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Time to plan for the future With another home series win under its belt, the Indian team basks once again in the adulation of its fans. The encomiums this time are deserved - there is no shame in roundly trouncing a weak team. The West Indies are a shadow of their past self, and the Indian team is ferocious at home. Living up to the weighty expectations these two conditions engender is a feat in itself. However, success can be ephemeral unless it is backed by fresh planning. Repeatable success is far more satisfying than occasional success notwithstanding any old adage about absence (of success) making the heart grow fonder. How can the Indian team make winning a habit? There are three keys:
The Australians are the masters of this strategy for building tough teams. Past performance has not been a good shield for star players when they become inconsistent. The travails that the Waughs, Geoff Marsh, Allan Border, Craig McDermott and others have undergone to retain their places in the side on numerous occasions points to a sound understanding in the Australian Cricket Board of a golden lesson that past performance does not win present matches. So it must be with our team. For a change, we have enough talent waiting on the bench; about seven batsmen, five bowlers and three stumpers at hand. We should pick the best eleven from these for every single match. A place in the Indian team should be assured only on the twin criteria of fitness and performance. And as far as performance goes, consistency beats flair. I would gladly choose three batsmen who are guaranteed to score 70, over three others who may score 0 or 150. It's not the average that's important - it's the distribution of scores over several innings. An extreme example of all-flair-but-no-consistency is the present Pakistani batting. Surely, we do not want to be bowled out for 50-odd runs in consecutive innings simply because our batsmen have the potential to score 500 runs once in a while. Innovate The Indian team has the rare luxury of having players who can perform multiple roles. Harbhajan bats, Sehwag bowls, Dravid keeps. When in a position of strength, as in the current series, I'd like to see the Indian team innovate so that it has strategies for later. For example, a pet personal innovation is to have Sehwag and Tendulkar open in one-dayers. Promote Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif up the batting order occasionally. Have Tendulkar bowl leg-spinners for longer spells. Or have Khan bowl around the wicket. Experiment with green, fast pitches to find out who's our best bat for the initial overs. Have Kumble open the bowling to pressure the opening batsmen who rarely get to play spinners, and also to give the pacemen an education in bowling with older balls. Such occasional changes in strategy can often yield surprisingly good results. Remember Mark Greatbatch lobbing the ball in the swirly New Zealand air in the 1992 World Cup? Or India having Ravi Shastri to open the Indian innings in the 80s? What about Mohinder Amarnath's gentle medium pace in the 1983 Prudential Cup? Innovation is not just exciting, it can uncover real gems. Besides, it accustoms players to different scenarios, which will occur even if we have consistent players. Build for the future Much as we may desire, we cannot expect our best players to continue playing and producing infinitely. This very team won't be around 10 years later. We must keep blooding younger, newer players often. We don't have to adopt Australia's much-maligned rotation policy, but we can institute a policy wherein we bring in 2-3 new players once a series has been won. This is the time to do it - when we are in the midst of a very successful run. It's hard for a new player to shine when defeat casts its shadow left and right. But in the rosy glow of success, even the unlikeliest player can carry a candle, and that's exactly what we need - a steady stream of heroes, down to the point where heroics are not a surprise. Thrilled as I am with India's recent successes, what I like best are the clinical victories, not the heroic victories. Heroic victories are rare, while the clinical ones can be duplicated and repeated. We should be aiming for that kind of performance.
The views expressed above are solely those of the guest
contributor and are carried as written, with only minor editing
for grammar, to preserve the original voice. These contributed
columns are solely personal opinion pieces and reflect only the
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