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A month ago a little tidbit of cricketing news seeped into the national
and international media that piqued the public's interest - a couple of
local school lads went on to post 700 odd runs in 40 overs in a local
game, breaking the record previously held by Tendulkar and Kambli,
during their school days, by a convenient margin. The local media got
positively elated, the national media was excited and the international
media certainly took note.
Not to miss any press and photo
opportunities, the local politicians promptly felicitated the lads and
anyone who is remotely related to the kids sang paeans about their
prowess - Indian cricket's bright future is in safe hands, the second
coming of Messiah spotted in Hyderabad and many such. Put this
remarkable achievement aside to have a little something called
perspective for a moment. How is that only batting records seem to be
broken, rewritten and made only in the subcontinent? Why is that no
records, that warrant the media going completely ga-ga over, ever seem
to happen in any other regional competitions in, say Australia or South
Africa or the West Indies? Or for that matter, even Pakistan or Sri
Lanka?
Ravi Shastri hits 6 sixes off Tilak Raj in a local Ranji Match,
some no-name tops the number of runs that could be made by a human
being EVER at a super-human rate with a mind-boggling average in Irani
trophy during a calendar year. And then during the selection process,
new names keep popping up every time some one from Guwahati made 800
runs in the Ranji Trophy with 4 centuries and 6 fifties, and some other
from Tamil Nadu achieved similar distinction. A cursory view of these
reocrds, achievements and distinctions, all point to one indisputable
and categorical fact that the pool of batting talent runs so wide and
deep (much like the software warriors, one other thing that the country
boasts about), that pull out a Tendulkar or a Dravid from the roster,
thousands (ok, hundreds) are just waiting in the wings to fill in that
vacuum to grab the spot and the limelight.
It paints a very rosy picture of the prospect of the game, when batting
talents of great statures seem to pour of out every orifice and out of
every nook and corner of the country, blasting their way into the final
eleven, touting their centuries, double centuries and triple feats in
the domestic season to their credit.
If runs, averages and records
account for actual wins, India should probably never lose a game, home
or abroad, EVER. And then it happens...the veil is lifted and one gets
to see if runs and records really amount to anything more than press
fodder, if impossible averages really matter in tests of true
character.
All that it takes for such bitter truths to rear their ugly
heads is to step out of the safe confines of home turfs and play at
places, where batsmen are given credit only if they can spot a rising
ball and maneuver it to safety - and if it is a scoring stroke to boot,
so much the better. But if the batsmen is trained (or got accustomed)
to hoik, cut, pull, drive, play deliveries that rarely rise about the
knee, for much of his formative years, imagine his surprise when he
gets to hear chin music and chin music alone during the entire length
of the tour. It is like discovering that the portions of the syllabus
that he thought didn't pertain to his curriculum made it into the final
examination question paper after all.
So what is a batsman to do in
such testing times - prod, poke, jab, snick, edge? Well, try everything
that resembles catching practice for the slip cordon and just pray that
it works. On rare occasions that it does work, he gets to live till the
next delivery, if not, the misery ends, and the charade continues with
the next batting legend in line, until there are no more legends left
to play.
"Sack the captain", "Cut the coach in half", "Send the physio-therapist
packing", "Change the entire team composition", "Get the left out
players back in the team" - the knee-jerk reactions have become as
predictable as the fates and fortunes (if there are any, even) of the
Indian team leaving the safe shores of the subcontinent to places where
batsmen get stepped on more than the doormat.
Take any foreign tour to
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and to lesser extent England or
the West Indies (and as misery springs a suprise once in a while, even
to Zimbabwe), the result is pretty much the same in terms of the number
of losses and the staggering margin of each loss. The press, public,
fans and commentators never seem to get tired of hurling the same
accusations, reasons for failure and calls (clamors) for resignations
and replacements. It is as though the silver bullet is replacing one
set of players with another set and that is supposed to stem the tide
and magically reverse the trend. Hope is certainly a good thing, but
delusion masking as hope is truly dangerous. It conveniently sweeps
away the glaring inequities, in terms of the strengths and weaknesses,
under the carpet and prepares for a fresh disaster all over again. The
team has been lulled into a comfort with a string of subcontinental
victories, so much so that it completely forgot that it has problem
with pace in the first place. A few years ago when the same South
African team visited India under Hansie Cronje, he picked a pace
battery on an absolute turner and battered and tormented the home side
with unrelenting pace, even on a placid pitch, for total submission and
a test victory.
Steve Waugh always stuck to his guns of confronting the Indians with
pace and achieved great success with that strategy more times than not,
on Indian soil. And the little said about the home team's batting
records the better - a billion runs with a million centuries reads one
record, blitzkreiging assault without any show of mercy reads another.
The team is packed with record holders, record makers, wunderkinds,
walls and other such explsoive-laden adjectives. Like the statutory
warning labels on harmful products or the disclaimer pieces that warn
about getting the hopes up, Indian teams always come with a caveat -
"Applicable only in the continental mainland, Not valid outside the
Indian boundaries", "High expectations are strictly prohibited".
The
sad thing about this dismal state of affairs is, not a thing is done
(and would be done) to improve this situation. And the solution is so
simple that is quite amazing that not a thing has been done so far,
considering the irony, that the Indian board is the richest among the
lot and could throw men, money and machinery to tackle this problem, if
it so wished.
In the good old days, Kanpur was the only pitch that was
a little pacer friendly in the country, and the rest, either assisted
the tweakers, or spelt death knell to bowlers of any persuasion.
Nowadays, whatever little grass that Kanpur had on its pitch is
completely shaved off, portending the plight of Indian fortunes on
pacer-friendly pitches abroad. So why is the grass green only on the
other side, why is growing grass here such a big crime? Sure, there
would be no 700 runs in 40 overs record to boast about, there would be
no batting maestros, who would wield their willow to cut the opposition
in half (**Disclaimer** - under standard conditions of temparature and
pressure, and substandard conditions of neatly shaven pitches), there would be no endorsement deals of pocket book super heroes charming a bevy
of beauties, enticing the drooling consumer into buying his brand of
shaving cream, there would be no more legendary battles to write home
about (Warne vs Sachin, Draivd vs McGrath) - but aren't they all worth
than a 4-0 drubbing?
Until there is a conscious concerted effort of working at this
perennial problem against pace, by digging up the existing pitches
completely and laying them with hard concrete, right from the club
level till all the way to the top, history would have a merry time
repeating itself over and over again, and the same stories of
accusations, finger-pointing and blood-letting seems to find a place in
the team, without fail on foreign jaunts, regardless of whoelse makes
the final cut. Funny, how clockwork consistency can go so wrong sometimes!
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More Views by Srinivas Kanchibhotla
