The Surfer

The BCCI needs to urgently define its priorities. As the richest cricket board in the world, it must spell out for itself and its players what its ambitions and targets — medium and long term — are. Test matches are not won on the back of T20 hoopla, inconvenient as this may be to players and/or franchise owners in the IPL for instance. A vision that promotes sustained excellence is desired, but that cannot come without a change in culture in how Indian cricket is run.

We’re the world ODI champions but, having lost the No. 1 ranking in Test cricket so spiritlessly, are we doomed to remain only one-day wonders? However much the fan may hate it, sooner rather than later Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Zaheer Khan are going to go. What happens after that? “I fear we’ll get thrashed in Test matches—as we were in England, and it will get worse when players like Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman are gone,” says Ramachandra Guha, historian and cricket writer.

At the end of the Edgbaston Test, which saw India give up their top ranking, Mike Atherton asked Mahendra Singh Dhoni, “Did you cherish the No. 1 spot?” Dhoni did not give a direct answer. The truth is embarrassing: India did not cherish and, therefore, did not put much effort into protecting their ranking. Players had begun to believe in their own invincibility, and the cricket board had placed its trust in its ability to manipulate events.

It is a measure of his mental impregnability. He attributes his unparalleled concentration to letting his mind wander between balls, then taking two deep breaths just as the bowler turns at the end of his run.

There was the England tour last year that took so much out of him, the beginning of the end in New Zealand where the Shahid Afridi spat first became serious and even at the World Cup, by which time he said in an interview he felt one of his achievements had been to get out of bed every day and go to work. "Some days I didn't feel like getting out of my room, thinking another controversy," he said.

The resignation of Waqar Younis as coach of the Pakistan cricket team is sure to elicit mixed reactions. The beloved Shahid Afridi resigned the captaincy and retired from international cricket in part because of a feud with Waqar, whom he felt was undermining his authority. At the same time, there has been a marked improvement in our cricketing fortunes since Waqar took over from the malleable Intikhab Alam.

... He cited medical reasons for his departure and it is no wonder that he was worried about his health given all the stress he has been placed under since taking over. He has had to deal with the ramifications of the spot-fixing crisis, train a team that cannot play at home, manage players who are constantly at loggerheads with one another and report to a chairman who is easily the most incompetent in the history of international cricket.

It was based on a magnificent collective will and understanding. It grew from an acceptance that the past was too littered with mediocrity, too many teams who were not prepared to work hard enough, and maybe not suffer enough, for the goal of one day announcing themselves as the best in the world.

When you are the best, everyone sees you as the benchmark. They chase you and work out ways to hunt you down. So it is important England stay hungry and start to dominate.

Bell is undoubtedly the more adaptable batsman, able now to play so many different roles according to the situation. Trott only knows one way; a hugely effective way, granted. You’d think he couldn’t bat at No 5. But, just to befuddle more, he did so on debut here in 2009, making 41 and 119!

Can, or will, Dhoni fight the fight for more logical schedules? The board’s stance on the too-much-cricket issue has been clear: Players can take a break whenever they please, board officials have said time and again (‘except during the IPL’ is implicit, even if the words are never spoken aloud publicly). The IPL’s business model is such that it hangs by the hurting tendons and strained muscles of India’s big guns: Can you imagine people tuning in to watch Rajat Bhatia versus Dhawal Kulkarni if Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar decided to give the tournament a skip? And with the BCCI itself being the biggest shareholder of the league, priorities are bound to get warped.

There's a strong and understandable financial aspect to this. Professional cricket is a short career, for many there are limited prospects afterwards, and as a fast bowler, that entire career could end at any moment. So it's natural to follow the money, particularly when it's kinder on that fragile body. This is often seen as somehow mercenary and vaguely unsporting; in other words, the exact behavior that would be commended as laudable ambition in most careers gets condemned as disloyalty in sportsmen.

Akash Lal (North Zone representative on the selection panel that picked Sachin Tendulkar): Domestic cricket must still be given the highest priority. If I had to pick someone to replace the top order, I would look for correctness of play. When Sachin was picked he was technically very assured. Nowadays I am aghast to see that we are facing the same traditional problems against the ball leaving the off stump, and the rising delivery. I personally think that Rohit Sharma has been given a rough deal by the selectors. He first got a chance in Australia and he performed really well on surfaces that were really difficult to bat on. I think the selectors have forgotten about him.

Ajit Wadekar (The chairman of selectors when Harbhajan Singh made his debut for India in 1998): For now with Harbhajan struggling the way he is, the selectors should definitely go for R Ashwin. Ashwin has shown his class and temperament with the ball every time he’s gotten a chance. I don’t agree with people who tag him as a limited-overs specialist. Ashwin possesses a very deceptive action and always looks focussed on improving himself with every outing. He never seems short of ideas, and I am sure that he will be a valuable addition to the Indian Test team. I think the selectors should draft him into the Test set-up right away.