The team is at the crossroads now. Obviously, the coach feels it’s in a transition phase. But again, once he’s recognized that, what should have also been thought about is the kind of tracks that they play on. And the kind of guys picked for Test cricket. The reason I say this is because if you are in a transition phase, you obviously want to bring in youngsters, give them confidence, especially the batters. That can happen only when you put out good tracks. One of the main reasons India had almost a Fab 5 or Fab 6 at the start of the millennium is because they played a lot of cricket on good pitches. And because everybody did well on the good tracks, they gained the confidence to do well abroad as well. And the other thing is that, if the bowlers are also given tracks where there’s not much real help in terms of lateral movement of the surface, then they develop the skills to become better. Like Harbhajan Singh got 32 wickets on good tracks against Australia.
Similarly, Anil Kumble also picked up wickets on good tracks. They’ll get a lot more craft here and they’ll also develop the ability to bowl good spells, concentrate on good spells.
But then of course, the rush for the points in the World Test Championship setup is also there, I agree. But then sometimes, you’ve got to try and see how you can get the balance going (of the wicket being prepared). So, this is the stage where maybe that could have been tried, especially after there was a bit of setback in the last series at home (New Zealand series). But again, as a coach myself, I know sometimes the decisions that you take do not always produce the results you think they’ll produce. But that’s the beast — the nature of the job.
To a large extent, what is happening is that you don’t really play regularly on tracks which help the spinners in domestic cricket. As much as it’s easy to criticize, it’s also got to be understood that playing on turners is not an easy job. But it is also equally difficult for the bowlers to bowl well on a turner. It’s an art — to bowl well and consistently pick up wickets. To sum it up, what is perhaps not really working well is these guys are not exposed to turners. And they also perhaps are not really aware of how to organize themselves on a turner.
ALSO READ | Gautam Gambhir’s team buried India’s proud home record without a fight, writes Sriram Veera
Sweep shot
Sweep can be a very useful weapon against the spinners. But again, on a turning track where the ball is also bouncing, you’ve got to be really good in playing that sweep shot. But what is important here is that you need to also have a lot of faith in your defense. If there is a little bit of insecurity as far as a player’s defense is concerned, he will look to try to hit his way out of trouble. These clichés and these statements of playing fearless cricket, all that is fine, but you also need to play the right kind of shots. And you also need to be able to keep the good ones out. It is only then you are going to get the bad ones to score off.
Judgement
I think the selection also has happened more on judgement than assessment. Yes, I agree, generally, selection is subjective, it’s not objective. But the difference between a judgemental call and an assessment is that a judgemental call is final. Which means, you’re not going to wait and see how a player goes on about his cricket or how he’s improving and what it is that he can do on the kind of surfaces that you’re going to play on. So, that is something that perhaps does not really sync with the need of the hour. Playing just three specialist batters, I saw a couple of sandwiches shot for the picnic. Because generally, on a track where it’s absolutely loaded in favour of bowlers, you would not require more than four or five bowling options. And I think there were a plethora of options available. And again, one of them wasn’t even used.
ALSO READ | India lose to South Africa by 408 runs, marking heaviest Test defeat by runs margin
Confusion
It’s a tough proposition to adapt to different formats. That is something that we’ll have to concede. But at the same time, you get reports which say that the chairman and the coach and the support staff have been chalking out a route map for over a year. So, they must have really identified who will obviously fit for each format. If that doesn’t happen, then obviously, these kinds of decisions are based more on judgment rather than assessment. There has been a consistency in that a lot of multi-dimensional cricketers have been preferred for Test cricket as well. And at times what happens is, if you have too many options, it can also lead to confusion. Because when you have too many multi-dimensional cricketers in a XI, you really don’t know who to slot where. Theoretically, it’s fine. You can always say they are capable of performing any role, but that is something which again can work on a given day, which may not work on a given day.
(The author, a former India Test cricketer and coach, spoke to Venkata Krishna B)
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
