Dravid is back. But, why?

Dravid is back in the India ODI squad replacing the injured Sehwag for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy to be played in September. But, why?

When Dravid was dropped from the ODI squad two years ago, it wasn’t just because of his poor form. It was also because, then at 34, he (along with Ganguly) was considered a misfit in the youthful team - with an emphasis on fielding and running between the wickets - for the future that the captain and selectors envisioned. Now, two years later I can’t see how he could have turned younger, unless the captain/selectors have doubts about their youth policy.

The Indian batting in the last couple of years has had the right balance of youth (Raina, Rohit, Gambhir) and experience (Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj) and has had some remarkable success. Despite the recent loss at the T20 World Cup and Rohit’s poor performance, I don’t see any reason to panic and abandon the youth policy and fallback on experience. Sehwag’s injury should have provided an opening to another aspiring youngster waiting for his turn (Badrinath/Vijay/Kohli/Pujara?) and not Dravid. In the short term, Dravid’s selection has added some balance to the team, but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the future. I mean, when Sehwag is fit and available, who would he replace?

Or, maybe this selection of Dravid in the team is just a one off replacement for Sehwag, providing him the opportunity to sign off from ODIs on his own terms? I certainly don’t have any problems with that.

Fabulous Four - Beginning of the End

With Sri Lanka wrapping up an easy win, a very disappointing series for the Fabulous Four of Indian Cricket - Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly comes to an end.

One way to look at their failure is to consider this as an aberration in their wonderful career and a watershed moment  in history when a talented spinner in Ajantha Mendis made a remarkable debut. After all, I don't think there has been any other series where all four collectively failed and based on his performance so far, Mendis (especially in tandem with Murali) does look like a quality spinner to watch out for. Plus, if these four with all their natural talent and vast experience couldn't perform, who else could have? Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma? I don't think so. Olympics and the upcoming ODI series should provide enough distraction to forget this failure and move on!

But, the other way and I think the right way to look at this is as the beginning of the end of a wonderful chapter in Indian Cricket. The build up to the series couldn't have been better - the all young ODI team in good  form was rendered clueless by a new spinner and the stage was set for the aging champions to show the new kids on the block how it's done. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. If these four with all their talent and experience could not produce a decent performance in even one innings, what is the point of persisting with them? If their talent, form and experience is not making a difference, then what value do they bring to the team? If their aging bodies and slowing reflexes has  overwhelmed their talent and experience, how are they superior to other players waiting in the wings?

This doesn't mean that all four need to be dropped and replaced with the Rohits and Rainas in waiting. I cannot confidently name one player that absolutely deserves a spot over any of the fab four. But, this does mean that the playing field between the seniors and juniors is level now. Instead of being considered automatic picks, they need to be compared and evaluated against other players. Instead of being assumed superior, they need to compete for their place with the rest. Instead of blindly preferring the old masters, the selectors should take a chance and opt for some young blood. It's not the end, but the beginning of the end.

Scintillating triple ton from Sehwag!

Virender Sehwag treated the crowd to some scintillating batting,  scoring the fastest triple century in Test history, at the M.A. Chidambram Stadium in Chennai yesterday. What an exhilarating joy ride it was - stroke after scorching stroke flowed from his bat all day long as he scored more than 250 runs in a single day! And, nothing could stop him really, not even Paul Harris' tactic of bowling well outside leg. He either stepped out and drove inside out or reverse swept - one almost going for a six - never once slowing down. This innings will be remembered as much for the simplicity of his 'I see ball, I hit ball' temperament as the audaciousness of his stroke play for a very long time!

It's hard to pick out a couple of shots as the best when his whole innings - filled with 41 fours and five sixes - was like a highlights package! But, a couple of moments stood out for me. One was when he just stood in the crease and cut a good length ball on the off stump behind point for four and Arun Lal in the commentary box exclaimed -  "Coaches tell you to get to the pitch of the ball; if you did that, you could never put that ball away for four!".  That shot summarized Sehwag's game - his talent lies not in sound technique, but in backing his blessed hand-eye coordination with good shot selection. He rarely moves his feet, but, when in form, stays beautifully balanced.

The other was the last over before tea. Most batsmen would be content to play safe the last couple of overs before a break, especially if they had just scored a double century in blistering hot conditions, but not Sehwag - he clobbered Ntini for 15 runs in the over, including a smashing four off the last ball and nonchalantly walked back to the pavilion. That attitude showcased his simple approach to batting - playing every ball on its merit, without worrying too much about what had happened before or what is going to happen next.

With good support from Jaffer and Dravid, he has turned the match around and put India in a position of strength. With two more days of play left, the Indians can force a win from here, but, will they?

India stops Australia short of 17th win at Perth!

Australia's bid for a record 17th straight test match win was brought to a halt by India at the WACA in Perth. India convincingly beat Australia in what must rank as one of their greatest wins ever! On a pitch where nobody gave them a chance, with a second string bowling attack, coming off a heart breaking last minute loss at the SCG, this win was a tremendous team effort! 

 

 

Here are the highlights of the match -

Anil Kumble winning the toss and choosing to bat - With so much talk about how the pitch is going to be fast and bouncy, and Australia bringing in Shaun Tait to go in with a 4 pace attack, it would have been the easy decision to bowl first. But, Kumble took the tough choice, which paid rich dividends at the end.

Tendulkar and Dravid's partnership - Kumble's call to bat first paid off mainly due to the partnership between Tendulkar and Dravid. Dravid back at his no.3 spot, played a wonderful innings, but, it was Tendulkar's inventive stroke play that was the highlight of the partnership.

Pathan, RP Singh and Sharma's bowling - India's second choice attack (all three played only because of injuries to Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and Munaf Patel), instead of trying to exploit the pace of the wicket, played to their strengths - keeping the ball up and swinging. Theirs was the most consistent pace bowling by India in recent times, swinging the match India's way.

Laxman's partnership with Dhoni and RP Singh - With the big 3 failing in the 2nd innings, Australians were with a real chance to get back in the game, but ran in to VVS Laxman. With runs worth their value in gold, he patiently grafted every run in the company of Dhoni and later with RP Singh. Dhoni too, curbed his natural style and knuckled down to scrapping every run possible. This was one of the most determined batting efforts by India in recent times. To me, this was the most intense and definitive passage of play in the whole match - ugly to watch, but beautiful in intent.

Ishant Sharma vs. Ricky Ponting - What a wonderful passage of play this was - a rookie troubling one of the most accomplished batsmen in this era! Excellent pace bowling by Ishant had Ponting missing, fending, swaying, hopping, mistiming and finally edging to Dravid.

Michael Clarke's innings - Clarke exemplified the Australian winning attitude. Batting with confidence and controlled aggression, he lead Australia's charge towards an improbable win. While he was at the crease, an upset was definitely on the cards.

Sehwag bowling out Gilchrist - With Clarke batting fluently and the new ball due in 10 overs, Gilchrist was preparing to launch an assault  - he had just brought out his squash ball and stuffed it in to his left glove (remember the world cup 2007 final?). In an inspired move (or, maybe just lucky!), Kumble tossed the ball to Sehwag and he obliged bowling out Gilchrist around this legs, exposing the Australian tail and snubbing out any chance of an Australian win.

Tendulkar - Masterful!

Rahul Dravid, who looked totally out of sorts as opener at the MCG, was slowly but steadily batting himself into form at the SCG and today at Perth, back at his usual no.3 spot, he finally found his groove and hit some glorious shots - especially through covers, on his way to a composed 93 that helped India reach 297 at the end of day 1. Though, a loss of quick wickets towards the end means Australia holds a slight advantage in the contest.

But, it was Tendulkar's innings of 71 that set the match up for India. Coming in with the score reading 2-59, he showed urgency in running, looked composed, and generally showed positive intent from the beginning. But, the way he adjusted his game to the Australians' tactics of bowling short to him was the highlight of his innings. He stayed well balanced and swayed out of the short balls on the middle and leg; but, anything short and wide was cut fiercely over gully and the slip region. One shot in particular stood out - in the 32nd over, Lee bowled a short one at 145km/hr, Tendulkar swayed out of the way, and as the ball was about to pass him over, gently guided it over slips for four. An exquisite shot, minimal in effort, and delightful to watch!

Contrast this with his innings in the 2nd test match in the series against England last year, where not in the best of form, he still managed to score a very useful 91, which along with contributions from the openers and a very good spell of fast bowling from Zaheer Khan helped India secure a win. Then, unsure of his form, he handled the short pitched bowling very differently - he swayed, ducked or left the short balls and many times took blows to his body rather than trying to pull or hook. He showed great humility and determination not to fall prey to England's tactics, eschewing shots he wasn't confident of executing right. And, of course when the ball was full, he dispatched it magnificently through covers.

This ability to adjust his game to different situations is what makes him a true master.

Boxing Day Test: Dravid to open?

The eagerly awaited Boxing Day Test between India and Australia is almost here and based on the team that they fielded in the practice match against Victoria, it seems almost certain that Yuvraj would play at the expense of Kartik with Dravid opening the batting alongside Jaffer.

While it may seem fair to Yuvraj who has been knocking the doors of the team for quite some time now, and has quite literally barged his way in riding on a masterful 169 against Pakistan, it is quite unfortunate for Kartik who excelled as opener in the series against England a couple of months ago.  Agreed, Kartik didn't make any meaningful contributions in the recent series against Pakistan, but much of that was due to the enormous pressure exerted on him by the voices questioning the validity of Yuvraj warming the bench, and I think he deserves another chance. 

And, Yuvraj's entry in the middle order means Dravid has to open the innings with Jaffer. One might argue that Dravid on numerous occasions has come in to bat at three within the first 10 overs and hence it isn't a far stretch for him to open. It isn't far but it is still a stretch! Being a team man, Dravid has said that he is willing to make the adjustment to be an opener, but again, I repeat, it is still an adjustment and it is not going to be easy. While it might be easy to move up and down the middle order, it is not easy to change roles - opener to middle order or vice versa. If it was easy, then he would have excelled as an opener much earlier in his career; Sachin would have excelled coming in at four in the 2007 World Cup. If it is easy, I would rather have Sachin and Ganguly open the innings, drop Jaffer and get a fifth bowler in! Now, that looks like a winning team on paper, and that's exactly what it is - a dream team in theory, but one that wouldn't work in practice. Also, the Indian middle order has revolved around the solidity that Dravid provides batting at three. Why compromise that in such a crucial and tough tour?

So, my choice of openers for the match are Jaffer and Kartik. As for Yuvraj, he is a fighting for a spot in the middle order and though very unfortunate, there just isn't any room for him in the team at this moment.

My Indian team for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG -

1. Wasim Jaffer
2. Dinesh Karthik
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sourav Ganguly
6. VVS Laxman
7. MS Dhoni
8. Irfan Pathan
9. Anil Kumble
10. Zaheer Khan
11. RP Singh

Dravid focusing on his batting...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dravid's ODI career batting statistics -

	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
Career	333	10585	153	39.49	12	81
As Captain	79	2658	105	42.19	2	25

Dravid's ODI statistics in the last 20 games he captained -

Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
20	561	92*	40.07	0	5

Dravid's ODI statistics after he quit captaincy -

Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
6	51	31	10.20	0	0

Reason given by Dravid for quitting captaincy - to focus on his batting!

Shouldn't read too much in to this, but couldn't help chuckling!

- statistics courtesy of www.cricinfo.com

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.