrath and Warne were unavailable. Your batsmen were fresh from big scores on flat tracks and more importantly they were at their prime. You did try to bowl spin too. It was another matter that it never turned as usual. A few months back all your senior players went all out to make their last world cup trip memorable. Memorable indeed it turned out to be, having made their exit in the first round.

So do yourself a favor, stop talking and start preparing for your (hopefully) last tour as Captain. We have absolutely no doubt about your leadership skills, we have seen enough. Just go ahead and finish your tenure.

Spare us, spare Indian cricket.

Its time we moved forward

Indian cricket is back to square one. Though it appeared for a brief while as if team India is coming of age, we are back to the art of snatching losses from the jaws of victory yet again. And we seem to reconcile to this fact so calmly. It hurts me to see that it doesn’t hurt us anymore. We are again at the same point where we feel satisfied with a few individual performances, and where winning is not so important, putting up a brave face after every defeat is! It’s so cool yet again blaming our batsmen for a loss here and bowlers for a defeat there. Forget about our fielding and running between the wickets, so much so, I was shocked to hear one of our senior most players admitting shamelessly that these were never our strengths, so we should rather concentrate on timing the ball well to hit more boundaries.

Despite not being a great fan of ex-coach Greg Chappell, I constantly admired at least a couple of his methods. One was giving a fair run to youngsters and the other was not giving undue importance to the reputation of players. The first method saw Irfan Pathan and Suresh Raina enjoying Greg’s confidence, whereas the second one saw the exit of then woefully out of form Sourav Ganguly.

Both these things were not happening to Indian cricket before him, both these things don’t happen any more after his tenure. As sad as it is, not only have we surrendered the advantage that we gained from the experience of Guru Greg, but also our vision for future is gone down the drain. We are back to the dirty politics, mindless administration and irritatingly stupid methods.

The effect clearly reflects in our results. By the time this article was being written, team India has already handed over a decisive lead of 4-1 in an effectively six match series as the stage moves to Mumbai for a face saving match, where the Aussies are the clear favorite to thrash them again with yet another big defeat. The fact that this has come right after the T20 cup win, from where India came back as the champions, is disturbing and annoying all the more. We were supposed to be high on confidence, morale, you name it we should have had it. But if the result in this ODI series is anything to go by, we are very soon going to hit our nadir.

The reason is simple. But nobody wants to see it. Our selectors are not building a team; they are just putting together 15 individuals with great statistics to back them. And either they don’t care about the performances or they are stupid enough to expect that records take care of the results by default. Or they are just doing a bureaucratic job just to earn their salary at the end of every month!

Let’s analyze a single game to find out what’s going wrong and where. Anyone who has his heart at the right place would be able to get to the reason, it’s not rocket science. It’s basic common sense. Let’s take the sixth ODI of the ongoing series. Australia batted first and scored 317-8 on an absolutely flat track. The bowlers tried to the best of their abilities but I wish I could say the same thing about the fielders(I must make myself clear here, I don’t by any chance say that the bowlers should not improve, they have to). But we can’t drop Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid for their fielding or lack of it, Can we? After all they are not VVS Laxman. If they concede 15 extra runs each and drop a couple of catches even after turning on their best on performance on the field, which is obviously due to their age (at the wrong side of 30 they can’t be fighting fit unlike their younger counterparts), and of course interest, never mind, they are in the team for their experience (read statistics-records) which is supposed to be beneficial for the team.

Forgive poor Mahendra Singh Dhoni for leading a side with not one, not two, but three such legends. Two of them will open the innings at any cost. They will talk about putting in a strong foundation, completely oblivious of the fact that their side needed more than six runs per over right from the outset. They will score a fifty each, so that you can’t drop them for a while. (Even otherwise you can’t drop players who have scored over 10000 each in ODI). Even if they succeed putting in that kind of a foundation, by the time they get out, they would have put the following batsmen, who are obviously of far lesser experience than them, in a position where they have to score around 8 to 9 runs per over not for six to seven overs, but for 20 to 25 overs consistently. If they are not able to do it, then the blame is entirely on the younger ones. You will see breaking news 24/7………..the seniors perform, who the heck talked about giving chance to youngsters? Drop them. I am sorry for not understanding one day cricket; I thought power plays are there for the top order batsmen to make the most of the fielding restrictions, especially when you are chasing a stiff target. The team has Utthapa in their ranks, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the records to qualify to bat ahead of our legends in the side. Added to that Dravid will come in when the asking rate would be hovering around seven per over to successfully take it up to 9 per over and then get out leaving the likes of Utthapa and Dhoni to do the needful. After all they are popular for big hitting. It’s their responsibility to see India through.

Coming back to the match, India managed to score 299-7 in their allotted 50 overs. Sachin scored 72(72) with a 100% strike rate and Sourav scored 86(111) with a healthy 77% strike rate. Is it not more than a decent performance? To most of us certainly it is. And by turning on such a kind of performance the celebrated pair will definitely have assured their place in the side for eternity, even if there was the slightest doubt in any body’s mind. Their fans would point finger at Dhoni who scored only 26(29) despite of being known as a good hitter of the cricket ball.

I know, of course most would not agree Dravid playing ahead of Utthapa and Dhoni under the given circumstances. The move defied logic, but by then the damage had already been done. No doubt, still India was in with a slim chance towards the end after the heroics of Utthapa and Dhoni (Dhoni coordinated well with Utthapa), but that was more of fighting a lost battle.

To start with, we were chasing a target which was excess by at least 30 runs due to the miss-fields and drop catches by our legends. Remember Ganguly not picking a straight ball hit to him and Dravid dropping a couple of catches? Leave alone their slow movement on the fields which allowed the opposition converting ones into twos and twos into three. Next, we can’t afford to let the power plays go unused while chasing that kind of a total. A hundred percent strike rate doesn’t help here. That mathematically (for argument sake) takes you to only 300, which was almost the total India managed! Under such circumstances a hundred percent strike rate is acceptable, only if the scorer bats through, thus allowing others to throw their bats around when needed. That did not happen. You have to score more during the power plays as Aussies are always capable of sending down a few tight overs when the field is spread out. That will make your asking rate jump up towards the end. Is it too much to ask Sachin to stand up and take the responsibility to bat through? If he is just good enough for a run a ball fifty, then may be we need him lower down the order when consolidation is the key. But take it from me, if he is asked to bat at number four he’ll straight away call a press conference to showcase his displeasure in batting down the order. He has done it in the past and he will do it again for sure. True, your best batsman should play the maximum number of overs, but please understand, best BATSMAN, not the best RECORDHOLDER.

Please don’t talk about the technical deficiency of Utthapa or anybody else for that matter whoever, I argue, is supposed to come ahead of Sachin. We are going to work around the best available option that we have in hand. And Utthapa after all is not such bad in technique. He is predominantly a front foot player who has got a high success ratio in doing so. Remember Ian Chappell? He used to play even his hook shots on front foot! Till such time as you are in control, you need not worry. And we have always seen Utthapa batting under pressure where he had to play innovative shots. For the kind of impact he has had in this short span of time he does deserve a chance to be given a fair run at the top. And his success will be directly proportionate to team India’s success purely because of the fact that he would consume less than half the balls that our legendary trio consumes to score the same amount of runs. Will that not give Sachin enough elbow room to consolidate by playing a run a ball half century?

If you ask me to choose my playing eleven out of this 15 that is given to us I would go by the following order. Utthapa and Gambhir at the top of the order, followed by Rohit Sharma, Sachin, Yuvraj and Dhoni. Pathan should come in next followed by four bowlers. On Indian track, this would be the perfect combination. This will allow young players to be groomed. You can have the flexibility to send in Pathan up the order when the need arises. Dravid and Ganguly are better off playing test cricket. Rohit Sharma, for his kind of technique combined with the strike rate is ideal for the crucial one drop position, where he will have some kind of comfort with the experience of Sachin and Yuvraj to follow. Except for Sachin, all others are future of Indian cricket and they need on field opportunity right now rather than sitting at the bench and watching the legends biting dust. They may fail some times, but they will learn fast. That’s the only way to move forward.

One more important point I need to cover here before I close is that about Dinesh Karthik. While I salute him for his spirit and attitude, I am shocked to see him in the eleven when Dhoni is there as a wicket keeper. With due respect to Karthik I must say that he cannot be played as a specialist batsman when we have Gambhir, Rohit Sharma or Utthapa sitting on the bench. This defies logic. He may have enjoyed a bit of success in a few outings that he had, but the only position he can play at is that of the wicket keeper. It’s good that we have a decent back up for Dhoni for the job behind the stumps. But that is all to it.

Cricket in India is serious business and we need serious people at the helm to take the right decisions at the right time. We have to start playing to win games rather than to create records and earn money. The selectors, the administrators, the managements have to stop monkeying around and get down to the task at hand. We don’t want to keep going with the motion again in the next series against Pakistan.

Come on guys, the whole world is watching us. The result against Australia is hurting us. Are you listening?