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?"

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

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.

Episode 5 - Rajkot vs. Pune and Eng vs. SA

The crew reviews the free agents picked by the 2 new IPL franchises at Pune and Rajkot. We also do a positional battle style preview of different player groups in the upcoming England Vs South Africa series.

The Pujara Puzzle

In recent times, no one has confused the Indian cricket fan as much as Cheteshwar Pujara. For many bastsmen, the Test debut is one of their greatest career moments. But with Pujara, one always felt that it was a mere ceremonial humdrum. He worked his way into the India team as an experienced cricketer in the domestic circuit. For once, rationale prevailed over bias within the Indian selection committee. Pujara walked in at a comfortable situation of 3-346 on a dead Bangalore wicket in 2010 after Vijay and Sachin had grounded Australia into submission. He failed to live up to his hype and failed in his first innings, after missing a swerving in-dipper from a rampaging Mitchell Johnson. The fan in me felt bad for Pujara and such a failure can be considered sacrilege. One can only imagine what must have gone through Pujara’s head at that time. After serving time at domestic cricket, he finally got his chance in the international scene and failed to capitalize on it. Two days later, chasing 207 for victory, M.S.Dhoni gave another opportunity to Pujara and made him bat at number three ahead of Rahul Dravid. Pujara grabbed the chance, played with resolute confidence. He showed an appetite for hard fought test cricket and made a flawless 72 . Even the purists in the commentary box were left with no faults to pick on. This was working proof that the Indian domestic circuit could still churn out players of high quality. It was poetic that this had to happen at Bangalore with Rahul Dravid watching from the dressing room.

Fast forward 6 years to 2015, to the second innings of the Delhi test where Pujara once again had settled into his innings after facing over 100 balls. With India comfortably ahead of South Africa in the game, on a pitch that didn’t pose any imminent threat, one expected India’s hardworking number three batsman to get a huge score. Disappointingly, as it has been with Pujara in recent times, he missed and got bowled to a straight ball from Imran Tahir. This was not the first time cricket analysts and fans scratched their head wondering why Pujara hasn’t become the cricketer he set out to be. Objectively, any problem with batting in Test Cricket can be categorized into either a technical or a temperamental problem. If ever one had seen Pujara bat, one would know for sure that he does not have an issue with temperament. He has a combination of calmness and opportunistic aggression, like that of a pugilist monk. So what is wrong with Pujara? Taking a closer look at his technique, one finds that Pujara’s trusted game is the classic straight dead bat defense. It is beautiful to watch, the bat comes down straight and meets the ball in front of the left pad. But, the caveat is that this doesn’t work well when the lateral movement on the ball is subtle. When you try to meet the ball in front of the pad on the front foot, a small gap is created between bat and pad. When the lateral movement on the ball is subtle, the odd one will sneak through this gap to hit off stump. This is the reason why you see bowlers that like to hit the deck troubling Pujara more than the traditional swing bowlers with obvious lateral movement. Against spinners, such a defense has often been hailed as kryptonite as you remove the possibility of being leg before wicket. But against bowlers who are willing to flight the ball and give it a rip, one is bound to lose sight of the ball for a fraction of a second when trying to play in front of your pad. Instinctively one tends to play for the turn in this case, and when it doesn’t turn as much as expected, you tend to miss the ball. It goes without saying that a bowler has to be immensely accurate to exploit this weakness and given the mental strength and tactical nous of Pujara, he invariably makes an assured 30 before someone eventually gets to this flaw. In the six innings that Pujara has played in the test series against South Africa, he has been bowled out three times. Once to Kyle Abbot, and once each to Tahir and Duminy, both being on balls that did not turn as much as expected. As much as one tries to dissect and delineate Pujara’s technique, one does not find anything wrong other than the aforementioned chink in his armory. It is even more puzzling that the pattern has been very evident for more than a year now. 

Article by Jeyenth Veerarahavan.

Episode 4 - Pitch Perfect

The Fast Appeal Podcast team discuss the impact that pitches have in the outcome of test matches and whether the use of rank turners in the India Vs. South Africa series can be considered unfair. Among other things we also give our initial impressions of day night test matches based on the Adelaide test.

Episode 3 - Pink balls

With the first day night test imminent upon us, the Fast Appeal podcast team goes ahead to speculate the implications of various aspects of day-night test matches and pink colored balls. We also preview and make some bold predictions about the India vs SA test match at Nagpur.