The nadir of India cricket has been attained through design

 When the sporting world was looking to return as close to the normal as possible in mid-2020, England, West Indies and Pakistan resorted to playing Test cricket in England. The Indian cricket authorities were going back to the drawing board again and again to re-schedule the T20 tamasha that is central to their scheme of things. After two months of T20 cricket they landed in Australia for first limited-overs and then Test cricket. But when your top players face each other in T20 cricket alone, how can you expect the Test team to do well? As if the Indian Premier League (IPL) was not enough, the 2020-21 domestic season has only one contest - the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament. There is no word on Ranji Trophy. So when England arrive in India for a four-Test series in February 2021, India's Test specialists would have only played T20 cricket at home because auction of more players for new teams in IPL 2021 is the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI)'s sole goal.  

Hence the 36 ka aankda as it is being called is indeed what it is. The BCCI seems to be having a 36 ka aankda with Test cricket. When it is hell-bent on promoting T20 cricket why should Test cricket results be any good. In fact now they are so poor that you could stop expecting the Indian Test team to get up; forget fight.  

The Test specialists had enough acclimatization in Australian conditions thanks to the 14-day quarantine rule.  All of them had a very good feel of the pitches having played 50 / 20 over internationals as well as two three-day warm-up matches. But those who were in form, like Rahul, Gill and Pant were left out of the squad. Pandya was not retained for the Test series. Shaw has hung himself with the long rope that he was given. And now that Kohli is going back and Rohit cannot play till the third Test. Shami too is likely to return home following a body blow. So as in so many previous overseas tours, the Indian team will go through the motions in the rest of the Test series.

When the Lodha panel suggested some tough but necessary reforms, the powers-that-be in the BCCI corridors shot them down. The BCCI has a 38-team Ranji Trophy with too many weak teams giving players not the right competition. Top players anyways do not play Ranji Trophy, which robs younger players of the opportunity of competing against the best. Virat Kohli last played for Delhi in November 2013. Others use it for match practice more than anything else. The zonal teams, with the best of the best from the state teams, that would compete in Duleep Trophy no longer exist. 

In short the cricketing ecosystem in India is in shambles as far as Test cricket is concerned. The vision seems to have been engineered to perfection.

Post Script:

19th of December will go down in Indian cricket history as a marquee date. In 2020, if it was the lowest ever Test score (36), in 2016 India had scored its highest ever score - 759/7 declared against England at Chennai. India's top scorer - Karun Nair (303 not out) played four more Tests and despite being in the original Test squad in England, was overlooked to accommodate Hanuma Vihari who had flown in as a replacement. Vihari hasn't done anything spectacular either. Another potential Test player being ignored is Sarfaraz Khan of Mumbai.      

    

Does being humble and simple work?

There is universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status...It is such good men and women who are the hope of the world. 

These are words of Nelson Mandela in 'Conversations with Myself'. 

The moot point is - does being humble and simple work in the real-world? 

When we look around us, our leaders, be it in the corporate or political or even the social world are all self-advertising braggers. If they don't go over the top, we refuse to see them. That is largely because of the huge congestion in the social media space. Every one is out on some digital platform telling the world what they had for brunch or what they have created. Visibility is so easily available. 

But are these leaders being humble and simple? Let us for once assume they are simple, but definitely not humble. Or is it the new normal? In the corporate world, leaders who are authoritative have been valued since times immemorial. If the leader isn't decisive or does not appear decisive or confident how is s/he expected to instill confidence in the team? However majority of the leaders are tentative. They ask questions that give out their nervousness. The smart ones have mastered the art of masking their nervousness by being aggressive as a cover. And such leaders flourish and flounder. They flounder as they hurtle from one crisis to another before exposing themselves for good. 

Asking questions is a good trait provided leaders are ready to listen to sane advice from the team members. However both the authoritative as well as the nervous leader abhor advice from lower levels lest they are perceived weak.

This brings us back to where we started.

To be continued....with inputs from readers please.

Passion and Discipline: Don Quixote's Lessons for Leadership

Mike Marqusee's Opening Pair

“One of us drops anchor/ While the other gets off to a flyer./ It’s not because one is more impetuous/ Or cautious than the other./ The assault, like the defence, is calculated./ We play the same percentages/ to different rhythms, following/ our own sequence/ of stressed and unstressed beats,/ each of us fashioning/ our own departure from the norm.After the crescendo, the rest,/ after the rest, the crescendo./ One of us foil for the other, as it should be./ Personality will out./ We perform in our styles/ Because that is our function./ We never get in each other’s way./ We perform who we are/ Because that is what the situation demands –/ But at a pinch we can swap roles,/ One coming out of the shadow of the other.” Ref: Street Music, collection of poems

How my obsession with cricket began and stays, Vol. I

When Yajuvendra Singh took seven catches in the Bangalore Test against the English in 1976-77, my friend Sajeev showed me still black and white pictures of the match and that drew me to cricket, which I have been romancing since then. After losing the first three Tests to 'magical' bowling by John Lever, India had fought back and won the fourth at Bangalore. By then the vaseline headband used by Lever to keep the bowl shining had been exposed by Indian captain Bishan Singh Bedi.

The first series that I really followed, first day by day, and virtually ball by ball was India's tour Down Under in 1977-78. The Indian team began the tour by playing four-day as well as one-day matches against state teams over a period of four weeks before the First Test at Brisbane. The Kerry Packer World Series had, by then robbed top teams like England, West Indies, and Australia of its superstars. Australia fielded a near rookie team, except for Jeff Thomson and out of retirement 42-year-old Bobby Simpson. A number of future stars emerged which included wicket-keeper Steve Rixon, Bruce Yardley, and Kim Hughes. Indians were the more experienced team but Australian umpires ensured India lost the first two Tests at Brisbane and Perth by small margins. Chandrashekhar took 6 for 52 in both the innings at Melbourne and India won by 222 runs. This was followed by the Sydney Test in which India inflicted innings defeat. The final Test at Adelaide was the decider and ran into a sixth day, with Australia emerging winners. The score-line of 3-2 was not the real reflection of the strengths of the two teams.

Those were teams when scores were kept by listeners on the radio. And I remember Sunil Gavaskar scoring hundred in the second innings of the first three Tests, after falling cheaply in the first innings each time. But Gundappa Vishwanath (473 runs) outscored Gavaskar (450 runs) in the series. The biggest find of the series was Chetan Chauhan. And players like Ashok Mankad, Dilip Vengsarkar, Karsan Ghavri, Mohinder Amarnath and Madan Lal fought for berths in the team.

The series kept me hooked to cricket for life. And as the series was going on, back home a young 17-year old had equaled Sunil Gavaskar's Vizzy Trophy record of 325 runs in an innings. The lanky all-rounder was soon to make his debut for India in 1978 when India toured Pakistan for a three-Test series in which Zaheer Abbas decimated the Indian spinners, bringing an abrupt end to careers of the spin quartet.

But those reminiscences that are still fresh in my mind shall continue, next time I sit down to blog. Actually working from home has its limitations.

Life in Times of Corona

Everyone today, barring a few who might have seen wars or famines or riots in their lives, or even suffered on account of having been affected by these catastrophic experiences, is seeing a lot of things for the first time in their lives. Most of us have not been affected by the Emergency or the anti-Sikh or Gujarat riots directly or for that matter the economic crisis of 2008-09. The 1971 Bangladesh War to a six-year-old was a time when lights would be switched off in the evening with police loudspeakers ensuring total blackout.

And in less than a month, our lives have changed. We are no longer doing what we would be on a normal working day or even on a Sunday. We are, at the same time, doing what we have never done for many years - clean the car and the house, pick up a book, watched movies on TV or series on Netflix or Amazon Prime, and so much more. Our conversations with friends and family are more intense and lengthy. Forwarding WhatsApp messages is a new service we have taken upon ourselves. So that is something we have been doing manifold.

Families are together and so happy, even if a wee bit more worried. We had this scenario, which kept changing over the past week, of what our work-life should be. Wives of friends were in conversation with each other over how Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) was not shutting down promptly to save our lives. Despite having scaled down its operations, BSP is still running almost at 60% capacity owing to process constraints. While many friends understand that, others refuse to buy the argument. And their better halves haven't even considered the possibility of a deal on what according to them is non-negotiable.

Another challenge we had was that of loss of trust. With some non-essential services being asked to shut-down partially and 50% non-executives in these areas asked to 'work from home' alternate weeks, there was a hue and cry from the plant area. This I believe was avoidable. And in my present vocation, it has been flagged as a key priority for the future, when things start getting back to normal.
Getting people back on their feet with same tempo and fostering trust will be a key thrust area. Suggestions are welcome on that front.

But we are all in it for the long haul. The governments - both at the Centre and in the states have put in place an excellent isolation / quarantine as well as tracking system. All departments and agencies are working in unison, aware as they are of the gravity of the situation. At the same time, we have seen how there are variables beyond our control or imagination which crop up to queer the pitch. The sudden lockdown, for instance, has resulted in migrants hurrying back home and state governments have taken at least three days to respond. These could be potential carriers of coronavirus.

The cost of the pandemic is bound to leave us struggling for years. There is hardly any country that hasn't been impacted. A lot of public money and resources are being pumped in to sustain an exposed healthcare system. For containment, these resources are required. But how will economies survive in the long run, with no one having the capacity to enhance demand? May be we can go back to the barter system.

Sport, by its very nature, has been international, more so after the proliferation of leagues like IPL. Stoppage of all sports activities means my favourite Indian cricketers are getting a much needed rest. I have always found the IPL a tamasha full of financial interests. Else who plays cricket in the open in 45 degree Celsius temperatures for two months?

At current estimates, it would take at least three months to get back to normalcy. Till then keep going back to your favourite movies, net-series, books, hobbies, and did I forget, washing utensils (only for males0 to keep our better halves happy. Let all males not forget, they have an additional burden to cater to when we are home.