The soap opera of appointments and rejections in Indian Cricket

When the news of Anil Kumble being appointed captain came in, it seemed like this old warrior has been given his due and has been given it very late in his career. There are two things that make one a little uneasy about this decision; firstly, that he has been given the job for three tests only against Pakistan and, secondly, Kumble was given this responsibility only after Sachin Tendulkar refused.

It is never easy to produce miracles in 3 matches. The last thing a national team needs is instability at the top. India does not have a coach and if one does not know who will captain the team against the best team in the world, it does not augur well for a national team. Yes, there have been reports, and Kumble has himself said in an interview that he thinks that he is not a stop-gap captain, but the plain fact is that Anil Kumble has been appointed for 3 test matches only. One does not know if Jumbo has been informally told that the appointment is till the Springboks visit India, but if he has been(that is what some media reports claim) why couldn’t the selectors and the board make it official that he is the skipper for three full series and not just three tests?

Very few things that the selectors and the board have done have been right. I just simply cannot understand these short term announcements. Appoint teams for 2 games, appoint captains for 3 tests or one series. It would be a jolly good idea to appoint selectors for 2 games and based on the performance of the selected players the selectors’ would be retained. I know that it is a preposterous idea, but that is the very same theory that the selectors seem to be following as far as team selection goes. And I do not understand why the selectors give in to media rhetoric.

Each and every time the team is about to be selected, and that is almost thrice a month these days, one wonders about what would the future of the senior batsmen be. But our batting does not seem to be the problem and certainly not the three seniors that have been targeted, but the bowlers. To elucidate, if one were to look at the Australia series and this series against Pakistan, whenever India has bowled 50 overs, they have conceded runs at the rate of 8.83 in the last 10 overs. That has usually been the difference in winning and losing. If the opposing team scores close to ninety runs in the last ten, it leaves the batsmen with a mountain to climb while chasing or it becomes extremely difficult to defend what the batsmen have put up.

Does this small fact not irk the selectors? Especially when we have a bowling coach? Somehow, the media is obsessed with big names. The selectors have needlessly fallen prey to the rhetoric. They have dropped Rahul Dravid needlessly just because he did not fare well against Australia (he has scored 823 runs at 37.4 in 31 ODIs in 2007). The other two batsmen that are being placed under needless scrutiny are Sachin Tendulkar (who has scored 1298 runs in 31 ODIs in 2007 at an average of 46.35) and Sourav Ganguly (who has scored 1235 runs in 31 ODIs at 45.74). The two Indian openers are numbers 2 and 3 in the highest scorers’ list in 2007. And in the top 10 run getters of 2007 there are 4 Indians and three of them in the top 4. The problem is clearly not our batting.

But then the selectors have only been giving in to rhetoric. They are trying to fix something that isn’t broken. And the thing that is mutilated is not been looked into at all. There are 3 things that need to be fixed in Indian cricket. 1) Give the captain a long rope; 2) Don’t touch the batting till the South Africa series gets over and fix the bowling quickly; 3) Get the board mandarins and the selectors to shut up and work for Indian cricket, and not try their best to give the media stories, get their faces on the tele and their columns in the papers.

Racism in cricket, replacing the oldies, being aggressive: Indian cricket has questions but no answers

The one-day series between India and Australia is throwing up more questions than answers. The problem is that the questions that have been thrown up do not seem to have answers. Let me try and list the questions down.

1) Have the Indian media and fans realized that T20 is a different form of cricket than ODIs?

2) Have the young Indian cricketers understood that aggression does not mean snarling without substance and that the definition of an aggressive cricketer is not that of one with most theatric stunts?

3) Do some people know what racist taunts are?

Let me try to answer, rather introspect, these questions. A successful team in an abbreviated form of the game’s tournament is not the panacea for what ails Indian cricket. None of the T20 stars, and I mean NOBODY, has the wherewithal to challenge the place of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, for their places in the side. Apart from these two players, only Yuvraj Singh has scored 1,000 runs in 2007. So till some young players perform, let us stop speculating about the oldies’ future. If one were to look at recent performance, forget past records, these two cannot be touched. The ample proof came twice in this series. In the 4^th ODI India won because these 2 put up 91, and in the 6^th ODI, till these two were going it looked like India would chase down 318. On current form, there are only two match-winners for India in ODIs and both are in the autumn of their careers, if not winter.

The second question has bemused me more than other questions. Sachin Tendulkar is among the most aggressive players I have ever seen. And never have I seen him open his trap to talk needlessly to the other players. And that, despite having a record and performances to boast of. By acting like a bunch of theatrical drunks, and not backing it up with solid performances, is making the likes of S. Sreesanth look stupid. The person Sreesanth has picked on has responded in the most brilliant way. By performing. Andrew Symonds has been a joy to watch for a cricket lover. The prancing up and down idiotically only makes Sreesanth look like he is imitating a monkey.

Oops!! Oops!! Did I say ‘monkey’? Is that racism? Hell no! And that brings me down to the third point. If the crowds at Vadodra did indeed call Symonds a monkey, they were being blatantly stupid, but not racist. Either-ways, such people do not deserve to watch this noble game. But I must say, these people are neither cricket lovers, nor racists. I can say with a lot of conviction that monkey is not a racist remark in India. We, in India, worship the monkey-god Hanuman. The life-form that we worship cannot be a racist slur. This is a clear case of making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Looking at the form Symonds has had, be probably has had a divine hand that is making this wonderfully aggressive cricketer smash bowlers like seldom before. So, just lay it off. ICC, sections of the media, some of the cricketers.

India is in for a tough series against Pakistan in a month. And then, off to Australia. Thankfully, India can thank its lucky stars that it still has a few players who could make a match out of a few of the duels that would be played out. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and one Very Very Special player. The joke is that these people are the oldies who some sections of the media feel should give way to the likes of Suresh Raina, S. Badrinath, Venugoopal Rao, Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir. Well, I did say in the very beginning, that there are questions but there are no answers.