Indian Cricket at a critical juncture.

This is a very critical time for the Indian Cricket. Why am I saying this? Its because the sport is changing. There is a shift happening in the sport from the classic, which relied on skill of a player, to modern, which relies on physical prowess of a player. This change is not sudden. Its gradual, but has become pronounced in the past  year. 

A lot of factors are responsible for this. I'll enumerate and describe all of them in this blog-post. And in the coming weeks I'll write more detailed blog-posts on these topics:

Advent of T20:

This is but natural. One would say I am stating the obvious. And yes may be I am. But, as I said earlier the effects of T20 on ODIs and Tests are materializing only now. It took about 5 years for that to happen. Runs are being scored at a faster rate. Fielding has become better. Bowling also has more variety. Fast bowlers try to bowl 6 different balls in an over. This comes from T20. Batsmen are prone to play more shots. They often get out in the process. The players who used to dig-in and slug it out by defending a lot and playing only the bad balls are waning. The retirement of Rahul Dravid and success of Virat Kohli is a case in point. Dravid came from the old school of batting where they played for hours at the run-rate of 3 per over. Not Kohli and the likes of him in other teams. They like to play even the good balls for runs. That also makes them vulnerable but they can't seem to help it. 

Fast bowlers throw in the occasional slower ball quite often now. Even reverse swing seems a thing of the past now. I don't know how successful they are with it. Anyways they were never so successful in sub-continental pitches as they were in England, SA and Down Under. 

Spinners don't attack anymore. Its been a long time since I saw a spinner flight the ball and beat the batsman with the turn. They are more content in not giving run and expect the batsmen to commit a mistake to get a wicket. And the batsmen too are more than willing help the spinners in this. They often get stifled for runs and then end up hitting one in the air. 

But it is the fielding where one sees the maximum impact of T20. Also it is the only aspect where the impact has been 100% positive. They run faster, dive harder and more accurate with their throws. No complains here.

Retirement of the old guard:

I grew up watching Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Virendar Sehwag, Saurav Ganguly. Of all these Viru was the odd man out. He was way ahead of his time you can say. Always the dasher. Others were typical Test players. They were equally successful in ODIs. Who would doubt that given that Sachin, Saurav and Rahul are highest run scorers in ODI. But when they played in Tests they were much more cautious. They had to be. They put immense value on their wicket. And that is what made them successful in Test cricket. I don't see that happening with the youngsters except for Kohli. I really hope the best for Rohit Sharma. I feel he has the potential of becoming a good Test batsman. But that urge should come from within.

The greatest lament of all cricket fans in India has always been the lack of genuine fast bowler. There were Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad but they weren't as fast as their contemporaries like Courtney Walsh, Glenn McGrath, Curtley Ambrose but they were, at-least, not very slow. And they had Anil Kumble for company. Now, I see the likes of Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and I feel like crying. While rest of the world is producing faster bowler like Dale Styne, Ryan Harris, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Stuart Broad, India has gone backwards! I bet that Dale Styne bowled as fast as Irfan Pathan when he was a teenager! 

Again, fielding seems to be the only aspect where India seems to be doing better than before.

General apathy from the younger generation:

This is the biggest problem of them all. My 13 yr old cousin doesn't 'love' cricket. And sadly none of his friends seems to 'love' it either. And he belongs to a family where every male member has only loved cricket!

I feel sad at this state of the sport. I love football, tennis, hockey, swimming and athletics too but none of them inspires the kind of passion that cricket generates. I'd like to be an optimist and believe that there are other kids out there who love cricket as much as I do and want to be cricketers as much as I did when I was a kid. I'll stick to that.

I'll write more about my feelings about the condition of Cricket in India in more detail in coming posts. 

Till then Good Bye!