India vs England: Time for Introspection

As the humiliation of the English debacle sinks in, it is time to get objective and introspect for Team India

In a span of one month, India have been knocked off their perch of the best team in the world to the number three spot in the test rankings. As the team, administrators and fans come to terms with the English debacle, now is the time for introspection and here are possible changes that should follow this whitewash.

1) Prioritizing the national team over the domestic franchises:

Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh are just a few names who played through the whole of IPL and then were forced to or decided to skip the tour of West Indies for various reasons. Some needed a break, some had postponed surgeries for IPL, while some developed impromptu illnesses. This just makes one wonder what matters more: the big money league or playing for the national team? This also makes one wonder how can you keep playing everything and then complain of too much cricket? There has to a stamp-down brought out by the BCCI to prioritise the national team over the IPL.

2) Selectors have to set a pipeline:

Being a management student, I have been told several times that you need to have people in pipeline and the selection committee just didn’t have that. Abhinav Mukund had one test series under his belt before being sent to England. Why weren’t some of the senior openers considered?

There is also the question of why RP Singh was called out of nowhere just because he had a successful tour last time around. The selectors did not bother to take one look at how his career has panned after that tour. They now need to look for long term replacements for the heavyweights, especially the Big Three.

The same goes for the bowling department as well, which was severely crippled with Zaheer’s injury and Harbhajan’s poor form. Long term and not ad-hoc replacements is the way to go in order to build a proper squad. Ajinkya Rahane and Varun Aaron have been called up to the squad for the ODIs and I would say that Ajinkya Rahane’s selection is a good decision but Varun’s looks more like an impulsive decision.

MS Dhoni in his post series interview said that youngsters need to be given more chances, but this throws up an important question as to whether or not the youngsters who are given opportunities really deserve their chances. Suresh Raina was given the big ticket in this England series and he was clearly the odd man out, lacking the temperament to play 2-3 sessions in a row. Cheteshwar Pujara was unavailable due to an injury but he is one man who looks to have it all sorted out and shall be a part of the test team soon. Manoj Tiwari is another promising talent. In the bowling department, spinners are available in plenty in Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Harmeet Singh, Ravindrachandra Ashwin. What India lacks is good pace bowlers, which is a major cause of worry. Ishant Sharma, Abhimanyu Mithun, Jaidev Unadkat etc are good pacers, but hardly worldclass, for without top fast bowlers it is hard to win in testing conditions such as in England, Australia and South Africa which test the true mettle of a cricketer.

3) The Dhoni conundrum:

This is one bad thing about Indian Cricket, being a captain means you don’t have to fight for your position on the team. Dhoni’s contribution to the team as a batsman has been as good as zero in this whole series except for a one off knock, even his wicket-keeping has been way below par. Though there is the pressure of captaincy, it is time that our captain cool made some tangible contribution to the team’s success.

4) Proper match scheduling from the BCCI:

The team definitely needs more practice games, and a training session before major tours such as England and Australia. You can have a truckload of runs or wickets under your belt but when you go to someone else’s backyard to play, you have to take them more seriously and you have to prepare a little more harder than you usually do.

Let’s hope that the team betters its performance in the ODIs and doesn’t come back home without a single win on the tour. As the daunting tour of Australia awaits next, it is important that India implement the aforementioned changes and get back on the right track, the one towards success.