The Way Forward for Team India


By Indy
October 28 2006

With the mini-World Cup under way, and World Cup 2007 looming, Team India is struggling despite hiring the highest paid coach in the world specifically to improve its ODI performance.

Here are my four fundamental reasons behind our poor performance:

The lack of a specialist bowling coach is baffling. We are the only major country without a genuine speedster, and our bowler breakdown/injury rate is right up there. We don’t bowl to plans and our pacemen lack guidance.

Do our bowlers understand the technique required to bowl bouncers, yorkers, slower balls or even the straight balls at will?

There is urgent need for an expert bowling coach with vast background and experience. Simply hiring a high-profile former bowler, without careful consideration of his fit with the team and a sound understanding of bowling conditions the world over, is not the answer.

Our ground fielding remains well below par. Most of our team are pure cricketers, not athletes.

The lack of improvement after all this time is unbelievable, and a testament to individual work ethic, or lack of it in our case.

Why do we keep seeing our fielders miss the direct hit, rarely throw the ball over the stumps from the outfield, never attack the ball to keep the pressure on, and generally look visibly below par compared to most other nations?

Against the West Indies yesterday, the ground may have been slippery under lights, but the various fumbles and RP Singh's embarassing mistake at the boundary were the reasons why we lost.

The Aussies call them the 1%ers. We are not as committed or as dedicated: harsh but true. I think it’s all down to attitude. But the Aussies have a fielding coach; what do the mega-rich Indians have?

Irfan Pathan at three was meant to be a spontaneous shock tactic. Persisting with that tactic has only stripped a genuine talented player of confidence.

The poor kid (remember, he is still a kid) has been messed around with in multiple roles, criticised by the coach in public media, and the consequences are plain for all to see.

Before you criticise him, remember that whilst the likes of Munaf, Sreesanth and RP Singh have been able to come in and focus on their bowling, Irfan has to work as much on his batting as his bowling -- for no other reason than his own work ethic and ability. For heavens' sake, he has even been forced to open in a Test match.

Team management need to stop being stubborn, and tell Irfan he is a bowler; help him get back to being the real Irfan Pathan who won us ODIs.

Our success was down to a seven-batsmen, four-bowler combination. Now we try to play as many bowlers as possible. The rest of the world tries to play as many batsmen as possible. They select batsmen who can bowl, while we try to turn our bowlers into all-rounders.

The likes of Gayle, Samuels, Malik, Hafeez, Afridi, Smith, Symonds, Clark, Jayasuriya and Dilshan are all regular ODI bowlers. In Sehwag and Yuvraj, we have two players as good as multitalented any of the above, but they have never been properly utilised. They bowl for one game, then don’t for the next ten.

Are Team India really so clueless that it has never occured to them Yuvvy and Veeru could be key to the balance of the side?

Instead, they mess with Pathan to accommodate another bowler who can’t bat, costs runs in the field and rarely bowls his full quota (such as RP Singh). The Windies play only three genuine bowlers in most games, yet have been beating us consistently.

Are our team management blind? Six batsmen, Dhoni, and Pathan as one of four bowlers must be the basis of the team composition.