Opinion Board needs specific plans for Indias top 25 cricketers: Bhogle
I suspect Indian cricket is becoming the latest member of a club that believes in a theory which,unless already named otherwise,can be called the Precipice Theory.
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I suspect Indian cricket is becoming the latest member of a club that believes in a theory which,unless already named otherwise,can be called the Precipice Theory. It is a club whose members will steadfastly refuse to see the obvious unless they are driven to a situation where no other option presents itself. And so it is that the BCCI has now decided to ask Cricket Australia for another warm up game before the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne. So you can see,as the optimists may well tell you,that something good can still come out of a resounding defeat.
And yet,make no mistake,the BCCI is made up of intelligent people. That they should have so strongly refused to see what was best for India’s Test cricket team gives you an idea of priorities. And the day the BCCI puts the quality of the national cricket team above everything else,India will give itself the chance of remaining either at the top,or very close to it. Good things do happen at the moment,but they do fairly sporadically. For example,there is a very good emerging players team playing in Australia but in spite of being world champions India have also allowed themselves to panic in team selection for the rest of this England tour.
I hope India don’t have to reach the precipice in a few other very obvious matters. The Ranji Trophy is one of those. All logic would suggest that if the standard immediately below international cricket is high,the national team would automatically be strong. And yet we wilfully dilute the quality of our first-class cricket. Here’s a quick parallel. If India Cements (and I use the example only because Mr Srinivasan runs a very good company) has to make the best cement,they will do what it takes to source the best raw material and use the finest production process. If they reduce the quality of their raw material,they cannot consistently make the best cement even if the factories are very good.
Here is another business analogy (for producing a quality sports team is no different from manufacturing a fine product). Large multi-brand or multi-product corporations,say a Hindustan Unilever or a Procter and Gamble or even,in a manner of speaking,a Larsen and Toubro or a Reliance,have a specific business plan for each brand. There are larger commitments,in terms of time and expenditure for example,to larger brands but even the smallest brand has a plan attached to it. A high profile football team or a cricket team too is a collection of brands each of which must have a caretaker and a plan. I am sure that Alex Ferguson has a plan put together for each of his top twenty or twenty two players. It might be different for a Rooney or a Ferdinand or a Giggs as indeed it would be for a Young or a Smalling.
And so too I would like to see specific dossiers put together for the top twenty five Indian cricketers. It would almost be like a medical file with a history and a current diagnosis but most important,a plan to get the best out of each of them. A dossier on Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma would require them to play as much cricket in different conditions as possible,Rahul Dravid’s would have been to get him into best possible shape for the tests against the West Indies and Australia. An action plan for Irfan Pathan would have been to find him a team in England and get him to bowl as much as possible,given the paucity of multi skilled cricketers the message to the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association would be to bat Ashwin at number six as often as possible.
As India finds itself bang in the middle of a serious transition phase,it isn’t only about Tendulkar,Dravid and Laxman but also about Zaheer Khan and maybe,Harbhajan Singh,the replacements don’t seem to be around. With great players,as the Australians are discovering,there can never be adequate replacements but that makes the need to have a well defined plan for each cricketer even more crucial.
Best man Kumble
England started their recovery with the establishment of central contracts for key players and that is a variation of the theme I am suggesting. Nasser Hussain says that was the single biggest factor in turning the England team around. Ideally,the person putting together this plan should be the Chairman of Selectors but if necessary,a committed,respected person could do it. If he has the time,Anil Kumble would be the best man.
In fact Kumble is fast discovering the power of being an administrator. As captain of India’s cricket team he asked for more warm up games and was soundly rebuffed. As an administrator the same suggestion was immediately approved!
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