The Test team that isn’t

One of the members of the Indian team, to whom I had sent a congratulatory SMS Sunday evening, responded with this: It’s been a long time coming — we’ve dreamed of this and worked towards this all our playing lives; feels good. Now to maintain it.

Therein lies the catch: sometime early next year if not sooner, India will find itself overtaken in the rankings, for no fault of the team’s.

When a Simon Wilde writes that India does not “deserve” to be number one, it’s difficult not to take issue. The team has worked towards this; it has gone from a group labeled the worst travelers in cricket to a side that holds its own even when playing away from home. And it made it to the top of the table thanks to a points system it did not devise — the same points system, incidentally, that saw England being named the number two side in the world even as it was on a hiding to nothing in the Ashes series Down Under.

While Wilde, thus, is easy to dismiss, Jamie Pandaram’s piece in the Sydney Morning Herald is more on the money. Ignore the bit about surveys showing that only seven percent of Indians like Tests — a survey is as good as the sample, and a 500-or-so sample size is no way indicative of the mood of a nation of one billion plus [besides, checked out the crowds that turned up, especially in Kanpur and at the Brabourne?]. Ignore, too, the bit where Pandaram keeps talking of the paucity of home Tests — the larger point is, we are just not playing enough Tests, period.

A Rahul Dravid or VVS Laxman, for instance, will get to play two Tests against Bangladesh in December this year. They were then slated to play three home Tests against South Africa in February — but the FTP cryptically says they will be ‘rescheduled’ — a euphemism for maybe some other year, if at all. Effectively, thus, the Test team will wait till May 2010 before, hold your breath, playing Zimbabwe in two Tests. Then we wait till sometime in November, when we host New Zealand for three Tests, before going to South Africa in December 2010 for three Tests. That is a grand total of 8 Tests over a 12-month span, including a — with all due respect — no-account series against Zimbabwe. In that same span we will play 17 ODIs besides the Asia Cup — and the schedule for India makes plenty of room for the IPL and Champions League.

While Pandaram’s piece gets side-tracked [incidentally, the likes of SMH and Wilde might want to note that as this is written, Australia at home has been outplayed, and is struggling to stave off defeat against a West Indies side currently ranked number 8 -- the lowest in its history], Cricinfo nails the main point down:

During the period in which India have only two Tests – against Bangladesh – to maintain a hold on their No. 1 position, South Africa play at least four and Australia eight. A 2-0 win against Bangladesh isn’t likely to give India too many ratings points either, so they could be overtaken depending on how South Africa do against England, and how Australia go against West Indies and Pakistan at home, and in the away series in New Zealand and against Pakistan in England.

”We just go out and play whatever is scheduled,” Gary Kirsten is quoted as saying. A current member of the side put it more pithily: “We’ve dreamed of the number one rating from the time John (Wright) [whose effusion here is, knowing the man, not pro forma but comes from the heart] took over as coach. Seems a pity we finally got there only to lose it by default. Not because we are not good enough, but because we won’t play enough.”

That point about working towards a dream was well taken. Anil Kumble — who has done more than his fair share in pushing the team to the top and who, sadly, retired before the final step was taken — writes of just how much the team wanted this, in his latest column:

Almost two years back we sat down and planned for this day, so you can imagine the feeling among all concerned now that the task has been achieved. Back then, we knew that in the next 18 months or so we would play almost every team in the world, either home or away. We made a conscious effort to sit down and discuss the way to the top. The team goal was simple. We were fifth in the rankings and said to ourselves: “Let’s go out there and win every series from here on, as that is the only route to the top.”

The team has done its bit. As, come to think of it, has the BCCI, by its own lights: Rs 25 lakh per player as reward, there you go, quit cribbing and keep in mind we are able to pay you this money because of all the billions we earn through the IPL and assorted ODIs [seven of them against Australia next year, after seven against the same team this year].

Ask the players, and they’ll tell you they’d rather have more Tests. Ask the fans, and they’ll tell you if the BCCI schedules series against South Africa and Australia, billing them as the games that will settle this argument for good and all, we’ll queue up outside the grounds.

The real pity is that captains beginning with Sourav Ganguly, and coaches starting with John Wright, have worked with focus towards building a competitive Test team. Now we have one — but thanks to the Board, we won’t get to see it play as much as it should.

Blast from the past

On his blog, Hindustan Times sports editor Anand Vasu says that by a singular stroke of good fortune, chairman of the national selectors Krish Srikkanth is under no compulsion to explain his actions to the media.

That line made me think — of a series of selection related issues dating back to 1997, in which the central figures were Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin and then chairman of selectors Ramakant Desai. The links below serve as a capsule  history of that period:

The problem began in July 1997, when then captain Sachin Tendulkar participated in, and later stormed out of, a selection committee meeting. Outlook has the story. [From the same era, another instance].

Fast forward to January 5. 1998: at a selection committee meeting, Sachin Tendulkar was sacked, and Mohammad Azharuddin reinstated, as national captain. This is the smoke and mirrors story of how it was done.

The selection committee then announced its team for the ‘Bangladesh Silver Jubilee Independence Cup’ [you will remember that this was the period in Indian cricket when the main purpose of the BCCI/Jagmohan Dalmiya was to organize various jamborees in Bangladesh; the fact that Dalmiya's construction firm at that point in time was doing major business in that country was merely one of those bizarre coincidences. Or was it?]. The practice at the time was for the chairman of the selection committee and the secretary of the BCCI to announce the team list, and then take questions from the media.

That meeting took place at the CCI, in Mumbai. At the time, I had recorded the one memory that, even today, remains vivid:

I came away with one abiding memory — of Desai, unable to answer questions relating to the omission of Rahul Dravid, pounding the table with his fists, the foam of spittle that was the visible symptom of his heart ailment flecking the corners of his mouth.

Four months later, Desai died. Age, and a heart ailment, were the stated reasons; this however was the real cause.

The story has a sequel: two weeks after that January 2008 selection meeting, the BCCI put out a two-line memo, sent to all media offices: ‘It has been decided that in future, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India will read out the team list at the completion of each meeting of the selection committee. No questions will be entertained from the media.’

 

My dear Neo Sports

I must congratulate you on achieving the seemingly impossible: you have managed to make me watch cricket on Doordarshan.

Not because the national broadcaster has suddenly transformed into something rich and strange – not a chance. The images still look like they came out wrong in the color wash, and the Hindi commentators continue to provide spontaneous, if largely unintentional, amusement.

I discovered Doordarshan largely by accident. At some point during Sunday’s ODI at Guwahati, I went to get a cup of tea and came back to find an ad break that stretched interminably. I wondered why: Had drinks been called for? Or did a wicket fall? Was the batsman fiddling with the sightscreen?

I didn’t have a clue. My restless fingers accidentally hit the ‘guide’ button on the remote, and right up top on the list I saw that DD was showing the game. I hopped over – and found that a new batsman was taking strike. So I was right. A wicket had fallen; there were some replays to show where the ball had pitched and where Hawkeye thought it would hit; a new batsman had walked in – and you did not in your wisdom think I’d be remotely interested in any of these things.

Instead, when a ball from Bollinger hit MS Dhoni on the pad, you waited only long enough to see the umpire begin to raise his hand, and you promptly switched to an ad the tag line of which was ‘Dhak Dhak Go!’. Don’t get me wrong – I am truly appreciative of the sense of humor implicit in that choice of advertisement.

But India was on the skids at the time; Dhoni seemed to be digging in to try and author a turnaround and I really wanted to see if that was a fair decision, whether the wicket had fallen because of the bowler’s skill, the batsman’s inability, or the umpire’s idiocy. Instead, I learnt that some form of automobile lubricant is now available in a 90 ml packing and that it costs Shah Rukh Khan only Rs 7 per sachet to keep his good looks.

At that point I switched to DD, and learnt that the ball had landed within the stumps, but was going straight on, which meant that it was possibly missing off stump, which meant that Dhoni’s attempt at revival had been cut short by the umpire.

All of this may not be as important as the fact that lubricants come in 90 ml packages and some brand of skin bleach now costs only seven bucks a go – but what to say, there is no accounting for tastes, and mine run to the cricket, not to being fair and handsome [No point, no, when you reach an age where chance-met lovelies call you ‘uncle’?].

Don’t get me wrong – I know why you have to be quick on the trigger; I appreciate why you squeeze advertisements in at any and all moments when ball and bat are not in close proximity. After all, if you pay Rs 2400 crore to the BCCI, the only way you are going to make it back is by selling as many ad spots as you possibly can, and then cutting every conceivable corner to rack up the play count.

I had hoped that things would change once your four-year contract ended, but I see that you have this cozy deal with the BCCI whereby you have the option of renewing your contract without going through the tedious formalities of a competitive tender.

But see, all that is your problem. Mine is that I want to see as much of the cricket as I possibly can.

Adios.

The more things change…

“You know how it is, boss — nothing has changed,” Robin Singh told me.

He was not talking the day after finding out in the papers that he had been sacked as national fielding coach — this comment was made in 2003, when Robin and I [and Wasim Akram] were guests of the Michigan Cricket Association at its tournament finale and awards gala.

At the time, Robin had not yet officially retired from international cricket, but he had known for a while that his playing career was over, and had made the transition to coaching. He had just had a very good stint with the national under-19 team, so I was surprised when he told me he was in the US seeking a coaching gig with USACA.

I thought you were set as the U-19 coach, I remarked. That is when Robin, with that trademark lopsided grin, told me “You remember how in our playing days we used to call you guys up before every team selection to know if we were going to make it? Nothing has changed — I still need journalists to tell me what is happening in my life.”

‘Robin’ and ’sad’ don’t belong in the same sentence — his chief characteristic is his equipoise, an ability to take whatever comes his way with a smile and a joke. And yet, that was among the saddest things I had ever heard from a professional.

He had, Robin said, been coaching U-19 on someone’s say-so. A board official called him up and told him he had the job; he did it. Through that period, he had no formal meeting with anyone in the board, no contract spelling out his duties, no idea who if anyone he was supposed to report to, and certainly no idea what he was going to be paid and when.

And when it was all over, Robin waited. “I thought someone would call, tell me if they were satisfied or not, tell me what I was supposed to do next. No one called — how long am I supposed to wait?” And so he was in the US, shopping for jobs.

History repeated. Just before the 2007 tour of Bangladesh, Robin got a call telling him he would be fielding coach for the side — a job he has done for a little over two years with no official letter, no contract, and a non-negotiable compensation that was often paid only when Robin reminded the authorities of his existence.

He wasn’t answering his phone last night; had I managed to connect, it is a fair bet that he would have said, “You know how it is — nothing has changed.”

Hiring and firing its employees is of course the BCCI’s prerogative. [Though you have to wonder if they apply to themselves the standards they hold others to. To cite the most recent instance, it is the BCCI's head of the pitches committee, Daljit Singh, who worked from April this year till date to personally produce a wicket at the Firozeshah Kotla that is, not to mince words, a disgrace. All we ever heard on the subject was a laconic 'Oh, new pitches take a year to settle down,' from the man himself; not a yip out of his fellow honchos in the administration.]

But is it too much to ask that the BCCI follow basic principles of human decency while carrying out that function? Would it have been too much for someone in the board to have called Venky Prasad and Robin Singh and told them they were due for the axe, to have spared them the humiliation of finding out from the media?

I’m not making the case that they should have been retained — I don’t know how effective they were. But then, neither does the BCCI — and that august body took its decision without consulting the two people who were in a position to know: the captain and the coach.

Various officials — who, of course, only speak to the media on condition of anonymity — have pointed at the dramatic decline in form of the likes of Ishant Sharma [Cricinfo breaks down his performance] and RP Singh to justify sacking Prasad. In a post on Sreesanth a couple of days ago, I’d linked to Alan Donald’s comments about the bowler’s training habits.

Donald said they had extensive talks about the training routine, and reckoned Sreesanth had plenty of areas to work on. “First of all, his training habits are not good and the way he goes on to the field need to change. Then, he doesn’t put enough time on specifics.”

I’m willing to bet the same is true for Ishant, RP, Irfan and others. Prescribing the training routine and monitoring it is certainly one of the functions of a bowling coach. Was it done, in each of these instances? Did the player concerned follow the coach’s prescription, or just flip him the bird and do his own thing? What are the reasons for the dramatic decline in form of various promising bowlers?

Answers to these and related questions [What lines and lengths does he prescribe for the bowlers for each game, for instance, and how effective is he in identifying what his bowlers need to do in any given set of conditions? For my money, the most effective bowling coach we ever had was Bruce Reid -- who handled a young Irfan and his mates brilliantly on India's tour of Australia, working with the raw newcomers on skills and techniques, and also using his knowledge of local conditions to guide them on how they had to bowl each day, in each game] are the basis on which you can evaluate a bowling coach’s performance.

Did the BCCI carry out such an analysis? No. Did it even seek opinions from the captain, coach, senior players and the bowlers themselves? No.

So what was the basis of the decision to sack Prasad? A whim of the moment. Everyone’s talking about the decline in Ishant, so let’s “take action” — that just about sums up this latest piece of rank idiocy. [Incidentally, if Ishant's bowling is now so beyond the pale as to justify the sacking of his bowling coach, why is the bowler himself still in the team?]

Take the case of fielding standards. For me, one of the joys of IPL-2 was watching the byplay between Herschelle Gibbs at point and Rohit Sharma well inside the ring at cover. They showed off for one another, they took obvious delight in each other’s exploits, they put on a show — and in the process, lifted the overall standards of the team.

Great all-round fielding is a ‘team culture’ thing. You can have very good fielders in a team — Yuvraj, Rohit, Raina — without it being a great fielding unit [Adam Gilchrist, speaking during the presentation ceremony after the Chargers' last loss, said the basics, like good fielding, which "the good teams take pride in", the Chargers just didn't do]. Just as great individual fielding lifts a team, lackadaisical fielding lowers the standards of even the best — and ‘lackadaisical’ is a mild word to describe the Indian team in the field.

How much of this is the fielding coach’s fault? [By way of disclosure: Robin is a friend of long standing]. What training techniques, fielding drills, does the coach use? How rigorously are these prescriptions followed? What authority does the fielding coach have to haul up errant, chronically lazy, players? Can he enforce discipline?

[Some years ago, when our fielding standards or lack thereof became so bad even the apologists ran out of excuses, Jagmohan Dalmiya as then BCCI head made a pompous announcement. He said the national coach and physio had been empowered to be strict with the players; that at the start of the preparatory camp each player would be put through the beep and other tests, and any who failed would not be considered for selection. The outcome? Five senior players flat out refused to take the test. The coach called the selectors to report. The selectors called Dalmiya. Dalmiya instructed them to pick the players anyway. All five were selected.]

None of this concerns the BCCI. It hired a bowling coach and a fielding coach when it felt like it; it sacked them, ditto.

And to compound the irony, it says it is in no rush to hire replacements. Explain this to me?

Item: Our bowling standards have fallen off. Item: Our fielding is pathetic.

So ‘action’ is taken — the bowling and fielding coaches are sacked. \

And we now head into a seven-game series against the world’s number one outfit with a pack of off-form bowlers and hopeless fielders — and the board says there is absolutely no hurry to provide them with coaches in these two disciplines?

Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

PS: Happy Diwali, everyone. Heading into a three and a half day weekend; barring an odd post or two later today, am off blog till Tuesday.

Cricket clips

1. It’s all in the mind’s eye, says Aakash Chopra in the latest installment of his series on cricket from the pov of a player.

2. Peter Roebuck suggests that cricket, like every other sport, needs its majors to sustain audience interest — and if the Champions’ Trophy hasn’t filled that need, it is largely due to the disrespect shown by Australia and England. Tripling the points to be made by winning games at the CT and World Cup level is one interesting suggestion. I’d add one other: limit the field to the six top teams; eight clearly doesn’t fit Roebuck’s prescription of thrilling encounters and no dud games.

3. So the BCCI has realized that it cannot arbitrarily terminate existing contracts, and wisely come to a face-saving accommodation with the IMG [On his Twitter stream, Lalit Modi says the agreement is for the next eight years]. Per the revision, the IMG will be paid Rs 27 crore for its annual services for conducting the IPL, as against the IMG’ demand for Rs 33 crore. Lalit Modi on Twitter says the agreement with IMG is for the next eight years. The six crore downward revision satisfies the associations, which hope to get a slice of the money thus saved — what it leaves unresolved is the larger power struggle pitting Lalit Modi against N Srinivasan. Wait for the next manifestation, like boils on an ailing body. [Earlier IMG-related posts here, here, and here.]

4. An outstanding second part to the Younis Khan interview by Osman Samiuddin. On ODI reform:

We have already changed cricket so much, with Twenty20, super sixes in ODI tournaments, Powerplays in ODIs. If we make so many changes then will it stay the same game? It’s very easy now in a sense. You can decide and pick whether you want to play ODI, Test or Twenty20 cricket. You can get satisfaction from each format, so why the need to change so much?

Some changes, like umpiring referrals, they make sense. That works across the board, and is a good thing. But if you break up an ODI match into four innings, into little pieces, then you are changing the whole thing, it isn’t cricket anymore. It’s like playing American football or something, where you are taking time-outs and some such.

I think we need to promote Test cricket in its own sense, ODI in its own sense and Twenty20 in its own sense. You cannot try and make Tests like Twenty20s or ODIs like Tests. They are separate formats. Promote them equally and separately and appreciate them.

And on the downside of T20s:

In this sense, when I see youngsters today, whoever is preparing, they don’t ever say, “I am about to go and run five laps of the ground, or go for half an hour to the gym.” They say, “We only have to play a three-hour Twenty20 match; we only have to hit shots in that.” Every youngster is thinking this right now: it’s only a three-hour match, so you don’t need to train so much. You just need to hit the ball hard, win a match and take winnings. This is like life – everyone is going for the shortcut. But the shortcut will not always work in life; sometimes you need to work hard for things.

5. Incoming WICB chief Ernest Hilaire says the trick to arresting the meltdown of West Indies cricket lies in learning to work with the players’ association. Nice — but the proof of the pudding, etc. Every new boss WICB has had in recent times has kicked off with the suggestion that the board and the WIPA need to learn to co-exist; thus far, none of them has managed to walk that talk, so for now everything is in wait and watch mode. The first real indication of whether Hilaire can reverse the trend will come when the Windies team to tour Australia is announced; it will be full strength, promises the incoming chief, and that should delight Ricky Ponting, who has been expressing concern at the prospect of facing a scratch XI Down Under.

Narendra Modi heads Gujarat cricket

Narendra Modi has taken over the reins of the Gujarat Cricket Association and, in trademark fashion, hit the ground running.

“There is much to do in cricket world except playing the game by ball and bat in the field,” Modi said.

“I will sit with co-members of GCA to form a blueprint of development of cricket, how to give it a professional touch, development of cricket by an integrated approach and attracting youths towards sports by using the popularity of Cricket,” he further said.

Ho-kay! We are all agreed that this is a good thing.

“It is a very good development. The CM will now be closer to the issues of cricket in the state and will give impetus to cricketing activities. I congratulate him and wish him luck in his new endeavour,” said Chirayu Amin, BCCI vice-president and BCA president.

When asked how Modi as GCA president would help the game, Amin said, “Any issues involving state agencies will get quick clearance.”

The reporter left the logical next question unasked: Name one such issue, please, that currently does not get quick clearance?

Before you read into this another ‘anti-Modi rant’ from a ‘pseudo-secular pseudo-intellectual or pseudo-secular-intellectual’ or whatever, my grouse, and question, is this: have you ever wondered why every damned politician in the country is in recent years hell bent on improving the state of Indian cricket? [At this rate, pretty soon election manifestos of the various political parties will have a section on the game].

Ask the question and the answer you will get is, cricket is important to so many people, it is a religion in this country, it provides amusement to so many of us, so of course it is the politician’s duty to do what he can for the betterment of the sport…

The answer you won’t get is, cricket generates as much money as the top industries do; there is no way I can wiggle into top positions in top industries but heck, I can sneak into cricket administration quite easily, and once there, there is tons of money to be made. By me. For me.

Hence, cricket is now a full-fledged battleground for not just ambitious individuals but for political parties [remember the problems Lalit Modi  -- who, incidentally, is the only individual to merit an entry in this wiki list of cricket associations, and how cool is that? -- faced after Vasundhara Raje lost Rajasthan?]:

GCA was till now controlled by Congress leader Narhari Amin. But Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah was engaged in long drawn political as well as legal battle with Amin group for the last one and half year for the control of cash rich GCA.

Recently, the BJP had managed to win over the Central Board of Cricket of Ahmedabad (CBCA) which is a part of GCA from the Congress group, after which Amin had resigned.

See? The BJP and the Congress, as represented by Amit Shah and Narhari Amin, are so hell bent on improving cricket in Gujarat, they have been fighting a legal and political battle for a year and a half now — and here you were thinking politicians didn’t care.

So anyway, since we have reached a point where you can’t keep politicians out of cricket even with a court injunction, I have a suggestion: the BCCI should just amend its constitution to say that the chief minister of each state automatically becomes the head of the respective cricket association.

Why not? At the least, it puts and end to these power struggles and year-long legal battles and such. And as the BCCI veep pointed out, all issues relating to the state will get single window clearance.

And who knows? Maybe Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu and Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan in Kerala have bright ideas on all the things you can do in the cricket world outside of playing with a bat and ball.

And how about Mayawati as head of the UPCA? At the least, Lucknow will get beautified with statues of her with bat in hand, and what a boost that will be for the development of cricket in the state!

Here’s Ramesh Srivats on Modi & Modi, Inc.