Picking up the pieces

Now that India's 2007 WC campnaign is over, its time to pick up the pieces and move on with the rest of our mundane lives. But not before I put my cricketing acumen and expertise to use to figure out what really went so drastically wrong for India. Since I had predicted a semifinal spot for India, let me first take a minute to eat my words.

Burp!

Let's get on with our analysis, shall we?

What went wrong?

Fitness and fielding:
Everyone knows India had one of the weakest fielding outfits in the cup. The other one was Pakistan. Do you think its a coincidence that these two were the first to get eliminated from the tournament? Ofcourse not. There are no coincidences. An example: India has just reduced Srilanka to a precarious 120 odd for four wickets. Two new players are at the crease. And what does Silva do? He keeps hitting the balls straight to the fielders and sneaking singles and doubles. Zaheer tries a quite simple one-handed pickup at the boundary, and falls flat on his face and gives away valuable runs. Munaf Patel stops the ball and sits down near the boundary, slowly gets up and finally releases the ball. There must've been enough time to run five runs. The only guy attacking the ball and inducing some fear in the batsmen is Yuvraj Singh. If we had gotten one more wicket at this stage, we could've reduced SL to within 220. Instead, we end up chasing 255. Robin Uthappa, who used to very fast on the field, has visibly put on a few tires around the midriff. And please do not give India's age as an example. Jayasuriya and Muralithyaran were scorching the turf.

Seniors and superstars:
What's the advantage of picking up seniors over talented newbies? Everyone says its the 'experience'. So what do our mucho experienced seniors do? Saurav ends up handing his wicket on a platter when he should've stuck it out and let Sehwag get on with the job. Sachin awkwardly puts one leg out and inside edges as he has done on numerous occasions. Shouldn't he be learning from his mistakes? Sehwag, who was playing so well, tries to run it down third man when there is a slip in place. The 'best batting lineup on paper' has become a sarcastic tagline. It says we're only good on paper, and hardly ever on the field. Yes, we have people with tens of thousands of runs. Bullies on easy pitches against crappy teams in meaningless matches. But what happens when we face the music in a must-win situation against quality opposition in the only tournament that counts? We come unstuck. Its time to look beyond our overpaid superstars and back some youngsters, if we can actually find some!

Opening conundrum:
Saurav and Sachin. Sachin and Sehwag. Sehwag and Uthappa. Saurav and Sehwag. Saurav and Uthappa. Are you kidding me? This reads like a game of musical chairs! Every other team has had a settled opening pair for atleast a year. India comes in not knowing which pair we're gonna use any given day. Does it ever occur to Chappell or Dravid that there has to be some chemistry and understanding between openers? This was the world cup and we were trying out new combinations here like this were some kind of gully cricket. And invariably, we lost 3-4 wickets within the first 15 overs.

Harbhajan and the fifth bowler:
In ODI these days, you need 5 bowlers or atleast 4 bowlers and an all-rounder. We had 3 bowlers, 1 non-performer in Harbhajan and a bunch of undependable tweakers. One of the reasons for India's phenomenal form and unbeaten run a couple of years ago was the rise of Irfan Pathan as an allrounder of substance. I know he's not been in form recently. But if you brought him all the way to the WC, shouldn't he get to play atleast against Bangladesh? And he would've definitely scored more runs than Uthappa because he has a more mature head on this shoulders. Harbhajan continued his completely unimaginative bowling and predictable doosras. You only have to see Murali in action to figure out how effective a spinner can be. We need to unearth a few allrounders or hope Pathan gets back to his old form. I envy other teams that have Jacob Oram, Andrew Symonds or Jayasuriya.

Where's the fighting spirit?
Everytime we hail the arrival of the fearless 'new' generation, we are soon proved very wrong as they inevitably fail in pressure situations like their senior colleagues. Wasn't Dhoni supposed to have nerves of steal? Wasn't Yuvraj supposed to be India's answer to Michael Bevan and finish off games on his own? Everyone has a temporary lose of form or an occasional rush of stupidity. But one thing that has always been predictable about India is that we will fail in pressure situations. The bigger the game the harder we fall. As a race, are we a bunch of pussies? Is there something in their upbringing that makes the Aussies mentally tougher than us? Is it the way our domestic cricket is organized, encouraging a lot of meaningless games and bullies? Is it the pressure exerted on these youngsters by the constant media attention, corporate sponsors and insane expectations from billions of cricket fanatics? How do we incorporate mental toughness in our next generation of cricketers? I don't have an answer, but this needs to be address by people who know better.

Where do we go from here?

Youngsters and bench strength:
Its time to go back to building a team for the future. Bring back the Rainas, encourage the Karthicks and keep faith in the Pathans. Its time to bid farewells to the Agarkars. What happened to D. Balaji and Nehra? Another thing we tend to do is pick out brilliant talent from the under-19 squad and drop them into the high-pressure world of international cricket and hope they succeed. Most of these youngsters haven't even had a chance to play domestic cricket, finetune their techniques and gauge how good they really are in pressure situations. So time and again, we see them start off well before the other teams work out how to handle them. After that, they get dropped and go back to obscurity. Pathan and Raina were excellent examples. Not everyone is a Kapil Dev who can soak up pressure as 17 year olds. And let's face it. There's a lot more pressure, media exposure and money now than there was during Kapil's days. Its time to start the rebuilding process, improve bench strength, rotate players and keep faith in them. Also, we should be giving chances to the not-so-young who have ground it out in domestic games and preformed consistently for years. They invariably have more mental strength and value the opportunity more. Remember Robin Singh? He was one of the toughest players we've ever had.

Back to the basics:
As redundant and cliched it sounds, we just have to go back to the basics. Chappell and Dravid kept talking about 'processes', but when it came to the crunch they panicked and just went back to the old Indian ways. How many long-term prospects have we really discovered since WC 2003? The only ones I can think of are an injury-prone Munaf and unfortunate Karthick (since he'll always play second fiddle to Dhoni) and a clueless Pathan. Sreesanth had potential, but is still raw and leaks runs. But we should give him his chances. As the WC backlash continues, inevitably, heads will roll. I hope the board, selectors, coach, captain and senior players sit together and talk about what is good for Indian cricket, rather thn what will satiate disappointed and blood-hungry public. How do we ease out senior players and bring in new ones? Saurav will probably quit. But I think Sachin and Dravid still have a lot to offer. Sachin's role has to be redefined. And he should make his 'experience' count instead of being a liability to the team when questions are asked in pressure situations. We need to rotate our bowlers. Munaf must be told to improve his fielding or leave. Its probably time for Agarkar to slip away as well. Zaheer should not go back to the old complacent ways.

Improve domestic cricket:
This is probably the only long-term solution. Reduce the number of teams, and make every match count. Look at how 7-8 teams fight for the Sheffield shield in Australia. Improve the pitches and make them sporting, instead of batsmen with mediocre talents bullying around the bowlers. Reward good performances in domestic cricket with money, sponsorship and a place in the national team. We hear complaints all the time that its extremely hard for a domestic player to get into the national team after 25 or 26, as the selectors are increasingly relying on the under-19 players. Keep an open mind. Who knows when we'll discover a 31-year old Michael Hussey?

Bottomline:
Ofcourse, we can go on and on. But we all know that none of this is ever going to happen. We'll muddle and flounder. We'll discuss endlessly. We'll develop a roadmap. But close to WC 2011, we'll panic, there will be calls to stop 'experimenting' and go with experience. We'll throw out all our 'processes' and bring back past 'stars'! There will be more burning of effigies and destruction of players' houses. Australia will keep winning, Srilanka will be the top team in the subcontinent and Bangladesh will emerge a cricketing force to reckon with like SL did in the eighties and nineties. The agony of being an Indian cricket fan! I just wish I could give up cricket and take up American football/baseball/basketball like all my desi-turned-American friends. Sigh!