Ayush Mhatre is just 17 years old and already has two hundreds in six First-Class games. His List A (50-over) career is also at a nascent stage, but it has already brought him two tons in seven games. His last competitive game saw an innings of 148 against Saurashtra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Mhatre is considered by many as the next quality batsman to emerge from Mumbai.
But if the primary aim of domestic cricket is to find the next crop of players who may be groomed for the international level, the Mumbai Cricket Association, and by extension the BCCI, have been proved to be short-sighted.
When Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal were asked (or instructed) to play domestic cricket after the Test debacle in Australia, guess who had to make way for the India openers! It was the youngest member of the team – who happens to be their second-highest scorer in the Ranji Trophy this season. ‘Last in, First out’ is a system often employed in bookkeeping and accountancy. Here it was implemented in the selection of a cricket team.
If pedigree was the reason cited for the decision, the scores of Sharma and Jaiswal didn’t quite vindicate it. The way the India captain, especially, struggled against a largely pedestrian Jammu & Kashmir bowling attack, it was a matter of opinion whether Mumbai fielded their strongest XI on the park in that game. However, once the BCCI announced its diktat regarding India stars’ appearance in domestic cricket, it was only to be expected.
Virat Kohli is likely to play for Delhi in the last round of Ranji league fixtures – for the first time in more than a dozen years. But with the team going down by 10 wickets within two days against Saurashtra, chances of progress to the knockout rounds have all but evaporated. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for Delhi to hand the spot to a youngster who may play for a long time rather than a legend who is closer to the end of his career than to its beginning? But to ask such questions would require the decision-makers to think in terms of the big picture rather than just about the here and now.
Intriguing decision
The next international assignment for most of India’s stars is in 50-over cricket, with the ICC Champions Trophy occupying the largest share of mind space. How playing First-Class cricket with a red ball on Indian surfaces prepares them for white-ball challenges against international attacks in Dubai remains to be seen.
There may be an argument that spending time in the middle and getting some runs – which wasn’t very easy against Pat Cummins & Co Down Under – would help them regain lost confidence going into a high-pressure global tournament, but it doesn’t account for the wide chasm in standards. The selectors and think tank may be hopeful that the domestic outings will be helpful in unleashing the big-match temperament in the top players – and the decision-makers were clearly vindicated by trusting their stars at the ICC T20 World Cup last year.
But there’s no point denying that the diktat for the top players turning out for domestic cricket – and other regulations – was a knee-jerk reaction to surrendering the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a decade, with the most experienced batsmen being the most culpable. Combined with the home series whitewash earlier at the hands of New Zealand, this has not been a good time for India in red-ball cricket.
If anything, the time for the Kohlis and Sharmas to play domestic First-Class cricket was at the start of the home season – before the visit of Bangladesh. To be fair, the BCCI tried to ensure that, but the big names had their way and skipped the Duleep Trophy. Now with the recent series defeats, the selectors and the BCCI have the leverage to be seen to be taking some tough decisions. How this solves the problem of Sharma’s lethargic footwork and Kohli’s weakness outside the off-stump remains to be seen, however.
Families accompanying the team were, presumably, not a problem when India ended its more than a decade-long ICC trophy drought in the middle of last year. The restrictions in this regard come at a time when most other teams have concluded that having loved ones on tour keeps players in a good frame of mind and doesn’t adversely affect performance on the field. It’s a touchy subject nowadays with the Indian corporate sector debating the concept of work-life balance and the number of average hours one should devote to work every day. However, as things stand, the first people to face the axe for the team’s dismal performance are the players’ families.
Elephant in the room
Coming back to the issue of stars playing domestic cricket, India’s next Test assignment is the five-Test tour of England starting in June. The Indian Premier League (IPL) goes well into the second half of May. Sparing some IPL players for the option of county cricket will obviously be off the table. The most that can be done would be players whose IPL teams are eliminated before the playoffs leaving early for England. That will result in players landing in batches for a long tour rather than in one group – a major bugbear for former India captain Sunil Gavaskar.
All these factors, which may be considered peripheral under normal circumstances, become vital when results don’t match expectations. Window dressing is always easier and more tempting than sorting out the shop floor. The BCCI and the selectors need to ponder why Indian batsmen succumb to spinners like Mitchell Santner and Ajaz Patel on turners, and to the likes of Cummins, Scott Boland, and Mitchell Starc in Australia. Why have the team’s best batsmen failed to sort out the glaring weaknesses that have crept into their game for such a long time? Where’s the pace backup to Jasprit Bumrah, when India is said to have an enviable pool of fast bowlers? Why do the pacemen run out of gas after just one spell in a Test match? Is the domestic structure producing the next crop of quality batsmen and great spinners?
Answers to these questions are not readily available or are at least unpalatable. For the long-term health of Indian cricket, all stakeholders need to work in tandem rather than focus on showing who is boss.