The heart of the matter

THE INDIAN cricket team's dismal record overseas has received much critical attention from the media in recent times. Domestic performances are often a misleading guide to ability at the highest level, mainly because the wickets we play on are so different from those we encounter abroad (Australia and South Africa for instance). Even genuinely committed, gritty players are mercilessly exposed in conditions they never encounter at home.

The general tendency is to criticise the selection of youngsters with a fabulous record in India when they are found deficient on foreign soil. We tend to go overboard while lambasting their inadequacy. As a result, not only those on trial but also their senior colleagues who perforce have to shoulder a heavier burden become demoralised in the face of unrelenting aggression from their opponents, accompanied by the verbal lashings of their critics. How can we expect the Vijay Bharadwajs and Hrishikesh Kanitkars to acclimatise themselves in the time the Dravids and Tendulkars find barely sufficient to come to terms with the additional pace, bounce and movement they face on tour?

One major stumbling block before Indian batting abroad is the inability of our openers to give the team a good start. Here again, it is easy to fault someone like Devang Gandhi, barely two Tests old before the Australian tour, considerably less experienced than the other relatively new boy, S. Ramesh. Opening the innings with a measure of success needs technique, temperament, experience, and some luck and all these attributes in greater doses than any other position in the batting order. No less a batsman than Sunil Gavaskar had at least one indifferent tour of Australia and in three tours of England had only two three-figure scores, including his memorable double hundred at the Oval in 1979. Of course, some of his greatest batting exploits came in the West Indies against the formidable West Indians. Very few Indian openers have been consistent overseas.

If the openers occupy the crease and blunt the attack, then the chances of the later batsmen blossoming brighten. This is an aspect of cricket that receives precious little attention in our domestic cricket. Tons of runs first at home, mean very little on an international basis. Navjot Sidhu is a classic example of a batsman whose deeds outside India did not quite match his feats within the country. Currently, Devang Gandhi as Vikram Rathour was before him has been a successful opening batsman in Indian conditions, but finds the pace literally too hot to handle in Tests abroad. There are not too many contenders who have the technique or mental toughness to handle pace, bounce and movement. Unless we tackle the problem at the grassroots to unearth genuine opening batsmen and nurture them, Indian batting will continue to flounder abroad.

Welcome as the Board's recent avowed intention to develop sporting wickets in India has been, equal importance should be given to disseminating the technical expertise to produce good batsmen all round, especially openers who are likely to do well abroad. Much cooperation and coordination will be necessary among selectors, administrators, coaches and former Test players to make sure that technically equipped, determined young batsmen are spotted in the states and groomed in the right manner on the right kind of wickets. Facilities like those offered by the MRF Pace Foundation will have to be made available to a large number of potentially good batsmen.

Indian bowling's plight is even worse. The standard of bowling on view at most levels, is a rather gloomy portent of what the future has in store for Indian cricket.

Whether in batting or in bowling, fire in the belly cannot be taught, but much more interaction between current bowlers and the bowling greats of the past is needed if we are not to become a nation of no-hopers in the bowling department. Net practice sessions at every level have to be made more meaningful and somehow, the spirit of aggression has to be instilled in our bowling hopefuls. Watching most of our young bowlers, it is difficult to resist the temptation to dismiss them as lacking in competitive spirit, the fierce urge to get on top of the batsmen. Most seem satisfied to bowl line and length, rather than go for broke in attempting to get wickets.

Captains and managers have to make greater demands of accuracy and positive bowling on their bowlers while showing greater patience with the more attacking bowlers, both pace and spin. While faster, bouncier tracks may encourage more youngsters to take to pace bowling, the slow bowlers will have to work harder on their craft when they don't have the artificial aid of under prepared wickets.

All this will need a great deal of teamwork, because, unless a nationwide initiative is undertaken, the transformation we need in our approach will not occur. Players and officials will have to stop fighting with each other and work together to achieve their objectives. Simultaneously every effort should be made to infuse the team spirit among players right at the beginning. There is no better way of doing that than by rewarding the team players and discouraging the selfish individualists in the early stages of their careers. Only then can we hope to produce Test and international teams as focussed as the Australians a decade or so down the road.

V. RAMNARAYAN

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