Away from England’s disasters in the desert, India’s fortunes in the Test arena have gone from bad to worse.
In December 6th 2009 1 billion Indian cricket fans were up in the middle of the night celebrating India’s rise to number 1 in the Test rankings. 5 months ago, they were pushed off that spot by England. Their fall from the top has been quite spectacular. Two of their last 3 Test series have ended in a whitewash defeat. Not just beaten but battered out of sight.
What’s gone wrong?
A combination of factors: an ageing side, no succession planning, a myopic board, a captain who lacks the necessary leadership skills, changes in backroom staff and an apparent apathy to the format.
The BCCI (The Board of Control for Cricket in India) get a lot of criticism. Some fair, some not. They do a lot right. They are by far the richest of the International Cricket boards, they protect their own resources and their own brands fiercely, they’ve pushed themselves into a position of power in world cricket.
It’s easy to criticise the IPL and be snobby about the franchise arrangements, the dancing girls, the fireworks and the money. But the IPL now has an estimated $3.67bn brand value. It’s good to see cricket getting a share of the sporting money pie. However, the IPL has resulted in a mindset change amongst some modern cricketers. The lure of the IPL cash is, for some, more coveted than playing Test cricket for their country.
The BCCI have failed to recognise the effect the IPL has and will continue to have on the longer form of the game. Test and first class cricket is not promoted or invested in and they’ve singularly failed to do any succession planning to find long term replacement for their ageing Test squad.
Sachin Tendulkar (38), Rahul Dravid (39) and VVS Laxman (37), fantastic though they are, are well past their prime. They will begin to retire one by one and their replacements, whilst talented, have not been successful. Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina both score plenty of runs in the shorter formats but have been unable to convert this into Test runs. Virat Kohli is an exciting batsman but again, inconsistent. It is time to invest in and develop young players like Rahane and Pujara.
Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni seems to have completely lost interest, his post defeat comments are full of excuses rather than acceptance that they’ve just not been good enough. At times in the field, particularly during the large stands between Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting, he appeared completely out of ideas. Just a lot of metaphorical shoulder shrugging. After India’s World Cup win in 2011, Dhoni talked about building on that success, building a dominant Indian team for the future across all formats. A few months later, after the Perth Test, he hinted he might well quit Test cricket to concentrate on the 2015 World Cup. If he does quit, it’s not easy to see who is either ready or not too old to take over the job.
Questions must be asked too as to whether Duncan Fletcher is the right man for the job of coach. Fletcher has a decent record, he’s clearly a knowledgeable and experienced man but does he have the right people skills to motivate this bunch of players? It would seem not. Just have a look at the names on the Indian team sheet. An obscene amount of talent but he’s just not getting them to perform.
As a neutral watching the recent series between Australia and India, it wasn’t just that India were, on the whole, hopeless – the most disheartening thing was that didn’t appear to care. There was no fight, no belief, no desire and no hunger. Nobody minds teams being beaten by better sides. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be but if you feel like one side just aren’t trying or even that interested the whole thing becomes just thoroughly depressing.
India historically don’t travel well. Although they have won Tests abroad with great regularity since 2000, the last time they won two Tests in a series abroad against a Top 8 team was in 1986. Luckily for them, the Future Tours Program (FTP) means that after their 3 Test series in Sri Lanka in July – they do not play another abroad Test until they go to South Africa in November 2013. There’s time for them to think about the future and begin the process of rebuilding.
It cannot be stressed strongly enough that a weak Indian Test team is bad for Test cricket.