India need to relook at what kind of a team culture they are going to build if they want to be champions in all three formats
England were one-sided victors in the T20 series and ended India’s 1,601 days run as the No 1 side in the ICC T20 Rankings. 1,601 days at the top! Could have fooled many of their fans the way they approached and played the 5-match series. It is easy to say that the team management and other stakeholders can do only so much and it is the players who must perform. I agree with this widely held point of view, with some caveats though.
In this series, and probably the Ireland series too, the lead up was very different. Broadcaster focus was solely on the wunderkind Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with one camera literally on the 15-year-old 24*7. His IPL franchise too got involved and showcased him and his travelling father with the franchise owners, etc.
Broadcasters have always had superstars in their spotlight. If I’m not mistaken, the first instance of one camera being exclusively earmarked for one player was when Sachin Tendulkar was playing in his farewell Test on his home ground, the Wankhede. Since then, Virat Kohli has been the recipient of this one camera for one player strategy, and Rohit Sharma after Virat. This build up was not in the best interests of the Indian team.
It quickly slipped out of hand when Sooryavanshi failed to match his IPL demolition of bowlers, and when he was left out of the 5th T20 game, all that the camera focused on, in a hugely diluted and rather embarrassing fashion, was Sooryavanshi seated, leaning against a perimeter board looking like he was about to burst into tears. Don’t get me wrong.
Sooryavanshi will rise, and rise strongly, such is his ability. As he walks down his path, he will learn a few valuable lessons, most important being to realise that cricket is a team sport.
I shudder to think what some captains I played under would have had to say about the forlorn and moping figure still padded up for the duration of the innings, even though dismissed much earlier. Sooryavanshi will learn that he has a role in the film and is not the film himself. But has this been conveyed to him?
The moping in the dugout should have been clamped down so then the exclusion from the XI would not have resulted in another moping against a perimeter board, and more importantly in full view of the cameras. Just not on. And for this reason I say at the outset that the “approach” was faulty and blatantly so.
Peter McCarthy, a leading audiophile, once said that in a live concert, the conductor has to make bare minimal changes to the orchestra, as the orchestra owns the formation, but in a recording, the conductor is the boss. Here, I felt the conductor made too many changes to the formation of his artistes in a live concert, ie the match, resulting in players being unsure of their roles and insecure of their positions.
Winning teams like India need to prepare in a much better way, they need to have some shape and form around themselves as a batting or bowling unit. Recently, they have seemed shapeless and confused. To add to this, there is a new captain in Shreyas Iyer. Especially in this scenario, the team management needs to step up and provide the additional ring of shape and form. Is this the amateurish and outdated manner in which a team that is on top for 1,601 days prepares for and delivers a performance?
Many questions should be asked and hopefully will be asked. Let’s not forget that the coach is the same that won the World Cup, other stakeholders are pretty much the same, so then what happened?
Was this team in need of a reset? And if so, could the reset not have been taken up after they beat England and retained the No 1 position? There are very sensible heads among all the top stakeholders and hopefully the team will start motoring along nicely again.
One more thought crops up as I write about the reset. Will there be an ODI reset if a couple of your senior batters don’t score the runs in the next 3-match series due to start today?
The Indian team needs to become a team again and the stakeholders need to introspect, shed their egos of having played hundreds of matches in the past, and set about organising Indian cricket for the future. The past needs to make way for the future.
As the old Japanese saying goes, “The best time to build a roof is when the sun is shining.” India needs to relook at what kind of a “culture” roof they are going to build if they want to be the undisputed champions in all the three formats.
Currently that roof is leaking in many places.
Jatin Paranjape (@jats72) is a former Mumbai and India cricketer and an ex-national selector.
