Skip to main content

An exciting new season for India

Given that I'm a cricket tragic, it won't be a surprise for me to state that I find the beginning of a new season exciting. Notwithstanding that, the upcoming season for India is one I'm particularly looking forward to.

For one, I can't recall India having played as many Test matches as they are going to between July and March next year. 17 Tests against a wide variety of opponents will be a true test of what this team is shaping up to be and of Virat Kohli's next stage as captain. Granted that the fact that 13 of these are at home means that the team won't be tested condition wise as much as they might have been. It will however show how much depth Indian cricket really has and who the next generation of match definers (I don't like the term match-winners in Test cricket given how much of a team game it is) will be. The most important questions in my view are -

  • Who are India's best openers? (my current view is M Vijay and KL Rahul)
  • Should Cheteshwar Pujara or Rohit Sharma play? (my current view is the latter)
  • Should India play five bowlers and Saha at 6? (my current view is yes, with Jadeja and Ashwin at 7 and 8)
  • Who should India's first choice seamers be? (my current view is Ishant, Bhuvneshwar, and Shami)
If we get to even 70% of the answers, that would be a long step towards getting to #1 again by the end of 2017. The fact that several of these Test matches will be played at new venues is a bonus that will give insight into the longer term health of the format in India (and by proxy the cricketing world then).

And while the Test matches will hold centerstage, the journey of the limited overs teams will also be fascinating. The big question of course is the captaincy. After a poor IPL, and with the next ODI World Cup some time away, there is an increasing sentiment that the time has come for Dhoni to make way for Kohli as skipper. And while it is usually folly to try to read Dhoni's mind, his recent views don't appear to indicate that he wants to quit anytime soon. And in my view, a fit Dhoni is best used as captain for India no matter what Kohli's form might entice people into thinking. If nothing, Dhoni's career has proved that he's masterful at reading situations even if his personnel or luck have not always backed him up. His almost catenaccio like style of captaincy in Test matches worked really well when he had the batsmen (or the defence if you will) to pile on the runs and the bowlers (in Zaheer and Harbhajan, and to an extent Ishant, Sreesanth, and Mishra) to counter attack. When those parts started to falter so did the Indian performances. He was quick to realise that the new order of Test match cricketers needed a more aggressive style of play and he stepped aside immediately. And his decision has been the right one, with Kohli showing signs that he can take the Indian Test team forward meaningfully.

The Zimbabwe series then provides Dhoni another chance to show that his ability to do things, lead inspirationally in short form cricket, and extract the best out of his team members, has not waned. The composition of the squad also means that we will get a true understanding of the depth of Indian cricket when it comes to limited overs contests and whether the IPL is really a good training ground or not.

As I said, exciting times!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When reactions lack proportion

There's been much brouhaha over India's rapid descent into one-sided football scorelines and becoming what some would term "the world's worst overseas team". And while there's some logic to the cries for wholesale changes ,  revamping the team , and attitude problems , much of it is over the top. About the only two sensible pieces I have read recently are by Ganguly and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan questioning the lack of spirit and fight shown by the team. What's most surprising to me is that some people seem to think that the team (which was ranked #1 till recently and won the World Cup less than a year back) is suddenly a pile of dung. This when there are still several pieces of information (numbers of course) that have either been ignored or not analysed clearly at all. So here's an attempt to balance the books a little. Consider the following - 1) India's overseas record in 5 year segments roughly over the last two decades is as below: 199
Post a Comment
Read more

Kohli's team on the way to greatness?

Growing up (from a cricket watching perspective) in the 1990s, I am terribly unused to Test cricket being the format in which the Indian team is most successful and looking like potential world-beaters. Still early days, but this is exactly the way things seem headed currently for Kohli and his men. Since Jan 2015 (when Kohli took over as full time captain), India's record reads: P 21, W 14, L 1, D 6. The absurd W/L ratio will of course not last and many critics will point to the fact that most of the victories have come at home. Teams can however only overcome the opposition they are faced with and so far India have ticked off the overseas boxes they have been faced with (in Sri Lanka and the West Indies). And at home they have been utterly dominant, destroying everyone they've met. But most hearteningly, it's the way they have battled back from adversity that builds the most promise for the future. Too often in even the recent past (let alone the 1990s), Indian teams
Post a Comment
Read more

Old dog, new tricks?

After Virat Kohli's stupendously successful start as India captain (admittedly in a different format), the cries for Dhoni to be replaced as captain for the shorter formats will undoubtedly renew again. And while Kohli might be ready to take over, I think India still have a lot to gain from Dhoni the batsman and captain at the Champions Trophy in England next year. Aside from the fact that we are not exactly rolling in good new limited overs keeper-batsmen and couldn't therefore find an adequate replacement at short notice, Dhoni has looked fitter and fresher since he gave up Test cricket. He has also, in a distinct departure from the recent past, looked keen to get stuck into situations tactically and work out ways to win with newer players. The Zimbabwe tour was a pretty light weight test but it definitely started there and its carried on into the current series against New Zealand. Most hearteningly, he has not been stubborn about his own waning skills as a batsman and
Post a Comment
Read more