Category: Cricket

The first test between India and Pakistan featured Test cricket at its best. There was plenty for both batsmen and bowlers and each session was hard fought. The second Test on the other hand seems to have swung to the other end of the spectrum. Nothing can be more boring than one team amassing 600+ runs on a dead pitch on the first two days of the match. Players who haven’t had the pleasure of scoring a century for years are able to do so at ease. Bowlers seem to be lining up to be flogged. To make matters worse Pakistan went into this match with two unfit bowlers!

It is not in the least bit surprising that less than a full house turned up at Eden Gardens despite the fact that an international match was being held in Kolkata after many years. It is about time the BCCI used it’s big bucks to turn out some sporting pitches. At the domestic level Indian cricket can be well seved by preparing fast, green pitches.

Pakistan could still self-destruct on the final day. However, it doesn’t justify the preparation of such pathetic pitches for Test matches.

Sounds like Gary Kirsten has the job of coach. It also sounds like the BCCI went to the other end of the spectrum after Greg Chappell. If Gary’s cricketing style and career are a measure of his nature then its likely that India have found a dogged, committed, hard-working individual. However, it might just be a case of “good guy, bad timing”

The question that does come to mind. Does Team India really need a coach at this stage?

India has won the T20 and appears to be going strong in this form of the game. Likewise on the Test front India under Kumble has started to perform well. The ODI team under Dhoni also appears to be under fair bit of control. Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad are already around to focus on specific areas of the game.

Then why bother with a new coach at this stage?

Under these circumstances it might have been best to appoint Kumble as both Coach and Captain. This way, he gets to hang out and bond with the younger folks who play the other forms of the game. Kumble can certainly add as much value if not more than Kirsten himself. Adding Kirsten to the mix especially at a time when things are going fairly well for India might be a needless complication.

It all boils down to continuing lack of professionalism on the part of BCCI.

It is highly possible that Gary Kirsten took the job without even meeting the other stalwarts in the team besides the captain. While it might sound like being beyond the scope of normal procedure, it makes sense for him to have done this. Given the god-like status of someone like Tendulkar, it makes a lot of sense for Kirsten to have chatted with Sachin (and possibly the David, Ganguly, Dhoni) before taking the job of coach even if the BCCI did not facilitate this. One can only hope that he did.

Karthick weak link? 

Dinesh Karthick’s failure in both innings is bound to raise some questions. While its true that he has scored a lot of runs this year, never before has he been tested by genuine quick bowling. All his Test runs have been scored against Bangladesh and an English team minus its top bowlers. Secondly, until now, Karthick has hardly ever opened the innings even for his home state of Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, the Indian selectors have a track record of destroying many players by forcing them to open the innings in Test matches. It makes little sense to continue this experiment at the Test level when a regular opener like Gautam Gambhir is in such prime form. The left-right combination at the top of the order will add some variety to the batting as well.

Karthick is an ideal ODI and T20 player for the second half of the overs. He is better equipped at innovative stroke play than conventional technically sound batting, which is what is required in Test cricket. Along with his excellent fielding and backup wicket keeping abilities he makes a versatile addition to the T20/ODI team.

It is fair to continue to try Karthick in Tests based on his success this past year. But the move to try him as an opener was the wrong one in the first place. It would be great to see him succeed against the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Umar Gul, but I don’t believe the odds are high.

The sad news for Karthick is that if he fails in the remaining Tests, he might find himself out of all three teams. He has already been dropped from the ODI team and did not make it to the T20 playing eleven. With Dhoni in-charge in these two forms of the game, Karthick might be running out of time. Ironically, if he retains his place in the Test team with a good innings or two in this series, he might bolster his case for a place in the other two teams!

Never in the recent past has a captain been so forthright and candid about team composition. His comment about Yuvraj is commendable not so much for the merit of the decision but the mindset that drove the comment. The only other country where this happens is in Australia, where seasoned, experienced players are given the support needed while youngsters have to wait and pay their dues before they can make it to the team on a permanent basis. With this one statement Kumble should have earned further support and confidence of the seniors while sending youngsters a clear message that each slot in the team has to be earned, and that some time this might require an extra wait period. He also went on to add that in the near future the Indian batting will revolve around Yuvraj. This should give Yuvraj some consolation and continued hunger for the Test spot.

If press reports are to be believed (TOI announced that Dhoni was going to be named captain, while it turned out to be Kumble) it appears that India is ready to experiment in the last ODI. There is no question that this is a great opportunity to explore some new talent. It is important to take this experiment all the way without half measures. Experimenting with a Rohit Sharma in the middle order and opening the innings with Tendulkar in such prolific form makes little sense. Including young players in the team is of use only if they are given full exposure. 

As for the rest of then team, Sehwag who should consider himself lucky to be in the team must be given a chance to redeem himself at the top of the order, Gambhir could return to his opening slot, Uthappa could be promoted back to his number 3 position, followed by Rohit Sharma. Lastly, India would do well to revert back to the five bowler combination because ultimately India needs five bowlers including an all-rounder (Irfan Pathan) to be able to win consistently. This means India would do well to rest Sachin, Ganguly, RP Singh, and Zaheer Khan for this game.

The decision to give Kumble the top job in Test cricket is a commendable move. Dhoni has shown the right signs to be capable of the job, but it won’t hurt for him to play some more Test cricket before taking on the task in the future. Kumble is a certainty in the team, does not play ODI cricket and has utmost a couple of years to go before retirement. So giving Kumble the job is uncomplicated. Besides, it is a fitting response to someone who has served Indian cricket so well over the years but has got a lot less of the conventional recognition that is mostly reserved for batsmen and all-rounders.

Cricket has evolved to a point where there are three distinct forms of the game. It is a little surprising that more teams don’t go in for different teams for different forms of the game. Even the mighty Aussies are struggling to dominate the T20 form.

Being the numero uno in T20 and having a large talent pool, perhaps its a good time for India to take the lead in having different teams. For instance, India could very easily have two good teams each for Tests and ODI.

Take a look at India’s recent captains – Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar. Dravid simply didn’t have the stomach for politics. It appears that he really couldn’t influence the team make up to his liking and had to play with what he got. Being a thinking, conscientious cricketer, he probably figured that he couldn’t make a difference as captain in the long run and hence he’d rather just contribute to the team than have to deal with the rest of the baggage. Little did he know that he might find himself out of the team under the guise of a flimsy excuse of lack of form!

Dravid’s predecessor, Saurav Ganguly came closest to possessing the right mix of qualities and a good chunk of luck. Unfortunately, over time he clearly fell short on cricketing abilities. He simply wasn’t good enough to retain his place in the team and he wasn’t as self-confident or gracious as Dravid to walk away or step aside at the right time.

Tendulkar landed the job at a very difficult time, when India was struggling for talent and was up against the most formidable of oppositions. Besides, the team was way too dependent on him at that point. In other words, he came to the job with way too much baggage to start with! 

MS Dhoni who has been on the job for a few months now has had a dream honeymoon period. A brand new form of the game where he was one of the undisputed senior players (along with Yuvraj), with the big three out of the picture, served as a terrific start. This was promptly followed by a couple of domestic tours. His promotion to ODI captaincy has been a nice upgrade from T20. The T20 World Cup victory has more than added to his stature. In this short period of time he has shown that he might just have the right mix of skills to succeed on the job. Here are a few signs.

• Dhoni spoke highly of the “out of control” Sreesanth (saying we need some aggressive folks around). However, he quietly dropped him from the playing eleven in favor of RP Singh when the young man could not back up his on the field antics with a good show with the ball. He made the right decision without getting caught up in all hype about the lead man in India’s newly found on-the- field aggressiveness.

• He makes it a point to always speak highly of Yuvraj whom he referred to as his “trump card” during the T20 World Cup. Considering that Yuvral was pipped for the captaincy at one point, and has been around longer than Dhoni himself, he seems to have established a good working relationship and figured out a way to get the best out of the man who is known to be full of himself (as per Greg Chappel). A sure sign that Dhoni has the skill to handle big egos.

• Despite Sehwag (another prospective captain at one-time) making it to the team, Dhoni favored Gambhir (his point man for T20 victories) in the playing eleven, saying that Gambir has been preferred over others (“meaning Dinesh Karthik” who was favored in England) and has never been given a steady stream of chances despite performing well. (It remains to be seen if Gambhir finds his way to the Test team ahead of Dinesh Karthick). Surely he has earned some serious loyalty from Gambhir in a fairly short period while signaling that present form is more important than past records.

• His decision to promote himself ahead of Yuvraj Singh in the first ODI against Pakistan was a master stroke. He knew that the target was achievable and that there was no real pressure to demand big hits. The situation demanded a cool head and steady batting. He trusted his abilities and backed himself to provide the stability. A move Rahul Dravid would have certainly had adopted if he were captain. The left right combination served to further legitimize the move. A perfect sign of a self-assured batsmen and a tactful captain.

• Then, the dropping of Dravid. When asked about Dravid’s dropping for the last ODI against Australia, Dhoni replied with a now trademark disarming smile that he was “rested“. Following this Dravid was dropped from the team for the first two ODIs. It is easy to brush this aside saying that Dhoni had little to do with it. It has been argued that this is a first step towards planning for a future beyond the Big 3 (Rahul, Saurav and Sachin) . If this is the case, its hard to imagine that this step was taken without the captain’s acquiescence. Besides, if Dhoni felt that Dravid was critical to the team he could very well have put his foot down and demanded his inclusion just as Dravid had fought for Sehwag’s spot during the World Cup. A clear sign that Dhoni is looking ahead into the future.

• Finally, the man himself has grown from a small town boy from Jharkhand to a national iconic figure to say the least, in a very short span of time. Bollywood’s latest newbie, Deepika Padukone has been linked to the young man already. For probably the first time in India’s sporting history has emerged a man who has a cult following of sorts. His aggressive hard hitting batting style has placed him well ahead of Sachin, Yuvraj, Sehwag and others on the popularity charts. Everyone from Bollywood stars to young kids seem to have taken to his hairstyle en masse. And at the peak of the mania, Dhoni goes in for a deep hair cut! Surely the man is not afraid of change.

Clearly, MS Dhoni has a lot going for him. His off the field persona combined with his on the field performance might just be the sort of leadership qualities that Team India needs. However, it remains to be seen how he handles the pressure when the team starts to lose heavily. The Australian tour will be a good test of Dhoni’s ability to handle pressure, even if he were not made the captain of the Test team.

Does all this mean that Dhoni is the best man to lead Team India in Tests at the present moment? This might be a moot point now that Tendulkar has declined the offer. The selectors might have no choice but to hand Dhoni the job.

Some have it easy. Virendra Sehwag is certainly one of them. Despite continued poor performances, Sehwag has returned to the ODI team riding on one good batting performance in the Challenger series. The Week had recently reported that The All India Jat Progressive Front (AIJPF) had approached Pawar to give Sehwag another chance! Sounds like the meeting certainly paid off.

Dropping a player of Dravid’s class to include Sehwag makes no sense whatsoever and completely lacks justification. On the other hand a far more deserving player player like Badrinath continues to have to wait his time to make it to the team despite terrific performances. Gautam Gambhir on the other hand fully deserved his return to the team. Praveen Kumar’s inclusion is a good attempt at exploring some all rounders.

p.s: When asked “Rahul Dravid was a regular in the middle order. Now that he has been dropped, who do you think can take his place?”

Chairman Dilip Vengsarkar said:

At this stage Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir are the middle-order batsmen, and waiting in the wings are Manoj Tiwari, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma. So we have a lot of options.

Notice that Dinesh Karthick, Robin Uthappa and Badrinath or not on his radar!