Amidst mountains, India seek self-discovery
MS Dhoni acknowledged that playing a lot of IPL is of no help in knowing the right team combination. (Source: PTI)
At a media conference here a couple of days ago, Suresh Raina and a local journalist were locked in a friendly banter, with neither belligerent ready to conceding an inch in the argument. What happened was that the scribe, while setting up the premise of his question that would never be allowed to finish, claimed that South Africa had more individual match winners than India.
“You are wrong. India has more individual match-winners.” South Africa have more, the journo insisted. “Let’s count the names. You count theirs, I will count ours,” the cricketer said, the tip of his thumb ready on the digits of his pinky.
De Villers, du Plessis, Duminy, the journalist said, and could have gone on to name Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Hashim Amla and Albie Morkel, but was stopped in his tracks by the voice booming into the microphone. “Dhoni, Virat, Achhu (Ashwin), Rohit, Shikhar,” said Raina, “Ajinkya and me …”
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It ended in a stalemate, as any argumnent of this nature would. Undoubtedly, both sides are collections of great individual players. The question, however, is which is a better team.
There is no straightforward answer to that as India have played too few T20I matches in the recent past to make an informed opinion. In fact since there loss to Sri Lanka in the final of the World T20 one-and-a-half-years ago in Bangladesh, they have played only one such match as a full-strength team — against England last September.
An Ajinkya Rahane-led second-string team (in fact, third-string, given that India A were also playing around the same time) featured in two games against Zimbabwe in Harare in July, of which they lost one.
South Africa, this year itself, have played seven against three different teams. They lost 2-1 to the West Indies, won 2-0 in Bangladesh and drew 1-1 against New Zealand at home. Their result may not be satisfactory, but you can see they are bulding up to the big event in India next year, getting increasingly surer of themselves.
They are identifying their areas of improvement, and hiring the services of Michael Hussey could be seen as a step in this direction. India, meanwhile, haven’t started the process as yet. In fact, they aren’t scheduled (so far) to play any other T20 International (T20I) between now and late January, when they go to Australia.
The World Cup begins in March. It could be argued that since Indian cricketers play a lot of T20s in the IPL, it shouldn’t be a cause of concern. Captain MS Dhoni thinks so, but when probed more his thought process betrays some ambiguity.
“If you see that is how the international schedule has been. You don’t see a lot of T20I matches being played. It’s more like World Cup to World Cup. But the good with us is the IPL. We play a lot of T20 matches together, and we know how and what needs to be done,” Dhoni said at the pre-match media conference on Thursday afternoon.
However, while answering another question, on weather he would promote himself on Friday, Dhoni did acknowledge that playing a lot of IPL is of no help in knowing the right team combination.
“I would love to, but we will have to see the team composition.You know who is best suited to bat where. If you see our T20I squad, most of our players are top order batsmen when it comes to the IPL teams. But when it comes to T20 Internationals they bat at different positions.”
Getting rid of an IPL habit
He cites Suresh Raina’s example, a man expected to take over the finisher’s role from Dhoni. But Raina bats at No.3 for the Chennai Super Kings. He is the highest run getter in the IPL, and has scored a bulk of his runs in that spot. In fact, three of the four players on that list are in the Indian T20I side. The other two being Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Rohit batted at No.3 and No.4, Virat came one-down this IPL.
“We promoted Raina in the West Indies in 2010, and he did really well there. So we will have to see. Maybe Virat will have to bat down the order if it happens. Let’s see,” said Dhoni. That’s not the only conundrum. While the ODI and T20 squads are largely the same, what is best suited for fifty-over format can’t necessarily be way the go over twenty overs. Rohit Sharma, for example, opens for India in ODIs, but is a middle order bat for the Mumbai Indians. Ajinkya Rahane bats down the order in the fifty overs format, but opens for the Rajasthan Royals.
“I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that we have most of our T20 stats from the IPL. Because we play so few international matches in this format,” Dhoni said.
This three-match series beginning tomorrow therefore becomes vital as India will get to learn more about themselves. South Africa will be a formidable opposition, not doubt, with some of the biggest hard-hitters in the game in their ranks.
Their pacers — the impressive Chris Morris and the new sensation Kagiso Rabada — too will look to exploit the favorable conditions in Dharamshala.
But India can stay confident in the knowledge that at this spiritual centre, they begin a journey towards a personal discovery. By the end of series, we may be none the wiser with regard to who is better, India or South Africa. But the home team will certainly be a more settled unit and overall a better outfit than they are at the moment.
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