The Indian team has been hit by a transitional phase and
poor collective form simultaneously. Lack of long-term planning in the recent
past doesn’t help in this situation either. The results and the lack of options
emphasize that the Indian team management has not been prepared for immediate life
in the absence of the legendary core. The fall-outs? India has had 14 new test
caps and 16 in ODI’s in the last 3 years and yet the pool of squad doesn’t
resonate of being a stable one. The new addition to the list of ODI debutants would
be Cheteshwar Pujara. Almost everybody saw it coming, but personally I am a
little apprehensive about him being pushed into the colored jersey at this
moment. The concern is not whether he can play one-day cricket, but more about
the timing of his entry in this format.
When Gambhir was going through a purple patch 3 seasons ago,
everybody felt India had found its Mr. Technique. Push in a couple of IPL
seasons and hordes of 50-over series and Gambhir is finding it hard to
rediscover his touch and his dismissals are exaggerating the flaws in his ‘technique’.
R Ashwin burst on to the scene with a couple of brilliant series with the ball
and bat. Harbhajan’s waning form and Ashwin’s rise coincided and Ashwin was
promoted as India’s top spinner. Two seasons later Ashwin’s variations are not
novel anymore and his stock deliveries aren’t penetrative enough.
Too much cricket is the ‘taken-for-granted’ reason for such
observations, but rather too much of too different cricket could be one. Rohit
Sharma is often slammed for not exercising his talent to deliver, and rightly
so, but is he allowed to play the right format for his game? Similarly Ashwin’s
bunch of magic deliveries is a delightful package for a 4-over/10-over spell
but is found wanting when he is expected to bowl 20-25 overs a day. Gambhir’s
dabs behind square are a by-product of generating a run-scoring option in
limited overs cricket.
Certain players are excellent for a certain format and a
misfit for a different format, and there should be no shame in accepting that.
Certain players are flexible enough to adapt seamlessly, a few others cannot. Raina’s
impeccable finishing abilities have very few parallels in world cricket at the
moment, but given his style of play at the moment, he cannot be India’s
mainstay in test cricket over a period of time. It is time to recognize these
facts and get the meticulous conservative money saving attitude into
selections: invest the right players for the right formats, and freeze their
potentials to one format (if they are found inadequate for other forms). Pujara
may click in the one-day format and this experience may enhance his potential
as a batsman, but isn’t there a possibility of losing a technically correct
pivot in the traditionally stroke-player full test line-up, especially during
his budding years? Isn’t it a valid suggestion to ask for a certain set of
bowlers to play only one kind of cricket?
The team and the fans should come out of the denial mode and
accept that the team is devoid of legends. Those playing might be great-players-in-the-making
but let us not force them to breach the fine line between good and great. The
timing of early days in international cricket could be dissimilar for different
players. Pujara’s test debut came at a time when the team was the number one
side, but he enters the ODI squad when the team is on SOS mode! In India (and
probably true for other sub-continental sides as well) every new promising talent
that performs immediately is touted as the next Sachin, Dravid, Kumble or
Zaheer. If the Tendulkars and Kumbles of the world came along so easily then
Indian cricket could have had a completely different story to tell.
The underlying message is to let young players trace their own paths. A team in a transitional phase is expected to find a new
process, long-term options and not very high success rates; Indian
fans/followers should accept that and back the team through this phase and the
management should indulge in those processes keeping the bigger picture in
mind.
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