Practice makes perfect

From Kunal Talgeri, India
While watching the highlights of a World Cup 1992 ODI between India and Australia, it was a delight to hear commentator Bill Lawry describe Indian all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar as a 'street-fighter.' The former Australian captain had grasped the essence of a cricketer who wasn't the most celebrated, but one who made a difference that season. Back then, the Channel Nine commentators had had four months to see a foreign team play five Test matches, over 10 WSC games, before the season culminated with the World Cup. The familiarity bred fair commentary. How cricket has changed since!

The Indian team's recent performance in Sri Lanka, as Cricinfo writers and Harsha Bhogle last year have noted, is a testament to the change. In all this, the Indians haven't had time to work on the nuances that take a team from good to great. The effect has rightly then been the opposite, resulting in diminishing returns. This aspect has been even more pronounced, thanks to the dependable referral system introduced during the Test series. It brought to fore the importance of dealing with margin of error. Furthermore, if one sees the number of close decisions that Indian batsmen found themselves going against them, the pattern tells a story. It has happened with us in the past, and there is been only way in sports history to reduce the margin of error: practice!

Less than a year ago, erstwhile captain Rahul Dravid reportedly tried to battle for more time and practice games prior to the Test series in Australia. The 2-1 result against India was an appropriate difference between a team that practices as it plays, and the champions who practice in a way their own. How long has it been since we heard Sachin Tendulkar asking a net bowler to test him on a rough patch outside the leg stump line? We, the spectators and our eleven men, don't perhaps celebrate practice anymore, as much as we cherish the money in the game. Dravid had a point, and it's time we heard the man who has demonstrated its virtues.

The 1992 season in Australia was a tour, exaggerated in some sense. It featured innumerable practice games, including a win over Queensland. We almost won at Sydney before the rains came; we almost did it again in Adelaide but 35-odd runs separated us the team collapsed spectacularly at Perth (to Mike Whitney!!!) The margins of errors remained. The tour produced a pearl in Sachin Tendulkar, it exposed Sanjay Manjrekar's frailty while running between the wickets, and it pushed opener Shastri to get a double hundred that seemed improbable at the start of the tour.

The practice games had given the team at least some grounds for familiarity to identify strengths and failings. It's a direction we need to move back toward if we want to see the friendlier side of the TV review system and our winning ways. Besides, the obsession to practising a craft can reward in a way that money can't.