An analytical look at an all-time Indian XI at the World Cups

In a few days, India will begin their World Cup campaign against South Africa. On paper, India are one of the stronger sides coming into the big tournament and will look to add a third world title to their kitty. Barring a major debacle, India should finish in the top 4 and make it to the semifinals; and after that, it is a matter of two good knockout matches for any team looking to lift the title and make cricketing history.

Throughout India’s ODI world cup history, several illustrious players have served the Indian team well, bringing honour and distinction in the process. But who are the Indian players who have lit the world stage = at cricket’s biggest tournament? Are they the usual suspects such as Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Dhoni, Virat Kohli (who are sure-shot walk-ins for an all-time India ODI XI), or are there other unexpected players who have shone? In order to investigate this, we will undertake an analytical exercise to identify the players who have performed at a high level in the World Cup.

First up, some ground rules. Only world cup performances will be considered (with an 8 match and 2 tournament cutoff). This criterion ensures that players don’t just make it on the basis of a few good weeks, but rather that their good performances were spread out over multiple tournaments, thus rewarding long-term consistency.

What might be a good metric to measure ODI performance? Over the years, we have preferred to use (as have others) Batting and Bowling Index ratios (BaI ratio and BoI ratio respectively) to get a sense of the “level” at which a player operated in the period under consideration. Analysts have traditionally multiplied a player’s average and strike rate (economy rate for bowling) and divided it by a baseline to get a ratio that represents how valuable that player was. While this is a good start, it has some limitations. Hence, we have tweaked this to take into consideration run-inflation over the years and position in the batting/bowling order as different players have faced different conditions and circumstances throughout ODI history. So, the baseline of a player is derived based on weighting the number of matches played in a particular World cup edition and at a particular position—the rationale being, it is fairer to compare a player with his counterparts rather than everyone in the batting/bowling order. With this tweak in place, a player’s performances are largely compared to those of a hypothetical, composite player who faced similar opportunities.

Now that we have defined the criteria, let us have a look at how the players have performed with respect to their baselines.

At the top of the order, the peerless Sachin Tendulkar leads the pack having performed at a level that was ~2 times that of the hypothetical average player who got the same batting opportunities during his era. His partner-in-crime, Sourav Ganguly isn’t far off with a BaI ratio of 1.94. Considering that these players played in multiple world cups, this is an exceptional record. The Nawab of Najafgarh has performed at a high level as well, with Sidhu rounding up the top 4. The current openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan (who didn’t make the cut due to the 2 tournament cutoff) could break into this list with a decent showing in the upcoming world cup.

The middle order springs a few surprises. Virat Kohli may have game-leading ODI statistics at the moment, but he is yet to produce his best at the World Cup. His level is only at 1.16 times the average player—of course, the presence of other illustrious peers in the top order hasn’t helped his cause. Rahul Dravid is easily India’s most valuable batsman from the BaI ratio perspective due to his stellar showing at multiple world cups (and he kept wicket in many games as well). Middle-order stars from more than 20 years ago—Azhar and Jadeja—have also performed respectably for India. M S Dhoni, in his World cup matches, hasn’t hit the heights of his otherwise superlative career but still has played at a very good level; but to be honest, there was no other wicketkeeping contender apart from Dravid. Suresh Raina shows the opposite characteristic of Kohli—he may not have extraordinary stats in ODIs but his showing in the World cup has indeed been very good with respect to his peers.

Now come the multi-dimensional players with two strings to their bow—the all-rounders. If single-skill cricketers could only contribute in one way, an all-rounder’s contribution is effectively the sum of batting and bowling contributions, making them extremely valuable to the team.

Batting-wise, Kapil Dev has been class-leading but his bowling has been rather ordinary at the World Cups. On the back of his impressive showing at the victorious 2011 World Cup campaign, Yuvraj Singh has extremely high numbers both in the bowling and batting departments, and he easily makes the cut along with Kapil. The heroes of the 1983 World Cup, Mohinder Amarnath and Madan Lal have slightly contrasting stories to tell with respect to statistics. According to the methodology, Madan Lal has the highest sum and there is no doubting his bowling contributions; but truth be told, this is an anomaly resulting largely because of his batting numbers racked up from low batting positions. In Amarnath’s case, even though his contributions were very valuable in the latter stages of the 1983 campaign, in the overall World Cup picture, they weren’t path-breaking.

Among the pace battery of the 2003 World Cup team, left arm quicks Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan edge the senior partner and mentor Srinath in the BoI ratio stakes. Dovetailing with Kapil Dev, this should be a good pace attack on the whole. The man who was blessed with banana swing, Manoj Prabhakar, has also performed at an acceptable level for India. But apart from these 4 (and Kapil), it is slim pickings (Shami and Umesh Yadav did well in 2015 but didn’t qualify due to the criteria). But this might change very soon—one suspects that a couple of fast bowlers from this tournament will break into this list soon.

Rounding up the team are spinners from south India. Though they weren’t necessarily first-choice throughout their careers, Kumble and Ashwin are the top spin bowlers for India according to BoI ratio. Beyond these 2, there is daylight and then Venkatapathy Raju. What about long-serving Harbhajan Singh? Surprisingly, he has very ordinary numbers in the World Cup.

Now that the analysis has revealed the “value” of each player, who makes the final squad? 10 out of 11 places are automatic picks; the odd one out is the solitary middle order slot. Suresh Raina made his runs over 9 innings; now compare this to Sehwag’s (22) and Azhar’s (25) match tallies. Though all 3 satisfy the selection criteria, Suresh Raina has played far fewer matches for his returns and hence he has to unfortunately sit this one out. So do we ask Sehwag to bat at 3? Or do we go with Azhar’s experience at 4? We prefer the latter. Among all the amazing options, we pick Dhoni to captain this fantasy XI.

All-time India World Cup XI: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Azharuddin, Yuvraj Singh, M S Dhoni (c & wk), Kapil Dev, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra

Setting expectations for Ashwin and Jadeja in South Africa

A new turn awaits the spin twins. Image source: 1.

The cricketing world and its citizens will be watching with great anticipation when the Indian team takes on the mighty Proteas in the upcoming series in the Southern Hemisphere. An Indian team—with personnel who have experience of playing in South Africa—which has won its last nine series, will be facing off against a South African team which polished off Zimbabwe in two days. This contest that will be played over three test matches has all the makings of a marquee series if one were to look at the ICC rankings. The top two test teams taking on each other. Seven of the world’s best 14 batsmen.  Six of the world’s best 14 bowlers. Two returning stalwarts in A B de Villiers and Dale Steyn, who will no doubt remember the drubbing they received in India, and will be motivated to return the favour.

When the Indian team takes the field in the first test in Cape Town, the spin bowling department will be under intense scrutiny with multiple sub-plots. Is there space for both Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, ranked 3 and 4 on the ICC rankings (the top ranked spinners)? Unlikely, considering the traditional conditions in South Africa, and given that Rahane’s recent form has been patchy, the team management may not play the fifth bowler. Then which one will get to play in this cricketing version of Sophie’s choice? Would it be the higher ranked Jadeja who had a six-for in the previous series, or would it be Ashwin, who went wicketless in his 42 overs of the solitary test he played the last time around? How will they hold up against Keshav Maharaj, the opposition spinner?

Regardless of the difficult decisions that the team management undoubtedly have to make, one reckons if this is an acid test for both these men with regard to their test cricketing stature. Both these tweakers started off as limited overs specialists; however, their limited overs stock has plummeted in recent times just as they have made their names in the test arena. Both spinners have bowled extremely well and at home, and also at West Indies and Sri Lanka recently. But unless they muster eye-catching performances overseas, starting from this South Africa tour, it looks like they will unfairly labelled as home-track bullies.

So what do these bowlers have to do to excel in South Africa? Are there any clues that can be obtained from spin performances of the past? Can we expect them to rip out the South African lineup or do we have to temper our expectations?

Since their readmission to the cricketing fold, South Africa have been a formidable team, even more so at home. They have a Win-Loss ratio of 2.8, and have triumphed in nearly 60% of their home matches. Barring the champion Australia team, only England have found success in South Africa. Spinners have struggled, taking 448 wickets at a bowling average of 39. In 125 matches, a haul of five wickets or more has been snared by spinners only 17 times. Keeping all this in mind, it is fair to say that only a handful of spin bowlers have flowered and bloomed in this desert.

Bowlers like Shakib Al Hasan, Mushtaq Ahmed, Danish Kaneria, Rangana Herath, Harbhajan Singh and Graeme Swann have had the one good tour in South Africa. But since this is the second tour for Ashwin and Jadeja, they need to aim higher.

Bowler	Matches	Bowling average (away, SA)	Wickets
Shane Warne	12	24.31	61
Muttiah Muralitharan	6	26.02	35
Anil Kumble	12	32.02	45

 

Of the spin bowlers who’ve visited South Africa at least twice since readmission, three names have performed on more than one tour: Shane Warne, Muralitharan and Anil Kumble—all legends in their own right. Overall, only Warne and Murali have had great returns in South Africa over their entire career. However, even they nabbed a five wicket haul at a much lesser rate compared to their 1 in 5 combined career tallies. Hence, a lesser tally can be expected in Ashwin’s and/or Jadeja’s cases as well. What about the other variables? Upon careful examination of their records, several trends become clear.

Bowler	Bowling average (1st innings)	Wickets (1st innings)	Bowling average (2nd innings)	Wickets (2nd innings)
Shane Warne	30.41	24	20.35	37
Muttiah Muralitharan	31.75	20	18.40	15
Anil Kumble	38.87	24	24.19	21

 

Barring a few outlier performances, South African pitches have been unfriendly (even for these spin-masters) in the first innings; their strike rates (balls per wicket) hover at values greater than 12 overs, a clear marker of the uphill task awaiting the Indian spinners. On unhelpful pitches, they must be ready to embrace a support role. In complete contrast, bowling in the second innings has been far more rewarding. Of course, one mustn’t forget that the second innings only comes into play once parity has been achieved in the first—a traditional Achilles heel for the Asian batsmen.

Bowler	SA batting average (1st innings)	Away team batting average	Bowling average (2nd innings)	Away team batting average
Shane Warne	27.24	36.93	27.52	36.20
Muttiah Muralitharan	41.68	23.91	26.92	20.21
Anil Kumble	34.57	28.10	34.68	22.21

 

Of the three spinners, only Shane Warne bowled with the relative comfort of a first innings lead. The all-weather, all-conquering Australian team were able to compete on both the batting and bowling fronts against South Africa. On the other hand, the Asian champions suffered from a lack of batting support. For perspective, consider the first innings batting average differential. Shane Warne bowled in the second innings with nearly a 100 run lead. Whereas, Kumble and Murali bowled magnificently in spite of a ~60-120 average run deficit; meaning, they were always chasing the game.

Bowler	Fast bowling support (10 wickets, bowling average<30)	Spread of bowler wickets across the batting order
		Top order (1-3)	Middle order (4-7)	Tail (8-11)
Shane Warne	5*	23.0%	42.6%	34.4%
Muttiah Muralitharan	0	22.9%	48.6%	28.5%
Anil Kumble	3	31.1%	35.5%	33.3%

 

Share Warne was also blessed with other wicket-taking bowlers like McGrath, Gillespie, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark. Why, even Steve Waugh (denoted by *) took wickets at an impressive rate. Anil Kumble bowled alongside Srinath, Prasad and Sreesanth—three Indian bowlers who did well in the Rainbow Nation. Bowling support is also a recurrent theme in the tales of the spinners doing well in a solitary series– Mohammed Asif, Waqar Younis, Lahiru Kumara and others set the stage for their spinners to do well. But one must doff his/her hat to the Sri Lankan champion Muralitharan—who bowled with virtually no batting or bowling support. All things considered, it is easily the best bowling performance by a visiting spinner on these shores since their readmission. Also, Warne and Muralitharan had a similar distribution of wickets across the batting order; whereas, Anil Kumble made more inroads in the top order.

What about the upcoming test series then?

The first two tests are at Newlands and Centurion, where spin bowling has traditionally suffered. The third test is at Jo’burg, where spinners have had it easier; with no Kingsmead on the list, the one venue where spinners have feasted is missing. Looking at all this, the Indian spinners have to play a supporting role in the first innings, and only come into play in the second for most of the series. Batting and bowling support is very much a necessity to influence the outcome of the match. The traditional second innings advantage will surely come to naught if the batting collapses. All eyes will be on the batsmen and the fast bowlers to stand up to the challenge.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with the respective owners.

 

 

Indian wrist spinners no longer second class ODI citizens

Ignored no more: Anil Kumble suffered a bias against wrist spinners throughout his ODI career. Image source: 1.

The shoe is finally on the other foot.

For years now, wrist spinners in India had to wonder what they had to do to get the selectors’ attention. After Anil Kumble’s last one day international (ODI) in 2007 till the end of 2015, a grand total of three wrist spinners had played for India in ODIs (not counting the batsmen-turned-part-timers, of course). In case you’re wondering about their names, they are Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra and Karn Sharma—who played a cumulative 55 ODIs in these 8 odd years.  Spare a thought for poor ol’ Amit Mishra—the man with an ODI average of under 27, and the Indian with the most IPL wickets—but hardly got a chance to play against the big boys.

Player name	Matches played	Wickets	Bowling average
Amit Mishra	28	47	26.14
Piyush Chawla	25	32	34.90
Karn Sharma	2	0	–

Table 1: List of Indian wrist spinners who played for India in the ODI format between 20th March 2007 and 31st December 2015

Coincidentally, Indian badminton has experienced an upswing since 2007. Is this due to a case of young boys with powerful wrists taking up the game after being dissuaded by the fates of Indian wrist spinners unfolding on and off the field? Jokes aside, back then, it wasn’t a stretch to call Indian wrist spinners as second class ODI citizens. Why, even during the peerless Anil Kumble’s playing career, after Harbhajan Singh burst on to the scene, the legend didn’t feature many times in the Indian team—missing 153 games in the process.

If one had switched on the television or an online stream to watch the latest ODI series featuring India, he/she would have certainly wondered what the fuss is all about. With Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal spinning a web against the Sri Lankans and the Aussies in the middle overs, the hard times faced by the practitioners of wrist spin seemed to be a distant memory; even forgotten, perhaps. However, old timers will note that the dark decades of the ‘70s and ‘80s were the worst for a wrist spinner when they were on the list of endangered species all over the cricketing world.

Spin bowling started losing favour in the early 1970s. John Snow headlined the 1970-71 and 1972 Ashes with Derek Underwood playing a parsimonious support act. A few years later, after losing test matches against the Australians and Indians in the 1975-76 season, Clive Lloyd’s West Indies turned to build a four-man demolition squad of fast bowlers which would terrorize batsmen world over for more than a generation. Naturally, other teams followed suit with fast bowlers of their own; even India, who often opened with a gentle medium pacer before tossing the ball to the members of the spin quartet, had found Kapil Dev in the golden age of fast bowling. The ones to suffer from this fast bowling tilt were the spin bowlers, and the situation only turned from bad to worse during the subsequent decade of the 1980s.

Particularly, one of the most difficult cricketing skills to master—wrist spin—had few takers during the dark decades of the ‘70s and ’80s when Pakistan’s Abdul Qadir was fighting a lone battle to keep the art alive. Since wrist spin involves spinning the ball using a full flick of the wrist and fingers, it is notoriously difficult to control and even more difficult to master. Invariably, a wrist spinner would bowl a bad delivery every other over which would duly be dispatched to the boundary. Hence, they were often labelled as high risk options, especially with teams coming to grips with ODI format where run containment was a premium. In the aforementioned time period of ‘70s and ’80s, fast bowling was seen as the key to test match success and spin was largely relegated to a defensive role; there were fears that wrist spin would totally disappear from the circuit. Batting skills against spin also took a backseat.

	Player name	Matches	Wickets	Bowling average
1	Abdul Qadir	57	216	32.31
2	RJ Shastri	69	141	39.51
3	Iqbal Qasim	32	131	24.99
4	JE Emburey	55	120	39.65
5	B Yardley	19	89	28.64
6	Tauseef Ahmed	28	87	29.57
7	JG Bracewell	35	82	37.28
8	Maninder Singh	34	81	38.8
9	PH Edmonds	33	76	39.76
10	DR Doshi	23	74	34.35
11	NS Yadav	26	70	38.71
12	SL Boock	21	57	35.22
13	NGB Cook	15	52	32.48
14	RJ Bright	20	46	41.13
15	RA Harper	24	45	27.82
16	ND Hirwani	7	42	20.71

Table 2: List of spinners who captured the most test wickets in between 1st January 1980 and 31st December 1989.

The list of spin bowling wicket takers in the trough of the 1980s tells the tale of wrist spinning gloom and doom. Ploughing a lonely furrow for the tribe of wrist spinners, the effervescent Abdul Qadir is perched firmly at the top with 216 wickets at a bowling average of 32.31; Ravi Shastri, with 141 victims off his left-arm-whatever at a bowling average of nearly 40, followed. Fourteen more finger spinners dot the list after Abdul Qadir, before the next wrist spinner appears in this list, namely Narendra Hirwani—who snared 42 wickets (16 of them in one game). Finger spinners were dotting the team sheets with such regularity that drinking games involving their inevitable selection could have been invented.

The face of wrist spin would change with the emergence of Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, Mushtaq Ahmed and co. in the 1990s. For nearly a decade and half, they bamboozled batsmen with their guile, control and variations. Shane Warne dragging Australia back from the dead in the 1999 World Cup semifinal and Anil Kumble bundling out six Windies for 12 runs are fond memories of that era. Unfortunately, after their retirement, wrist spin went underground for a few years yet again. In the era of ODI cricket that followed the retirement of the various wrist spinning doyens, the field turned barren with captains choosing safety and miserly spinners of the orthodox and mystery variety. However, in what has been a pleasant twist, the art-form has seen a renaissance in recent times. The lessons from the slam-bang nature of T20 and the fielding restrictions in the middle overs of the ODIs (hitherto the “boring” part of the ODI) have turned the situation on its head.

Player name	Matches	Wickets	Bowling average
Imran Tahir	40	62	27.67
AU Rashid	46	68	32.05
A Zampa	26	37	32.62
MJ Santner	37	38	37.07
M M Ali	41	28	59.50

Table 3: List of ODI spin bowlers with the best bowling averages since 1^st April 2015 against the top 9 ODI nations (minimum 25 wickets). All stats accurate till 4^th October 2017

Since the 2015 World cup, finger spinners have found the going tough in ODI cricket. The most successful spin bowlers since the last World cup have all been wrist spinners (minimum of 25 wickets against the top 9 ODI teams). In what has been a clear role reversal, New Zealand’s Mitchell Santner has been the only reasonably successful (if you can call it that) finger spinner at a bowling average of ~37. After getting drubbed in the recent Champions Trophy final against Pakistan, though a bit late to the game, it is no wonder that India turned to wrist spinners of their own.

This recent revival of wrist spin in ODIs has been due to a host of factors. One, pitches all over the world have been flat with the conditions being loaded in the favour of batsmen (the average score since 1^st April 2015 has been 272 runs); fielding restrictions have only added fuel to the fire with fewer boundary riders in the middle overs—meaning, today’s batsmen are going hell for leather more than ever; factors such as dew—which are almost a given during day-night matches held in the subcontinent—make it more difficult for the finger spinner to thrive.

Therefore, in today’s times, the best antidote for aggressive batsmen (the majority of whom are right handers) is to impart more spin on the ball and take it away from their preferred hitting zones on the leg side. Funnily, wrist spin needed batting to evolve to current T20-fuelled ballistic levels and to be countered with a high risk, high reward bowling deterrent.  With the spinning of the powerplay wheel and a combination of other factors, wrist spinners are surviving and thriving by remaining relevant even on the dreariest of surfaces in the shorter formats. It is early days still, but following worldwide trends, Indian wrist spinners are perhaps no longer second class ODI citizens.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, rests solely with its owners.

 

 

 

 

The overseas bowling puzzle for India

The recently concluded, enthralling test series between India and Australia represented a watershed moment for the Indian cricket team. In the process of defeating Australia in the final test in Dharamshala, it became the third country (after Australia and South Africa) to hold all bilateral trophies in test cricket (concerning its own team, of course) at the same point of time. From Steven Smith’s quip of being one or two sessions away from the Australian team retaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy after the Pune reverse to winning the series at Dharamshala, this was a stunning reaction from the Virat Kohli led team. Of course, India having played most of its recent tests at home has contributed to some part of this achievement; greater challenges lie abroad.

The spin twins: Who will make the cut in an overseas test? Image source: 1.

The bedrock of this match-winning juggernaut has been built on the foundation of a well-oiled bowling unit. Leading from the front are India’s two match winning spinners, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. Ranked 1 and 3 (Ashwin was ranked at 2 when the series concluded) on the ICC player rankings, they have been at the forefront of dismantling opposition teams at home—emulating the illustrious Bishan Singh Bedi and Bhagwath Chandrashekhar, who occupied the top two slots way back in 1974. Ashwin even managed to breach the elite 900 ranking points level, hitherto unscaled by Indian bowlers.

However, the two spinners took contrasting paths during the extended home season.  Ashwin took off from where he left, becoming the third player (after Malcolm Marshall and Imran Khan, no less) to snare four consecutive Man-of-the-series awards with his showing against the New Zealand team. However, he ran into a wall (relatively speaking) in the form of the English team. He wasn’t able to run amok against Bangladesh or Australia either; his batting form tailed off as well.

Of course, injury might have played some part in his less-than-stellar showing; during the home season, Ashwin bowled over 700 overs and picked up 82 wickets (a record). He was first picked for the Ranji trophy quarterfinal match against Karnataka, and subsequently withdrew due to a sports hernia to recuperate. The same injury reared its ugly head after the India-Australia series, and the bowler rightly gave the IPL a skip.

On the other hand, Ravindra Jadeja went from strength to strength as the home season progressed. He maintained a high level for the first three series, and was the standout performer in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, usurping his teammate Ashwin from the top of the ICC rankings. He too missed the initial matches of the IPL, but his improved test match prowess hasn’t exactly boosted his IPL showings. Both of these bowlers were ineffectual during the Champions trophy.

Versus team (number of tests)	Ravichandran Ashwin		Ravindra Jadeja
	Wickets	Bowling avg.	Wickets	Bowling avg.
New Zealand (3)	27	17.77	14	24.07
England (5)	28	30.25	26	25.84
Bangladesh (1)	6	28.50	6	24.66
Australia (4)	21	27.38	25	18.56
Recent ODIs
Champions trophy	1	167	4	62.25

This raises an interesting conundrum with tours to Sri Lanka in July-August and away to South Africa in December-January: what will India’s bowling combination be when it tours different countries?

When India last toured many overseas countries in 2014, Ashwin had been left out of the eleven seven times in nine test matches. He was dropped after he bowled 42 overs at the Wanderers with nothing to show in the wickets column. The man who replaced him in the next test was Ravindra Jadeja—who toiled for 58.2 overs in the first innings, but got 6 wickets. Even the unheralded Karn Sharma leapfrogged him in Adelaide.

Ashwin didn’t impress when he got the chance in England or Australia either. After a period of introspection, he turned a corner and has been a different bowler since. But the question remains—who will be the primary spinner when India tours? What would be done with Kuldeep Yadav, another interesting prospect?

Fortunately, there exists a period in India’s recent cricketing past when the team faced a similar conundrum—the spinners being the previous Indian coach Anil Kumble, and the man who Ashwin replaced, Harbhajan Singh.

Between Harbhajan Singh’s debut test (25^th March 1998) and Anil Kumble’s final test (2^nd November 2008), India played toured many a country abroad. In 20 of these matches, both Kumble and Harbhajan featured.  Sometimes, one player was favoured over the other—Kumble made the cut 26 times, whereas Harbhajan was picked 12 times.  Is there any evidence that playing one or two spinners led to the other bowling better?

	Alone	Together
Kumble	34.35	35.38
Harbhajan	38.60	40.27

The effect, if any, is quite marginal. In fact, the statistics show that both spinners bowled marginally better alone (overall bowling figures are woeful, nonetheless). The choice of bowling combination is revealing in terms of the opposition strength; they featured in tandem mostly for tests against “weaker” nations like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and West Indies, and against stronger opposition at well-known spin friendly venues like Galle, The Oval, Sydney and their ilk.

Keeping this in mind, it will be interesting to see the Indian team’s approach when it lines up against teams abroad. Would it pick one over the other? Will the team management play both in a five bowler combination, and hope for the lower order to click? Which two spinners will they play? Will there be a third spinner in this equation on overseas rank turners? Here is the flexible approach that Anil Kumble had advocated before his time as the Indian coach:

“We have gone into this theory of three seamers and one spinner the moment we sit on an aircraft which travels more than seven hours – that’s the mindset… If your 20 wickets are going to come with two spinners and two fast bowlers, so be it. If it comes with three spinners and one fast bowler so be it.”

To his credit, Kumble stuck to his philosophy during his tenure. Now if India worked out a bowler management program to go along with an approach like this, it would have a great chance of competing with the best sides overseas. But with Kumble being no more associated with the Indian team and Ravi Shastri yet to air his views regarding this in public, the Indian team’s strategy remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with the respective owners.

 

Kumble-Kohli gate: A thought experiment

Oh dear, what can the matter be? Image sources: 1 and 2.

In case my inflated sense of self-importance is not ridiculously high and you are Anil Kumble, Virat Kohli, or a BCCI office-bearer who has stumbled into this article, please do not read it further. Your collaboration and focus on the Champions Trophy is paramount to us. This article is for the rest of us who are wondering how on earth could there be trouble in paradise. As a country, we are inexplicably forgiving of the corrupt, shockingly indifferent to the violent, shamefully accepting of the discriminant, so unsurprisingly, this is the one thing that leaves us numb, feeling unreal.

As the public, I hope we have set enough precedent with our spiteful intolerance of your failure on a cricket field. Don’t you dare assume the right to question our perpetual mediocrity just because I question the sporadic mediocrity in yours. If you’ve benefitted socially and financially from the adulation of fans like me which have added mythology to your workplace and made you a superstar, the criticism comes with the territory. But I see your point. I do burn your effigies and pelt stones anyway, so you might as well have a verbal shot in the dark.

Alright, minor digressions on the Indian primer of hypocrisy aside, what could possibly have belied our conviction that this was a match made in heaven? What were the events that unfolded? Let us indulge in some thought experiment and reconcile all the parameters, balance the probabilities and backtrack to what the triggers may have been. More importantly (and sadly), this role play might tell us how this is going to end.

As a consumer of content in today’s digital era, I cannot overemphasize the importance of sieving the ground truth from all the noise. Elections and regimes are won and lost by the noise, after all. So let’s start with the most credible piece of information we have. In fact, let us confine ourselves to just the synopsis – “BCCI is inviting applications for the head coach post”.

If we didn’t see this coming, the first and foremost reason is that team India has been performing well. This is completely contrary to the degeneration loop that often leaves us wondering about the starting point – was it bad performance, team disharmony, ineffective enablement(coaching) or was it just poor selection to begin with. However obvious it be, there goes a huge parameter in our equation of scrutiny.

To the young Indian public, Ravi Shastri sports the image of a playboy-binger-rhetoric-howler, ad-nauseum. But Ravi Shastri the player, was the champion of champions, always punched his guts above his weight, and Ravi Shastri the coach-cum-director stepped in during every crisis. There is no doubt he should be revered in the context of Indian cricket. But Kumble is always the man who bowled with the broken jaw who also put Australia in their place. There are no multiple personas, no chinks in the armor, no joke is on him (except perhaps his famous dives/slides during his heyday). Every member of the Indian cricket team will start with utmost reverence.

Let’s start our roleplay on that note. You are now a player in the Indian cricket team that is in transition. You started off by embracing his modus-operandi in pure awe, but you do not see it as constructive anymore. You pick up the vibe that your confidants share your empathy. If you are a strong character, you brought this up directly with Kumble. If you are someone shy, you funneled it through those who can voice your opinion. Either way, it looks like he put his foot down. He has publicly defended Pujara’s strike rate, he’s put his money on using a bowling-led approach in tests, and having an emphasis on match fitness. The individual merits in each case may be debatable, but the results aren’t.

Over a period of time, discontent of the methods brewed dislike of the person. You wonder if the leader of the pack shares the same empathy. You bring it up with him. This is when things get tricky. If Virat heard you out and didn’t find your concerns justified, he shut you down. If he had shut you down, this is a smaller matter. You are eventually feeling disconnected from the scheme of things and working towards your non-selection. But the headline didn’t read – “Player ABC is dropped due to reason XYZ”. So, your performance, fitness and mental conditioning has been good. In this case, you are a convert for good—from awe to knee-jerk skepticism caused by the change, and back to awe. Also, the positive reinforcement is there for the entire team to witness. But, neither of these was the outcome. Were you injured then?

Based on the outcome, it does seem like Virat feels you are right because he either wasn’t a believer of Kumble’s methods, or that you were an exception. Imagine you are Virat Kohli. You have put your body and mind through hell and come out clean for the betterment of your performance. It is hard to believe though that the fitness freak that you are would find Kumble’s methods to be gruelling. If anything, you now have a coach who is willing to play the bad cop in enforcing the fitness regimen you truly believe in. But that clearly wasn’t the case either. Cleary, the outcome suggests that you have taken the player’s case and attempted negotiation with Kumble. And Kumble has either attempted to address them and failed, or perhaps shunned it, and there begin the escalations—a potential power struggle of coach vs captain, only, in this case, you have the team’s backing and are one of the first names on the team sheet in all 3 formats.

As this reached levels of intolerance, you possibly reached out to those you could trust, empathize and fix this. BCCI personnel are too volatile, and approaching BCCI makes it too formal. Despite your escalation, you wanted containment. Your objective was not nuclear. That brings Saurav and Sachin, who truly believe in you and truly understand Kumble- the best mediators to handle these powerful personalities. Irrespective of how the permutations played out, their skype calls failed to reconcile. It failed so badly.

Kumble isn’t staying as the coach for the next term. It would need someone to pull off a mass psychological miracle. Let’s fast forward to where speculations began. If you are running the BCCI, what is the first thing you do when this escalates to you? You try to contain this and scheme a PR spin on this matter, announce that Kumble leave is set to leave due to “personal” reasons, retain him on a per-series basis, find a replacement and announce gratefulness for his willingness to extend for a few months despite his “situation”. This is the most graceful way to handle the situation—albeit farcical—as it begs to make it into an autobiography. Nonetheless, that is what you do as an organization. But your hand is forced and you are asking for applications during the Champions Trophy. You couldn’t take this up until after because of contractual obligations with Kumble who wants to leave in his own terms, or you have already made the decision to sack Kumble, either of which has the same implication – his being with the team in England is the actual PR exercise. Thus, the premature end to Kohli-Kumble alliance.

But the mess doesn’t end here.

Irrespective of Kumble’s credentials, the premature end to his tenure directly implicates the committee that contrived to have him in the first place. There is also the little matter of the public fallout between Ganguly and Shastri, which some say showed a semblance of improvement as Ravi Shastri howled out “Dada, the prince of Bengal” during the IPL inauguration. I just think that was Shastri doing his job. So, that pipe is still clogged, fresh wounds yet to heal, so calling in the crisis man would be unlikely. Oh, and this also thwarts the attribution of Greg Chappell’s failure to his tough-guy Australian-ness. The members of the panel preferred a coach in background in the mould of John Wright and Gary Kirsten. Going by history, it seems that the only question that counts in the matter of Indian coach is this: “Where does a candidate personality lie in the dictator-sycophant spectrum?”

Let’s not trust whatever we hear, but trust based on what we didn’t. And that brings us to the lone shining light in this dark episode. We didn’t hear any rumor of a spat or factions within the team. We didn’t hear of any power struggle either and that is a critical piece of information. We didn’t hear a fallout between Kumble and Dhoni, or Dhoni and Kohli. That Dhoni is staying under the radar shows how he controlled the compelling urge of throwing himself into the mess to “fix” it. That tells you a bit about the man and bodes well for the unit.

The false hope that I am clinging onto, is that this was all plotted and schemed by the BCCI to get rid of the most vocal member who was throwing down the gauntlet to increase player and coach salaries, and that this connivance would hit the light, and Kumble would continue to coach happily ever after.

Disclaimer: The images used are not property of this blog and have been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, exists with the respective owners.