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Way forward for the Fab 4 and the Spin legend…

After witnessing the dismal performances of India’s fabulous 4 and the legendary spinner & captain, I am forced to write that it is time for them to call it a day. Instead of facing axe from the BCCI selectors and getting booed by the public, they should take a decision on their own.

Assessment of the current test team

As I expressed in an earlier post in this blog, they had a chance to rotate these four batsmen to make sure that only two or three of them play in a single match. This would have given opportunity to a budding test cricketer to try his skills and take the challenge along with the experienced. By not doing so, Mr. Kumble (who himself need to be rotated) and co underlines that all oldies will play together until they are chucked out. Reminds me of the Saurav Ganguly era of leadership.

Suggested Roadmap for India’s test team

  • Kumble can be given another test series to help experiment with youngsters and retire himself

  • Rahul Dravid needs to announce his retirement soon after this series as he has nothing more to prove. Rahul has been the main batsman in the middle order for quite some years now and has scored above 10,000 runs each in both versions of the game. It is right time for him to retire!

  • Saurav Ganguly has to retire himself or removed from the squad immediately

  • VVS Laxman may be given a chance to play up in the order for another series and see if he can do better. During the Ganguly era and post that as well, he was always ill-treated with selection as well as batting order experiments

  • Sachin Tendulkar can be given another test match or two to retire gracefully after breaking Brian Lara’s record. There’s no point in persisting with the god forever as in any case Ricky Ponting will over take him in another year or two and Sachin cannot race against time!

  • Both Sachin and Laxman should be given the task of inducting the youngsters into the test mindset over the next couple of months.

The Indian test team has to undergo a major change – mainly in the batting department and I am convinced that heroes like Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni have nothing to do as test batsmen. Of course, Dhoni figures in the scheme of things as a wicket keeper batsman and as a captain. Unfortunately, the selectors and the current captain could not manage the transition in a phasewise manner as they were either afraid of the fans’ reaction back home or were worried about their own place! But if they don’t do it in a fitting manner, it is going to hurt forever – something like the West Indies team went through, when all their great bowlers retired together and then the batsmen, leaving the team in tatters.

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End of Michael Vaughan’s career?

Michael Vaughan’s career seems to be coming to an end soon. Following a poor run in the last few matches and loosing the first two home tests to South Africa, things could not have been any worse for him. Stepping down as the test captain should be a succession+retirement plan devised by the ECB.

There were a number of issues that prevented Michael Vaughan from becoming a great test player. His career, that was started a little bit late in his mid twenties, was always marred by his infamous knee injury. Also, I thought he was not a great believer of spinners and Monty Panesar took some time before getting the nod. As an ODI player, he was a mediocre performed, probably he should not have played ODI cricket at all!

The only reason for anybody to remember Michael Vaughan may be due to his team’s famous Ashes Victory (Recovery) in 2005. In fact, I doubt if Michael played any major role in that – it was Flintoff all the way then!

I hope that England finds a suitable test captain soon. I doubt if KP could be one as I always thought he could be a great ODI and Twenty 20 captain! Burdening him with the test captaincy could spoil his test career! Flintoff has already proven to be a bad captain and a bad boy off the field as well. I feel that if Andrew Strauss gets back to form – he’s showing those intentions – he should be made the test captain and KP the ODI captain!

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Lankan tigers roar!

The first test match between India and Sri Lanka has been something that I was looking forward to due to the changes in umpiring rules. Though it was exciting to see that a couple of umpiring decisions were taken after referrals to third umpire, the whole match was pretty boring with the clueless Indians succumbing to a superior side that was brimming with confidence, skills and professionalism.

Ajanta Mendis, after his heroics in the Asia cup, led by the wizard of spin, gave no chance to the Indians to even put together a decent fight. If you consider the rain affected time, the Lankans managed to beat the Indian in roughly three days, a feat that Australia has been doing for a while.

Momentum favored Lanka

Following their Asia cup win, the Lankans really managed to maintain the momentum. The good thing with them was that the majority of their one-day players also figure in the test team and hence the momentum clearly favored them. The decision to debut Mendis was a great one and the youngster did not disappoint the selectors, his captain and his country men. The Indians on the other hand have been fielding a bunch of middle-aged men that have been lacking match practice and athleticism for a while now.

The Twenty20 hangover

The Indians (and their cricket body) are also not really getting out of their T20 mode yet. Though the side claimed to have the best test batsmen combination on earth, that was only on paper. Moreover, they lacked a game plan against the best spinning side in the world! There have been complaints that the placid pitch did not add to the spirit of the game, but that was only a lame excuse and the batting collapse cannot be forgiven.

In the meanwhile, the Indian cricket think tank is busy taking on ICL and the English Cricket board in order to secure more money via the T20 format for the future as well. They are also helping out Pakistan’s cause to make sure that the Champions trophy is played in the neighbor country. Among all these high profile agenda items, test cricket seems to be taking the backseat. The Sri Lankan board at the same time is reiterating the fact that they have a clear plan for the test cricket. Arjuna Ranatunga even made a statement that the Sri Lankan players should quit IPL 2009 in order to take part in the England tour completely. I liked that attitude of the Lankans.

I hope that in the coming matches, the Indians would regroup and adapt. As I mentioned in the last post, the ideal thing to do was not to play all five or six old men together but rest one at a time and rotate them with youngsters. The case is the same with the spin bowlers as well (even if it would mean that Kumble has to rest in a match). If not, the Indians can expect a 0-2 or even 0-3 loss at the hands of the Lankans.

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BCCI flexes its muscles again!

BCCI has barred VVS Laxman and Piyush Chawla from playing for English counties Nottinghamshire and Hampshire respectively – all because some players from their side are joining the rebel ICL league.

I am not sure if BCCI and its money power is crossing limits. If the English Cricket Board does not have any problem here why should BCCI poke their nose into what the counties might decide? In fact, it’s not just the above two counties, but it seems around 15 counties have their players signed up with ICL!

While VVS Laxman – as an experienced campaigner – would not mind loosing a county stint, the youngster, Piyush Chawla, is loosing a golden chance to play under English conditions. Chawla so far has not got enough international exposure under testing conditions and will be really feeling bad about this whole politics.

Another Twenty20 league!

The English Cricket Board has just announced their Twenty20 championship league that will be starting in 2010. The majority of the league teams will be from English first division counties and only two teams will be participating from outside England. One of them is tipped to be the IPL champions from India.

If all test playing countries start their own annual Twenty20 championship events, I am sure ICC can soon wind up majority of the Test and ODI schedules! And I am really sad that IPL instigated this kind of a trend mainly driven by monetary aspects than feel for cricket.

I am not against the Twenty20 game, in fact I like the shorter version if these championships do not last for more than say 12 or 15 days! If a single event last for 40 or 45 days and 4 or 5 nations start having their own T20 leagues you can imagine what will happen to ‘real cricket’!

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Indian test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka

The Indian team for the test series in Sri Lank has been announced! There are no real surprises after the ODI captain and wicket keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted out of this tour due to the need for some good rest.

The inclusion of Pragyan Ojha and Rohit Sharma into the test squad is the right move. Both of them definitely have shown much more maturity than their age demand and have been professional in their approaches. Ojha could also use this opportunity to play with an experienced spin legend like Anil Kumble. Rohit Sharma, I feel, has nothing more to learn to qualify for the test team but just need to learn to stay at the crease a little longer.

Yuvraj Singh’s omission is a very good message to youngsters that ‘performing in patches’ will not help anybody to be part of the test team. I always thought Yuvi doesn’t have what it takes to play test matches and extremely low on temperament to play longer. He is a poor player against spin bowling and Sri Lanka has some great spinners around right now.

In the pace bowling department, I thought Manpreet Gony could have been given a chance ahead of Munaf Patel as the latter has the history of getting injured or loosing confidence half way through test series, more often than not. Gony is a better batsman and fielder as well. Probably, the selectors are over worried about the fact that Sreesanth is not available for this tour to open along with Zaheer and Ishant Sharma has been looking a little bit different of late as compared to his form in Australia last year. The decision not to consider Irfan Pathan for the sub-continent wickets sounds reasonable as well.

Now that the team is selected, the team think-tank needs to do a couple of things to get the results right and also to nurture the youngsters for the future. As a basic rule probably they should allow only three out of the big five (Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and Sehwag) to play in any match together. Otherwise, the youngsters will not get any chance to perform along with the experienced ones. I hope that Gary Kirsten and Anil Kumble will give some thought to plan towards the future. Also the big six (with Kumble) should realize that time has come for them to rotate and slowly retire over a period of one to one and half years.

Dhoni opts out
Dhoni’s decision to opt out of this test series sounds more like a ‘forced’ supporting act to his statements earlier in the press. While players definitely need some break and probably have rotation policy what they have to cut down is the number of one-dayers and Twenty 20 matches. Hope he gets some good rest and greater number of endorsements during his much needed break from test matches. Or is it a silent protest against the selectors for not considering him for the test captaincy of an aging team?

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Zimbabwe Issue – Political, Racial or Cricket related?

The International Cricket Council (ICC) met this week in Dubai to talk about a number of ‘cricket related’ matters including that of Zimbabwe’s membership status with ICC. The issue probably have been instigated by the English Cricket Board rather than other test playing countries. The compromise or the main outcome of the meeting is that ‘Zimbabwe will pull out of the World Twenty20 championship in the larger interest of the game’ that has to be held in England next year.

I have always wondered if the Zimbabwe issue is really related to cricket or racism. The England players, the English team and even the government there have always been criticizing Zimbabwe for various governance issues other than cricket. Or was it really cricket related? We all know that various white players from that country chose to play for English counties since the last few years. Several English (and some Aussies) players weren’t willing to play there as well. Personally, I feel that Zimbabwe is not such a bad place in terms of human rights, nor is it a target of Uncle Bush for the usual stupid reasons.

Colin Gibson, the ECB spokesperson even made statements such as the tickets for the matches involving Zimbabwe was under sold or were under threat. With the current compromise the plan is to include another associate country (probably not even as good as Zimbabwe) in the Twenty20 championship event. Hope that will result in a packed crowd and will satisfy the Englishmen.

After the ICC meeting, the Zimbabwe delegates also showered praises on big brother BCCI and Powar and co for their strong support, whatever that means. As a token of gratitude, Zimbabwe has agreed to play more matches with India which will definitely improve our flat-pitch bullies‘ batting records, BCCI’s pocket and also the fame that they are the saviors of the underdogs. Also Powar rises to the Nelson Mandela stature now!

If ICC, BCCI and ECB have genuine interest in resurrecting Zimbabwe as a cricket playing nation, they should come up with some proposals to lift their game and even help moneywise, expert help-wise and with some reassurance. The other option is to have a two-tiered (First division and second division test leagues) test match schedule plan from ICC which will be in the true interest of the game. Otherwise, things will go nowhere with respect to Zimbabwe as well as the overall growth of the game of cricket to other nations!