Sportolysis – The World Sports Blog

Indian cricket fans all over the world at heart broken. England was thought to be an anomaly but Australia showed that the Indian team was very poor and it could not be blamed to injuries or the like any longer.

However, instead of mourning, we should celebrate what has been a golden age for Indian cricket. The thing about golden ages is that you do not realize you are in the midst of one while you are in it. More often that not, only with the benefit of hindsight do you realize how lucky you have been to experience such an era of greatness.

Between 1932 and 2000, India played 157 matches away from home winning only 14. From 2001, India has played 72 games winning 23. The last decade or so has included series win in England, West Indies and more than 12 months when the team were the number 1 team in test cricket despite stiff competition from the likes of South Africa.

Between April 2007 and March 2011, India won 7 tests abroad and lost just 4. For a team which couldn’t bat even if their lives depended upon it (remember Durban where India was bowled out for 100?), it was a giant leap. If I was told in 1996 that India could win another of the world’s fastest pitches, at Perth in 12 years time, you would have forgiven me to think the person was not sane.

You might blame T20 but batting techniques all over the world have declined because of T20. That is not it. One has to realize that Indian pitches are very different to the ones outside the subcontinent. The extra bounce, pace compared to the extra turn and dead Indian wickets means it is almost impossible for a team coming from the region to win consistently abroad.

Even when you do produce a few batsmen like say Gavaskar and Vishwanath, you do not produce the bowlers. So, the combination with Zaheer Khan leading was a rare phenomenon.

It was a great team with leaders like Ganguly and Kumble and Dhoni, batsmen like Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman, and bowlers like Kumble, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

The likes of you, we will never see again.

Good bye.

Written on the eve of the Adelaide test. In the most beautiful ground in the world, these greats will come to perform for one more hurrah.

The batsman slashes one. He misses it by a mile. Next, you hear the commentator say ‘that’s the way he plays.’ I don’t agree with this at all. The logic is that as it is his natural game, he will work best when he plays in that style.

However, when a driver drives in a jammed road, he is expected to be a bit more cautious not to cause an accident. You don’t tell the driver that you drive well when you drive at 80 KM/per hour. Why don’t you do that ALL the time. So why do we have different standards for a Sehwag or a Dilshan?

Let us not forget that these are professional cricketers. I am not asking a Sehwag to bat like a Chanderpaul. However, you can go down a gear or two. It is not too much to expect.

There are a lot of things I do not understand about Indian cricket but one which has left me absolutely bewildered over the years is the fascination to open the batting with keepers. I can understand it in tests to an extent when India went through a phase of the Devang Gandhis and Vikram Rothores. You needed some one to withstand the new ball. Today, when India has Sehwag, Gambir and Abhinav Mukund, it makes no sense.

In ODIs, it is all the more flummoxing as you do not need a specialist as much as you need in tests. The move is most annoying for me because it screams out to all the aspiring Indian opening batsmen, the Tanmay Srivastavas of the world that they inspire absolutely no faith. An Ajinkya Rahane can gain valuable experience facing Roach and Rampaul. One can see how good is as a viable alternative in ODIs if Sehwag or Gambhir is injured. Instead, Parthiv Patel, who despite making runs domestically, is not a specialist opening batsman alternative for India in ODIs (as he isn’t aggressive enough or consistent enough), opens.

When a specialist batsman like Kanitkar bats at 8 and Karim opens, you know it is April fools day. Let’s not have the sight of Wriddhiman Saha or Parthiv Patel open in Australia against Siddle, Cummings, Pattinson and Johnson, please.

Sachin Tendulkar, the biggest Indian sports person of the past 20 years, if not ever, is playing, what is probably his last test in Eden Gardens. The stadium is sparsely filled, some thing unimaginable till a few years back. The attendances in the whole test were in line with the prediction of Harsha Bhogle – a disappointment. If ever cricket needed a wake up call to get it’s priorities right, it is now.

I offer three solutions to save the soul of cricket –

1. Day Night Tests – Shane Warne, the genius that he is, said around 15 years ago that his dream was to play day night tests. This is the need of the hour and an essential step cricket has to take. There are no ifs and buts about it. If a game starts at 5 PM and ends at mid night, even a man who has worked in the office who day can attend the last two sessions if not more.

There is the issue of due which will be a factor in some grounds but for me it is just one more aspect which will make test cricket even more interesting. Test cricket, at it’s core, like life, is batting the inner demons (the technique of the player) coupled with the external – the bowler and nature. When there is cloud cover, the ball swings more, when the pitch is old on day 5, it is tougher to bat. Let us see how the champion teams face up to the challenges of due, when they do arise in certain venues. It will not be a constant threat and will crop up at certain places and certain times of the year when due happens. Rather than shy away because of this and not hold test cricket at all, let us have the games, see what controversies they generate and get on with it. I am not disappointed at the trial done in the first class level with day night games and given one day cricket has been held in the night for two decades, it is time to shut out the apprehension and go for it.

2. More money for tests – An international cricketer or any sports person has a very small life on an average except the exceptions like a Tendulkar. So if they can earn more money from other forms of the game, they cannot be blamed if they give other forms more priority. Till a few years ago, Australia gave most money to players for playing tests even despite the huge popularity of one dayers. The balance is now completely gone though given a player can earn huge money in various T20 leagues around the world. If test cricket has to be given the most importance, test (I would say even first class cricket but I know that is never going to happen) cricket has to be subsidized.

3. T20 Window – There is a T20 domestic league going on in Zimbabwe right now, complete with the 4 international player rules of the IPL, which is getting good crowds, as most T20 around the world, whether it is England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Australia or India or Azerbaijan gets. That is a positive, not a negative, for two main reasons, among many others –

a) It introduces cricket to new people who would never go to watch cricket under earlier circumstances.

b) It means cricketers and cricket as a whole gets more money which makes the game more sustainable.

Any one who argues money is bad is missing the plot. A window would stop a T20 league happening every month in some corner of the world. Have two windows, six months apart, a total of 60 or at most 90 days and let the players hit all the sixes they want and spread cricket far and wide. Football is played in far more leagues around the world. However, you do not see a player like Malinga or Pollard playing for 5 different teams and as a result ignoring their country completely.

Do we really want the next generation of cricket fans to think test cricket is an ancient relic it is now becoming? It isn’t fair on the public to expect them to leave work and go for their past times either. 10 years ago, it could have happened as cricket wasn’t played all around the year and a cricket game was a chance to see the Gods. In today’s world when a fan would any way see all the cricketers during the IPL, they can afford the miss the test.

N.B. – I did go for 2 sessions in Eden Gardens during the 2nd India – West Indies test held between 14th to 17th November. I would I have liked to go all days though.

N.B. 2 – My passion for the game has not declined. If at all, it has increased in recent times.

Also read –

Sambit Bal on watching Sachin bat in an empty stadium from 3 years ago, Arnab’s memories of Eden, Watching my first Game at Eden, 1991.