A lot has been written and talked about India’s dismal performance in England in the ongoing battle of supremacy in the test cricket. For some reasons, it deserved to be talked about. It ought to have been abhorred by an ardent cricket fan especially after reading the tally i.e. 2-0 in England’s favour at the half way stage of the series.
There is no hidden truth about the fact that fast seaming, swinging and bouncy wickets are where India is not able to dominate the world of cricket (read test cricket). Though they have been improving their records overseas in the last decade, there is always a possibility that we might lose a test series in South Africa, Australia and England (England being least possible). At the heart of every Indian cricket fan, there is always this fear. Fear may come true, but a fan does not hope that fear to be most horrendous. Probably, this is what has happened over the past fortnight.
Honestly, we never did enough to be no. 1 for a long time and winning test matches overseas in patches has not helped either. Unless you win a series 2-0 or 3-0, you may not be branded the champions of test cricket. However, team India has done enough to be in top three for a long time and every expectation of them beating England in England is absolutely valid. It is still valid. Valid when you look into history and when you look into the capabilities of our stalwarts.
So what has gone wrong? Almost everything and media has touched upon all these factors in details. If I had to pick few factors, I would definitely question the schedule, players’ fees and relevance of IPL (Injury-prone League or Incredible Paisa League). Barely a week into celebration of that historical night, all our players came back to play IPL – mind you, none of these senior or not so senior players missed a single game. Gautam and Zaheer played till the last despite sustaining injuries. Viru played each game, waited until Daredevils were knocked out finally and then proceeded for an important shoulder surgery. Who cares if there are a series of international cricket to be played on hard turf?
More on the technique front, it is easy to put the front foot out of the line and smack the ball over the long on or mid-wicket boundary on the flattest of Indian tracks. The same swashbucklers were (are) targeted on every part of upper body from time to time and still, they care a zilch. There is no coach to train how to take the bat and body out of the line of a rising delivery. There is no board to create a good sustainable and technically rich talent pool and develop a cricket system which can protect the likes of Badrinath, Wasim Jaffer and Cheteshwar Pujara and assure them of a berth in test squad. It is a real shame that on the one hand players like Yusuf Pathan, his brother Irfan and Robin Uthappa are being paid millions of US dollars in IPL and on the other hand, we are struggling to find an able replacement of Sourav Ganguly at no. 6 in the test team.
There was a time when The National Pride used to drive billions of us to play for the country. Is it still going to be the same?
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2 comments:
Lovely poignant post. Very well said.
Can't escape the money trap, but actually my feel is that in tst cricket the lack of qulity bowling is cruelly exposed. In an IPL or even one day context, which youngster in his right mind will want to be a bowler. We've suffered a continuous degradation in bowling quality and that's a real real issue.
Of course, national pride is at somewhat of a premium.
@ Ramesh - Very true, our bowling is a major worry and will remain so until something is done by the board in this regard. Rightly said - no one wants to be a bowler. Wonder how Pakistan manages to deliver a world class bowler every now and then under the similar conditions.
At the same time, look at our batsmen. What about their preparedness? Look at entire team's body language. Looks like as if they don't care about test cricket. Really disappoints me!
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