India disillusioned
India's position in cricket today is not so good. Why? What has gone wrong with our cricket team? Is it the negative effect of T20 on technique or the IPL's easy money on commitment? Are our players suffering from some kind of fatigue due to excessive cricket? Is BCCI making our players over work just to make more profits or were Australians so good a team that India just could not match it?
In the last 4-5 years, India were T20 champions, the number one Test team and World Cup champions. Last year's World Cup victory was expected to trigger off new zest and ambition. But, for some reason, Indian cricket seems to have lost its form since and losing eight matches on the trot overseas should be a matter of deep concern.
Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar are the three main reasons for our debacle. The failure of India's great batting trio has affected the team adversely and questions must be asked as to why their form has declined so steeply so rapidly. Is it just a lean trot that can happen to the best, or the killing burden of expectations from these superstars, or just their advancing age that is the reason for their poor performances? There is clearly no fixed age which determines when a player is 'finished'. But considering that all three are on the wrong side of 30, there was always the danger that all of them could lose form or quit almost simultaneously.
This is where the BCCI and the selectors appear to have let matters slip out of their control. An exit plan - which hurts neither team nor them - should have been ready much in advance to ensure a smoother makeover.
Skill, form and fitness are the key determinants to sporting achievement, but Indian cricket has often preferred to look the other way where the third attribute is concerned. While their skill is hardly in doubt, serious questions can be raised about the athleticism of our players.
The modern game punishes such laxity heavily. In the recent series, Australian fielders were obviously more energetic than our slow-coach Indian fielders and sloppy catchers. How one fields determines one's fitness.
If we want our cricketers to regain the lost glory, more attention needs to be paid to domestic cricket. The national team can only be as good as the talent it gets. Pitches here need to be made more 'sporting' to ensure that we don't have 'monster' performers with bat or ball who are shown up as midgets when they go overseas. Above all, however, is the need for a mindset shift: of the administration from being primarily profit-seeking to excellence-driven; of players (fans too!) from being records-stricken to results-stricken.
Explanations like "we can beat everybody at home'' are not acceptable. Being the richest cricket playing country does not necessarily mean being the best. At least now we should stop harboring such delusion.
India's position in cricket today is not so good. Why? What has gone wrong with our cricket team? Is it the negative effect of T20 on technique or the IPL's easy money on commitment? Are our players suffering from some kind of fatigue due to excessive cricket? Is BCCI making our players over work just to make more profits or were Australians so good a team that India just could not match it?
In the last 4-5 years, India were T20 champions, the number one Test team and World Cup champions. Last year's World Cup victory was expected to trigger off new zest and ambition. But, for some reason, Indian cricket seems to have lost its form since and losing eight matches on the trot overseas should be a matter of deep concern.
Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar are the three main reasons for our debacle. The failure of India's great batting trio has affected the team adversely and questions must be asked as to why their form has declined so steeply so rapidly. Is it just a lean trot that can happen to the best, or the killing burden of expectations from these superstars, or just their advancing age that is the reason for their poor performances? There is clearly no fixed age which determines when a player is 'finished'. But considering that all three are on the wrong side of 30, there was always the danger that all of them could lose form or quit almost simultaneously.
This is where the BCCI and the selectors appear to have let matters slip out of their control. An exit plan - which hurts neither team nor them - should have been ready much in advance to ensure a smoother makeover.
Skill, form and fitness are the key determinants to sporting achievement, but Indian cricket has often preferred to look the other way where the third attribute is concerned. While their skill is hardly in doubt, serious questions can be raised about the athleticism of our players.
The modern game punishes such laxity heavily. In the recent series, Australian fielders were obviously more energetic than our slow-coach Indian fielders and sloppy catchers. How one fields determines one's fitness.
If we want our cricketers to regain the lost glory, more attention needs to be paid to domestic cricket. The national team can only be as good as the talent it gets. Pitches here need to be made more 'sporting' to ensure that we don't have 'monster' performers with bat or ball who are shown up as midgets when they go overseas. Above all, however, is the need for a mindset shift: of the administration from being primarily profit-seeking to excellence-driven; of players (fans too!) from being records-stricken to results-stricken.
Explanations like "we can beat everybody at home'' are not acceptable. Being the richest cricket playing country does not necessarily mean being the best. At least now we should stop harboring such delusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment