Rebuilding would be incumbent on unearthing cricketers of quality, in which area Indian cricket seems to be suffering from a grave dearth
Where does Indian cricket go from here? Full credit to Team England for having come and conquered what in the Test world is called the “final frontier”, marked by playing conditions favouring batsmen and slow bowlers.
But it was Team India that lost the series after having slipped into the lead in a typically Indian environment of a designer pitch in Ahmedabad. No matter how much the Indian skipper tried to fix the conditions by outrageous calls for turning tracks, M.S. Dhoni’s team could not overcome England in Mumbai and Kolkata.
It’s time Team India moved on to play its home Test cricket on sporting pitches that will offer a greater balance between bat and ball so that batsmen and bowlers may learn to play in conditions which should simulate those that exist internationally. Apart from finding incisive bowlers of pace and spin capable of winning Test matches, the management would also do well to shake up the attitude of our batsmen, who have grown too accustomed to lording it over everyone without putting in the same effort, expected in a team game, on the field.
Considering the yawning gaps left by a generational shift, the rebuilding process will be particularly painful for India in Test cricket. This is where a clear policy of decision-making in everything, including most of all in selection matters, would help. The BCCI constitutional provision of an overwhelming veto power vested in the president cannot be used by an individual to establish a monopoly. Alternatives to Dhoni as Test captain must be considered logically rather than in a bitter fight among personalities for control of a game that plonks crores of rupees in the hands of players.
A study of Team India’s form indicates a predilection towards the more dynamic limited-overs formats of the game. The IPL version of T20, which came as manna, is seen as a compulsive temptation these days for cricket millionaires who have lost the stomach for Test cricket. Rebuilding would also be incumbent on unearthing cricketers of quality, in which area Indian cricket seems to be suffering from a grave dearth, as Rahul Dravid so ably put it in his analysis of India’s woes in a home series that was lost after eight years of dominating most visiting teams.
The future obviously lies in the youth who must be taught early to throw everything they have into all formats of the game, rather than concentrating on the glamorous roles played in T20 cricket. It is entirely up to the next generation to take Team India back to the highs achieved over the first decade of the new millennium and in the World Cup victory last year. To get back to exalted heights is going to be a Herculean task.
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