Indian cricket needs a rotation policy

Indian cricket is at a crossroad or so it seems. Most critics seem to want a younger team. One day cricket is a young man's game and there is no place for the aging seniors who are past their prime, they say. And there are others who point out that India's one day game still largely depends on the big three. Tendulkar is the only Indian batsman in the top 10 of ICC's batting list; Ganguly has aggregated the most runs so far this year; Dravid, though going through a lean patch, is still a formidable bat. Performance, not age should be the criteria for selection, they argue.

To be honest, both are right. Yes, we are dependent on the big three, but they cannot go on forever. Pretty soon they are going to hang their boots, no question about it. We need younger players to take their place. But, I don't think there are any young batsmen currently in waiting that can match their skills. Sure, they are fearless, aggressive, strong, athletic, confident, eager to prove themselves and very exciting prospects, but, none of them is a Sachin, at least not yet.

So, what do we do about this dilemma? Should we continue with the seniors and later when they retire, be left with a young team with good prospects but no experience? Or should we just drop the seniors, invest in a young team and hope that with some experience they would go on to deliver on their expectations? Fortunately, we don't have to pick either of these extremes. As the BCCI itself announced for the Ind-Aus series, rotating the players is the best way to go. Although BCCI announced its intention to rotate, it didn't spell out any details as to how, when and who they would be rotating.

Well, this is my attempt to formulate a rotation policy. First, we need to spell out the goal - what do we hope to achieve through a rotation policy? As I see it, the problem is that we have three aging but terrific cricketers, who may not be at the peak of their powers, but are still good enough to make it to team. But, by persisting with them are we denying some deserving youngster who given the chance might play better? Given the reluctance of the seniors themselves to walk away and without any obvious reason to drop them, how do we find out if the players in waiting are better than the ones that are currently in? The youngsters have been given some chances this season, but not very regularly. Plus, their performance cannot be compared accurately. How do you compare the 40s that Uthappa makes in the 3 games he gets to play vs an average of 45 that Ganguly makes playing 30 games which could very well include a string of 0s followed by a big hundred? Also, when a youngster do gets a chance, he is under enormous pressure to perform as he never knows if he would get another chance. Unless the guy is as talented as say, Sachin, the odds of him proving himself better are pretty slim! So, we need a rotation policy to compare the performance of the juniors with the seniors. Also, we need to know if the youngsters we are placing our bets on can really deliver on their expectations. If they can't, we need to know soon, before the fab 3 retire! Otherwise, we would end up with un unproven and totally inexperienced team. With these as the goals, lets proceed.

First, lets figure out the pool of competing players at hand for the various batting positions. Lets start with the openers - Tendulkar and Ganguly. The players vying to take their positions are Gambhir and Sehwag. We should slate Yuvraj and Dhoni at number 4 and 5 respectively and leave them alone. So, for slots 3 and 6 we have Dravid, Kartik, Rohit Sharma (maybe Badrinath and Manoj Tiwary deserve an outside chance, but, I think they would have to wait a little longer). No, I haven't missed Uthappa. I think he needs to be tried both as an opener and a middle-order batsman. Pathan is perfect at no.7, at least when he is in form! We need to find a couple of more players that fit the all-rounder bill to challenge him. Until then, we are stuck with Pathan at 7 and hope that he stays in form. So, there you have it, our pool of batting contenders. I am not going to talk about the bowlers - I don't think we have enough of a talent pool there! Plus, they rotate themselves out every few matches with either an injury or horribly bad form!

So, we have 8 batsmen competing for 4 slots (1, 2, 3 and 6). I think the best way to rotate the players is to come up with an open policy upfront and stick with it. We can't carry 4 extra batsmen in a team of 15. So, the first job is to whittle one down. The easiest (or the hardest, depending on how you look at it) way is to rest one of the big three for each ODI series that we play. We can probably start with Dravid as he is going through a lean patch anyway and rotate out the other 2 similarly. Now, that we have a manageable pool, the next task is to pick the number of games a player would get before being rotated out. I think 3 games is a good stretch. We need to make sure that at least one senior is always played to make sure the team is not totally without experience. Since, we have already rested one of them, the other 2 seniors playing in a series should rotate themselves out every 2 or 3 games. Now that leaves 3 slots open for the juniors and 5 of them competing for it. Again, we apply the same rule - everybody gets 2 or 3 games in a stretch before being rotated out. For example, if we rested Dravid for the next series, then the rotation could be something like below -

1. Sachin & Gambhir opening for 3 games; rotated out with Ganguly & Sehwag for the next 3
2. Kartik & Rohit making up the middle order for 3 games; with Uthappa rotating out one of them for the next 3.

And for the following series, Ganguly would be rested and the rotation would be -

1. Sachin & Gambhir opening for 3 games; rotated out with Uthappa & Sehwag for the next 3
2. Dravid & Kartik making up the middle order for 3 games; with Rohit rotating one of them out for the next 3

And so on.

If we stick with this rotation policy irrespective of results, playing conditions, and form of the players, after a season, we can easily compare the performance of all the players. Everyone would have played almost the same number of games. Nobody would have any extra pressure to perform as every player knows he would get another chance and more importantly that he would get the same chances as everybody else. Now, with the data in hand, we can easily figure out who deserves a permanent place in the team and who doesn't belong here. And maybe if there are still batting slots open for competition or if the seniors are still going strong then we can bring in the Badrinaths and Tiwarys to the pool and continue with the rotation for the remaining slots.

There you have it, my rotation policy for the Indian batting lineup. This policy makes sure that the seniors get a break; the youngsters don't just get a chance but chances.; nobody is worrying about being dropped; enough time for everybody to plan for their game; the selectors and captain don't have to scratch their heads trying to figure out how to 'rest' the seniors; there is healthy competition among the players; and best of all its fair and consistent.

Sure, there are downsides - we could be rotating out in-form players with players out of form and with the possibility that our strongest team may not be playing every game, we are bound to lose a few matches. We should remember though that winning is not our immediate goal; identifying the winning team is. Hopefully, with all the churning, the cream would float to the top, just in time to replace the fabulous three. Then, winning would naturally follow.