Friday, January 29, 2016
Episode 7: 6 balls to an over
We take a look at 6 exciting and important topics. One of which is "What does Ravi Shastri do for the Indian cricket team?"
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
The art of producing holistic cricketers
A quick glance into Indian Test, ODI and T20 results in the new decade point towards quite a few problems that need urgent attention from the team’s infamous management. To begin with, Saurav Ganguly vacated the no.6 spot in the test team 8 years ago and we are still selecting players for that position by spinning a wheel to pick one out of Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Stuart Binny, Wriddhiman Saha or Naman Ojha. In the top of order, many have given up on Shikhar Dhawan whilst Ravi Shastri with hope and a prayer still continues to provide him opportunities. In the same time frame, barring Zaheer Khan till he hung up his boots, we have never really had a fast bowler who is an automatic selection. In ODIs, if not an all-rounder to the quality of Jacques Kallis we don’t even have one with the utility of Corey Anderson. And to add to the misery, we are slowly starting to see Dhoni’s super powers wane. For a reputed international cricket team, I must say that we are producing talent at a painstakingly slow pace.
Rahul Dravid, at his MAK Pataudi lecture was critical about the nature of wickets dished out for the Ranji games. He even talked at length about how kids should be given a fair chance during school cricket by rotating them for matches and suggested the idea of a batsman retiring after he scores a 50 or 100. He reckons that this in turn will drive more kids to take up the game now they have a fair chance of succeeding. One can only admire the simplicity of the solution. In a post retirement interview, Virender Sehwag was at his cynical best while talking about corruption in the Delhi Cricket Board during player selection. After being dropped from the Indian team, he indicated that he had been constantly playing the Ranji Trophy and claimed that Mohit Sharma broke down with an injury purely because of playing back to back games at 2 different places with just 2 days of rest in between. While the changes that Dravid proposes will need work from the ground up, the problems that Sehwag sheds light on are battles we shouldn’t be fighting at at all. In the end they are two side of the same problem. While one appeals for quantity and drawing the average school goer into cricket, the other cries for quality and maintenance of existing talent.
To be fair, some of Ganguly’s replacements mentioned above did not lack quality, but, they simply weren’t well-rounded cricketers. I would say that we were lucky to have chanced upon these talents, despite the inherently flawed (and reportedly corrupt) set up, just due to the sheer volume of youngsters playing cricket. It becomes even more important to develop these youngsters and provide them with the intangibles to make them into cricketers are ready to face any team anywhere. Achieving such competence in a sport that is heavily influenced by conditions can be a tiring exercise. The obvious solution is developing a strong meritocratic domestic circuit mirroring the Australian system but this process will take time. But there are elementary changes that can cause a great deal of improvement. First, we must make sure that the Ranji and Duleep trophy games should truly push the players to play with a greater sense of competition. A drawn game should be awarded no points as opposed to split points, this automatically increases the value of winning. Along with this, we should consider having a rigorous calendar for our domestic cricket requiring more commitment from players irrespective hectic the international schedule is. There is no reason to play a meaningless 1 test, 3 ODI series against any opposition. As much these games destroy the context of the series, it also bores away your genuine viewer and well wisher. At this era where information and data are considered to be huge assets, we should be taking cues out of how Australia conducts its Matador Cup and Sheffield Shield. Making our local games meaningful and more competitive will not only help identify talent better, but will in itself provide intangible qualities such as tenacity and gamesmanship to the players playing at that stage.
In cricket in general but more specifically applicable to India, scoring and taking wickets in alien conditions still remains the holy grail. As we lay back in our couches trumpeting the commercial success of Indian cricket, other Cricket Boards are working hard at bettering their systems. Money has never been the issue for BCCI, it has always been about how the money is used. The lack of both initiative and innovation is appalling. One idea is that, every year, we can pick 15 cricketers from the domestic system and 5 wildcards from the IPL (the IPL has in some cases been a good stage for few cricketers that have otherwise been dragged down by nepotism and bias in their domestic circuits). Instead of sending these cricketers to the casualty ward that we call the NCA, we could send them to what I like to call a “finishing school”. The initiation process for these younsters should have legends like Sachin, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath rubbing shoulders with these cricketers and working on their technique. Nothing inspires greatness as greatness itself. Also this need not be an elaborate set up, but rather just a 20 day boot-camp following the IPL. However it is important that this should be an annual tradition and be marketed as an award or honour for youngsters. Nothing will fire up a young cricketer more than the opportunity to work with their childhood heroes.
This pool of 20 cricketers could then go to England, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia (the assumption being that they are already good in Indian conditions) and participate in their domestic circuits. Stats clearly indicate that players mature nicely when they make their second and third tours in overseas conditions. So, why not make their International senior debut a second coming? Even though it may or may not translate to long term success for each individual, the experience of playing in each condition will provide flexibility in team selection and tactics when touring overseas. This “fellowship” programme should be seen as a gateway to senior cricket and getting awarded this will itself serve as the driving force behind our domestic system. Rome was not built in a day. But it is disheartening for a fan to see his team perpetually stuck in a “building” phase and constantly underachieving. The only way to pull out of the doldrums is iterative improvement, and a systematic approach to physical and mental conditioning. Such trivial measures maybe a small step for the board but it’s a giant leap towards not disappointing the educated cricket enthusiast.
By Jeyenth Veerarahavan
Rahul Dravid, at his MAK Pataudi lecture was critical about the nature of wickets dished out for the Ranji games. He even talked at length about how kids should be given a fair chance during school cricket by rotating them for matches and suggested the idea of a batsman retiring after he scores a 50 or 100. He reckons that this in turn will drive more kids to take up the game now they have a fair chance of succeeding. One can only admire the simplicity of the solution. In a post retirement interview, Virender Sehwag was at his cynical best while talking about corruption in the Delhi Cricket Board during player selection. After being dropped from the Indian team, he indicated that he had been constantly playing the Ranji Trophy and claimed that Mohit Sharma broke down with an injury purely because of playing back to back games at 2 different places with just 2 days of rest in between. While the changes that Dravid proposes will need work from the ground up, the problems that Sehwag sheds light on are battles we shouldn’t be fighting at at all. In the end they are two side of the same problem. While one appeals for quantity and drawing the average school goer into cricket, the other cries for quality and maintenance of existing talent.
To be fair, some of Ganguly’s replacements mentioned above did not lack quality, but, they simply weren’t well-rounded cricketers. I would say that we were lucky to have chanced upon these talents, despite the inherently flawed (and reportedly corrupt) set up, just due to the sheer volume of youngsters playing cricket. It becomes even more important to develop these youngsters and provide them with the intangibles to make them into cricketers are ready to face any team anywhere. Achieving such competence in a sport that is heavily influenced by conditions can be a tiring exercise. The obvious solution is developing a strong meritocratic domestic circuit mirroring the Australian system but this process will take time. But there are elementary changes that can cause a great deal of improvement. First, we must make sure that the Ranji and Duleep trophy games should truly push the players to play with a greater sense of competition. A drawn game should be awarded no points as opposed to split points, this automatically increases the value of winning. Along with this, we should consider having a rigorous calendar for our domestic cricket requiring more commitment from players irrespective hectic the international schedule is. There is no reason to play a meaningless 1 test, 3 ODI series against any opposition. As much these games destroy the context of the series, it also bores away your genuine viewer and well wisher. At this era where information and data are considered to be huge assets, we should be taking cues out of how Australia conducts its Matador Cup and Sheffield Shield. Making our local games meaningful and more competitive will not only help identify talent better, but will in itself provide intangible qualities such as tenacity and gamesmanship to the players playing at that stage.
In cricket in general but more specifically applicable to India, scoring and taking wickets in alien conditions still remains the holy grail. As we lay back in our couches trumpeting the commercial success of Indian cricket, other Cricket Boards are working hard at bettering their systems. Money has never been the issue for BCCI, it has always been about how the money is used. The lack of both initiative and innovation is appalling. One idea is that, every year, we can pick 15 cricketers from the domestic system and 5 wildcards from the IPL (the IPL has in some cases been a good stage for few cricketers that have otherwise been dragged down by nepotism and bias in their domestic circuits). Instead of sending these cricketers to the casualty ward that we call the NCA, we could send them to what I like to call a “finishing school”. The initiation process for these younsters should have legends like Sachin, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath rubbing shoulders with these cricketers and working on their technique. Nothing inspires greatness as greatness itself. Also this need not be an elaborate set up, but rather just a 20 day boot-camp following the IPL. However it is important that this should be an annual tradition and be marketed as an award or honour for youngsters. Nothing will fire up a young cricketer more than the opportunity to work with their childhood heroes.
This pool of 20 cricketers could then go to England, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia (the assumption being that they are already good in Indian conditions) and participate in their domestic circuits. Stats clearly indicate that players mature nicely when they make their second and third tours in overseas conditions. So, why not make their International senior debut a second coming? Even though it may or may not translate to long term success for each individual, the experience of playing in each condition will provide flexibility in team selection and tactics when touring overseas. This “fellowship” programme should be seen as a gateway to senior cricket and getting awarded this will itself serve as the driving force behind our domestic system. Rome was not built in a day. But it is disheartening for a fan to see his team perpetually stuck in a “building” phase and constantly underachieving. The only way to pull out of the doldrums is iterative improvement, and a systematic approach to physical and mental conditioning. Such trivial measures maybe a small step for the board but it’s a giant leap towards not disappointing the educated cricket enthusiast.
By Jeyenth Veerarahavan
Friday, January 15, 2016
Episode 6: Sharma, Sran, South Africa and Some other things
What is the exact talent that the very talented Rohit Sharma has? Who is Barinder Sran? Why are South Africa failing? These and many other questions, the team takes a look.
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