Problems with Indian Cricket

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Finally thought I give my thoughts regarding Indian cricket. I have been thinking a lot but thought its not worth my time but since missus is in India and I am home alone, I have plenty of time to talk and discuss.

Coach - Rahul Dravid

It saddens me to say this but Rahul Dravid has not been the answer. I admit and now agree Ravi Shastri was even better compared to Rahul Dravid the coach. I see no vision, no preparations and no game readiness from Rahul Dravid and his coaching team. Rahul was supposed to be the answer to what things Shastri did wrong but he has failed to do so and has only help raise more questions. I remember @SaiSrini a year ago saying he should not be made the coach and should remain with U19 and I disagreed, I however agree to what he said. Dravid should go back to U-19 and NCA level to nurture youngsters.

Captain - Rohit Sharma

HE has been nothing but disappointment. There is way too much wrong with Rohit, from his fitness to his vision. Lets dig deep on what my problem is

1. https://www.espncricinfo.com/video/...ible-to-always-play-with-your-best-15-1347978 --- We cannot play with our best team... YES YOU CAN! If cricketing calendar is out of control, talk to BCCI and not play IPL. A country who has not seen a trophy in 10 years almost with all the talent, need to focus on that. Also if you need so much rest, might as well retire and let the youngsters who are raring to play all formats play.
2. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/...world-cup-we-can-t-think-so-far-ahead-1347974 - What the actual fearsome tweak! You are less then 1 year away from 2023 50 over world cup and you are saying you cannot look that far ahead? THIS IS THE PROBLEM. You have no vision and will just make due a squad when time comes, lose and give the same old excuse. Interesting how he keeps speaking about Mumbai Indians this, IPL that during international conference but when it comes to India, you cannot think that far for a WC? Where are the days when teams started preparing 3 years before the WC started so there could be a squad that they could trust?

If your captain syas we cannot think that far, that is a problem. We just have 6 bi-lateral series to decide our 15.. tell me who are your openers? What is your squad looking like? Who are your 15? When was the last time the entire squad played together? All the series India has played is with B Squad. Is that now your A Squad? Rohit are you stepping down and not playing?

BCCI needs a radical change and one thing that needs to happen is YOU ARE NOT RESTING for international matches, go rest for IPL.

Players

KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma --- They are problem. I know Kohli had a good T20 WC, but enough is enough. All these 3 need to go. Rahul Dravid needs to be sacked along with all 3 players being dropped. India will lose another WC or so but I would be happy not seeing either 3 in the squad.

Rohit Sharma -

• Has played 14 test matches out of India's 35 in the last 3 years. Most of the time he is injured and he is supposed to be our Test Captain?
• Has played 29 ODI's since 2019 when India has played 70. He is our ODI captain who has played less then 50% of the time India plays?
• Has played 58 T20's since 2019 when India has played 85 games. He played 70% of the games.

Now if you look, he has played 101 games for India in 3 years where India has played 190 games. That is 53%. So you are telling me your captain only plays half the time? That is some bull shit.

All these matches for India total 335 days out of 1095 days. With IPL being 75 days, lets add another 225 days for playing that adds up to 560 days ... so you are telling me getting half the time off is not enough?

This not only applies to Rohit but also Virat Kohli.

Virat Kohli has played 27 test matches out 35... which is good, 49 ODI's out of 70 which is better then Rohit and 50 T20's out of 85. He has played more games compared to Rohit.

I am sick and tired as an Indian cricket fan to not see a ICC trophy come home. What is the use of all the bench strength when either you do not give them a chance and B not play to your potential? I am sick when the captain of the team says we are not looking far ahead for the WC that is in INDIA which is less than 12 months away. I am sick seeing all players take repetitive rest. Which work allows taking 50% of the days off ?

Everything with Indian cricket is right now broken, from extended IPL to coach and captain. From players who have talent not given opportunity to players like KL keep getting pushed in the XI despite no form and even made captain.

Need a complete reset for Indian cricket, either that happens or they will keep losing loyal ardent supporters.

 

[Targaryen]

I have been critical of our captain's fitness issue for a while now. People think I am Rohit hater, only if you know how much positive I have been of him before he was made the captain (check my posts on this forum before he took over the captaincy). Rohit the batsman is better than Rohit the captain. Period. His on-field behavior as captain has been pathetic. Even Kohli was better than Rohit in that regard. Having said that, I feel Rohit excuses himself from playing a series if he thinks that series might impact his fantastic record as a captain (against poor teams). I have hardly seen him captaining the squad against top teams in form. He is either suffering an injury or wants to take a break from such a series.

The problem is not with the promotion, but with the way they transferred the captaincy to him for his IPL Record. 1 year in and we are already asking him to be sacked. That is how he has made the situation look. IPL is nothing but a money-making machine for BCCI and most of the talents from IPL have failed in international cricket. There has been nothing good about it in terms of players' performance in international cricket. Maybe stop the centrally contracted players from playing IPL and see how it goes.

I agree Dravid is not a perfect fit as a coach and should be sent back to NCA. The most effective coach can be an outsider. There has been too much politics involved within team management and administration which leads to favoritism or lobbying. An outsider can be impartial.

If we are not fixing the captain and coach issue asap, expect another terrible year for Indian cricket next year. Also, it's time we find a backup for Kohli, he hardly has 1-2 yrs of cricket left with the kind of form he is been carrying recently. Rohit should be sacked immediately for being too careless about WC preparation. Dhoni as a captain started preparing for WC 3 yrs prior to the tournament. That should be our approach, and not say "I believe it's very important for us not to start thinking about so many things - the World Cup, the combination, this guy or that guy. Me and coach [Rahul Dravid] have a fair idea as to what we want to do, and we'll narrow it down once we get closer to the World Cup. But [for now] we just want to play good cricket until the World Cup."

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

We have so many good players in domestic, u-19 level that will surely step up. We have to start trusting them. I want a WC win but I also want a debacle of 2023 WC so that these players are sacked for good. No other country would have had out of form players play for long. I mean no disrespect to what Kohli and Rohit have achieved on other hand KL has achieved nothing!

 

[Aislabie]

India has a deeper cricketing talent pool than the rest of the world put together, and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves. They have more money to throw around than the world put together, as well as its most lucrative product: the IPL.

They also have the absolute worst approach imaginable for getting the best out of those talents.

The first exposure any Indian player has to coaching perspectives other than a 10-year-retired Indian former player is at the IPL if they're lucky. If not, it'll be when they have to play against well-drilled opposition for the national team.

The first exposure any Indian player gets to foreign playing conditions is when they have to play international cricket away from home.

The last experience that the coaches or selectors have of playing any kind of cricket is either the 1999 Sharjah Cup or some sort of retired players league with 40-metre boundaries in 2018.

This is stupid. The coaching staff cannot be made up only of players who played Ranji against their Head Coach; a variety of complimentary perspectives can help come up with ideas and solutions that might otherwise have been missed.

Indian players have to be able to gain experience of playing outside of India in T20 leagues and in first-class competitions that allow it. Marnus Labuschagne is the clearest example of why: he went to play a bit of Div 2 County Championship, and found a coach in Matt Maynard who looked at his batting from a different perspective. The resulting improvement turned him from a 30-average Shield batter to a 60-average Test batter. If the Australian system had made it prohibitively difficult for him to play overseas, that improvement might never have happened.

This is very stream of consciousness, but when a plane crashes, the aviation industry doesn't blame the pilot and wipe its hands of that. Instead it investigates, reviews, and improves its system so that the same failure can't happen twice. The BCCI could learn a lot from this approach

 

[ddrap14]

On another aside, is 27 domestic teams really necessary, at least in the top flight? I get having a regional competition, but nowhere else in the world is the main FC competition so spread (even England, who had the same criticism after the Ashes I think).

Might put together a mockup of something...

Edit: For some reason I thought there was only 27. It's actually 39 I think, if I can count

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

On another aside, is 27 domestic teams really necessary, at least in the top flight? I get having a regional competition, but nowhere else in the world is the main FC competition so spread (even England, who had the same criticism after the Ashes I think).

Might put together a mockup of something...

Edit: For some reason I thought there was only 27. It's actually 39 I think, if I can count

38 teams. You were close!

 

[ddrap14]

38 teams. You were close!

Ah, I didn't notice one of the eight-team groups had seven.

 

[Bevab]

On another aside, is 27 domestic teams really necessary, at least in the top flight? I get having a regional competition, but nowhere else in the world is the main FC competition so spread (even England, who had the same criticism after the Ashes I think).

Might put together a mockup of something...

Edit: For some reason I thought there was only 27. It's actually 39 I think, if I can count

There's a reason for there being so many teams at least now. For years the BCCI has been trying to push cricket as a profession in which you can secure a livelihood so that they get more talents flowing through the pathway and having more teams especially in the more niche regions like they've done recently does help with that immensely. There's also a lot of political intermixing within the state associations and the BCCI that lends the former plenty of clout and power. Both of those reasons mean that the best we could have was the previous system of keeping the newer sides away from the rest as long as possible.. which inevitably would have ended someday.

I do think they're well on their way to achieving their first goal in their own twisted way (with their own other nefarious goals alongside). A purely domestic journeyman today would have a decent life playing in just these domestic competitions. There's a lot more scope for other pathways once you're done with your career (due to the doors that the sport opens in the current age in India) and there have been more people entering cricket at a later stage due to raw talent from other good fields like Chakravarthy from architecture that was very less likely in the past. Personal anecdote time... a friend's father who played few FC games once had to quit his career after his wedding to start a family to switch over to another job because it made more sense for him to be in an alternate career from a financial and job security perspective. I think that's less likely to happen in the current day and age.

 

[Bevab]

I don't think the numerous teams in Ranji Trophy is an issue though... the blokes playing there have done well when they play on A tours. Mayank and Vihari were the last batters to be selected primarily for their FC exploits and both have had moderate success internationally. Nadeem did struggle in that test vs England but I don't think he was in good form or confidence at that point. I don't think Sarfaraz Khan or Mukesh Kumar (in favourable conditions) would look completely out of place in a test tomorrow if they were to be selected.

 

[Satan666]

Plenty to go through in this thread. Not sure if the psychological/mental side of player and coach development has been mentioned.

From my perspective cricketers in India treat the sport as a way to be a celebrity like the movie stars and rock stars. The Indian fans encourage this as welll. In their bid to become flamboyant from management to the school leagues the thinking of the profession has alluded most of the guys coming through. A strong mental coaching and teaching is required. Perhaps a cultural change as well as most INDIANS think theyre better than others.

Then there is always Karma.

 

[ddrap14]

There's a reason for there being so many teams at least now. For years the BCCI has been trying to push cricket as a profession in which you can secure a livelihood so that they get more talents flowing through the pathway and having more teams especially in the more niche regions like they've done recently does help with that immensely. There's also a lot of political intermixing within the state associations and the BCCI that lends the former plenty of clout and power. Both of those reasons mean that the best we could have was the previous system of keeping the newer sides away from the rest as long as possible.. which inevitably would have ended someday.

I do think they're well on their way to achieving their first goal in their own twisted way (with their own other nefarious goals alongside). A purely domestic journeyman today would have a decent life playing in just these domestic competitions. There's a lot more scope for other pathways once you're done with your career (due to the doors that the sport opens in the current age in India) and there have been more people entering cricket at a later stage due to raw talent from other good fields like Chakravarthy from architecture that was very less likely in the past. Personal anecdote time... a friend's father who played few FC games once had to quit his career after his wedding to start a family to switch over to another job because it made more sense for him to be in an alternate career from a financial and job security perspective. I think that's less likely to happen in the current day and age.

Ah, I see. I was only really questioning it because I know Aussie pundits questioned the English system of first-class cricket for the same reason after the Ashes.

 

[Aislabie]

Ah, I see. I was only really questioning it because I know Aussie pundits questioned the English system of first-class cricket for the same reason after the Ashes.

I think a big difference is that (for example) Gujarat has a population the size of the UK that is covered by only three domestic associatons.

Surrey has Whitgift School.

 

[icyman]

Indian cricket lacks vision and a strategy. They basically lack a Cricket Director who can etch out a 5-year plan for them.

Our goalposts seem to keep on shifting- After the debacle of the WT20 2021 the BCCI wanted the team to win the next edition. Failure in the WT20 2022 has now shifted this focus to the WTC and the CWC 2023. It is not wrong to want to win everything, but bear in mind, we arent like the West Indies of the 1980s or the Aussies of the 2000s.

I have made a mention of a few pointers here and feel these can be helpful.

1. Strategy & Focus on Formats
While the above point can be taken out of context, it is imperative to understand that one needs to play according to their strengths. In order to do so, we need separate teams with separate strategies for this purpose. The T20 and ODI templates need to change with the times and we need to take the bull by the horn. If this means we need a change of personnel, so be it.

2. Role of NCA and Coaches
The NCA cannot act as a jump-board for VVS Laxman to take over once Dravid's tenure ends. Being the Director of the NCA comes with a lot more responsibility than is being showcased by the media. The position is akin to a Cricket Director. This person needs to bring about a change in playing conditions, challenge the domestic players and put forth a clear pathway for domestic players to rise up the ladder.
In terms of coaches, a bloke like Bharat Arun can and should be allowed to hone bowling talent for the country. On the basis of the Lodha reforms, one cannot unilaterally dismiss his contribution and all that that he still has to offer.

3. Selection
Don't quite understand the logic of having selectors who have played a particular number of games. Harsha Bhogle, who hasnt played any cricket can still be called upon to comment on the game, so why cant we have specialist selectors- Similar to the Aussie system. The Selection meets could be telecast live- that could become a talking point, however, it is bound to bring to the fore the decisions being taken.

In the Indian thread, I had made a mention of how this Selection Committee needs to be recast and what/ who ought to be the components of the same.

4. Succession Planning
If India A and India B arent to be considered as a basis for a player's entry, then the system is flawed. Not only for the player's entry- these teams should also serve as a jumping board for the captaincy. There's absolutely no rhyme in having Shreyas Iyer and Samson captain at the India A level if you aren't going to trust them with roles in future. On the contrary, Easwaran, Panchal too have captained India A, but they are probably deemed not good enough to be a part of the Indian setup.

5. Rest & IPL
Guess enough has been said about players resting for international games and giving the IPL more priority. India definitely needs to keep its franchisees in check. else things wont work out.

 

[icyman]

A year has gone by, yet there's little change in the pointers I've made. Probably, the only exception being they instituted a Chairman of Selectors who is at least respected.

 

[noducksallowed]

There are no problems with India cricket!!