India Lacking Big Tournament Capabilities

30 September 2009

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

Saurav Ganguly has aptly summed up the hyped-up Indian team's situation today in saying they don't show big-tournament temperament. It's true that most articles in newspapers analyse why or how the world's top or second best ODI team is failing. Otherwise, they're on about what India should do to reach the Number 1 status.

Is this our way of giving us a second chance to be world champions? Really, this excessively company-sponsored rating system and its awards are making our players lax. It's simple that a defending champion is the world's number 1. You do that by winning the World Cup in the 50-over format. The Champions Trophy being played currently is as near to that format as it gets. Of course, threatening its glamour is the 20-20 World Cup now being held at an alarming 1-year gap.

Victory or Loss - Under Dhoni it's Fine

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

27 September, 2009

What is the Indian cricket fan currently thinking or saying after yesterday's loss to Pakistan? It's not as if this scenario is new. At other times, Dhoni has especially revelled in a Pakistan game and turned things around with either his batting (who can forget his 2004 arrival in big cricket) or captaincy.

Truth is while we all want victories, especially against our arch rivals Pakistan, the Indian fan now can't seem wash the team's dirty linen in public. It's like they've acccepted that in a game, someone's got to lose and they seem fine knowing that it's happening under a capable head like Dhoni's. Look back over ten years and somehow it seems there had been troubled postings by Indian fans when the team underperformed under Sachin or Rahul or Azhar. Talk shows on TV, seemed to have so much to discuss or criticise.

Under Dhoni, the Indian team fan has known true . His abilities have also been appreciated in the IPL where his Chennai team were pipped to second position by a mere whisker in 2008.

The Indian fan's larger acquiscence is also probably from statements by Ajit Wadekar that "Dhoni is the best captain India ever had." The average Indian fan, like that in neighbouring Pakistan may be a fanatic in blinders but the audience tends to listen to a doyen of a captain like that. A more informed cricket follower would also know that Bombay cricketer may praise some skills in players from other states but has rarely gone all out.

Undoubtedly, it would have seemed until that point Bombayite would have conceded only two skills as better among an outside state - pace bowling, exemplified by the hardy jaat Kapil Dev and his Haryana (read northern) tribe, and spin, craftsmen of which hailed largely from the southern states of Karnataka. But many of them are now conceding batting, and even captaincy skills.

Coming back to Dhoni and the after match effects, although at press conferences the captain offers an explanation, as he is bound to, and the press colours things as "mistakes that shouldn't have been committed," the public knows that victories cannot come all the time. Failings are better acceptable if one has tried one's best.

Right now, there's good sense prevailing among the Indian fans at large. People must go back to their nine-to-five jobs Monday to Friday and let India Inc jog along. For would we be in this era of cricket professionalism if it wasn't for India Inc which garnered in all these software imports and pumped in the money? That money funded our 'professional cricket' (read a structure that allows individuals to play cricket for a living through the year).

So, if anybody questions my writing this article on the Indian cricket 'fan,' as opposed to the afficiandos, or those like Gavaskar, Amarnath, Srikanth whose say matters to the team, the answer is that the fan funds 'India Inc' which is indirectly funding our cricket team. Their mood needs to be captured. For now, the Indian fan seems to be saying "Let it be. Let's hope for things to be better."

Sachin's Suggestion

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

27th September 2009

The Champions Trophy brought the focus back on audience participation in a 'long' 100-over affair and opinions on how to tinker with it. Master Blaster Tendulkar has not been shy over the last three years in expressing his opinion on various matters. This one was no exception and from his larger suggestion of breaking it up into a two-innings-of 20-overs-each affair, he probably was keener on 'off-setting' the toss advantage.


Batting where the ball really 'comes on'

Coming to yesterday's lost game to Pakistan where the arch rivals played to a deserved victory, pundits will tend to attribute it to the toss. Negating the toss is favourable this this critic, indeed even dichotomous as a solution. Ordinarily, the word 'negate' means the disadvantaged side will be equally favoured. However, not many think of it as an equal fillip for the toss winning side.

Would a critic, say a Pakistani in this instance actually feel the sheen in the victory has been taken away because anyway the toss gave the advantage? Would this critic rather that the men in green be given credit for the way they played or would have played in a more 'equal' scenario?

There was no doubt the toss winner yesterday would bat first as even the pitch analysts and commentators were saying. Younis Khan's 'bowling' side preferred to 'bat.' The ball really came on and their batters were advantaged. You might argue that the advantage can also 'pass on' to the side batting second (the toss-losing side) how many times have we seen a pitch remain consistent? It's usually broken up or played different. In any case, at the time of the toss, nobody can be sure. This doesn't end here.

In an era when cricket represents psychological battles, the side batting second truly comes under 'true' pressure from the start thus starting the whispers in the crowd of 'unfair disadvantage.' As a case in point, as the innings progresses, many newspapers write so called analytical articles with headlines like "Dravid, Raina exploits fail to match Mohammed Yousuf and Shoaib Malik's" but of course forget that the former two are playing a different role. They're chasing (under pressure) while Yousuf and Malik were picking the loose ball with abandon but didn't need to head to a specific target. Not to mention a 'different surface.' Now, purely as a devil's advocate, I say, "Can this battle be made any more unfair?"

'True victory'
If toss-advantage negation as a theory advances, take the 'triumph' for the winning side. Sachin's suggestion, while maintaining the spectator's interest might bring in the element of a 'true triumph' if the toss-winning side were to win the match.

I think the 'toss' method is really a hangover of an older era when its winning would give a 'marginal' advantage. With cricket teams as grooved as today and an ever present spectator expectation, thought needs to be given to even out advantages that don't represent playing 'on the same surface.' Cricket bigwigs must not be shy to take Sachin's suggestion or for that matter any that represent this end.

Another revolutionary solution, which does away with the toss entirely is to award the 'choosing rights' (of batting or bowling first) based on immediate previous performances. It sounds better than to have 'luck' favour a captain when the coin is tossed up.