Horses for courses

This article seeks to try and differentiate the batting skill-sets required for the two different forms of the game, and tries to identity some square players who have been sought to be put into round slots.

I am a firm believer that the two forms are completely different as far as batting is concerned, and it takes a player of the highest, if not extraordinary, calibre to adapt to both. Right now there are only three players who adapt to both the forms of the game, each in varying degrees. Sachin Tendulkar (who, I suspect, uses a good part of his not inconsiderable mental abilities to make the switch seem the easiest thing in the world), Sourav Ganguly (a natural one-day player who sometimes, and lately most of the times, struggles to adapt to the Test form) and the diametrically opposite Rahul Dravid (a brilliant Test batsman, who in the past struggled with the one-dayers, though on a few occasions, of late, he has been exemplary even in them). The rest must, necessarily, at least in the short term, be utilised for only one form of the game, with the clincher being the number of quality players to fill the required slots in both forms of the games to a T.

Here's where we go wrong:

Let me make it clear at the outset that I consider one-day cricket as something of a fast food -- never mind the taste, stuff the ol' belly and burp! -- while the Test match is a full five-course gourmet meal, to be savoured over slow candlelight; the real thing. However, since we seem to be playing one-day cricket left, right and centre, and fast food too finds a place in the culinary habits of people and can't be wished away, we might as well win them while we are at it. Here goes:

Skill-sets for Test matches:
Determination, unwavering commitment, fitness, technique (with special emphasis on balls in the 'corridor of uncertainty' and the short-pitched bouncer), patience, stamina.

Skill-sets for one-dayers:
Determination, unwavering commitment, fitness, ability to pick at least four singles in an over, (ten balls which would have been defended in Tests must yield at least five singles in the one-dayers), ability to dive for the crease while completing a tight single, ability to put away anything remotely loose, willingness to eschew glamour for efficiency (not going in for risky aerial shots when singles will suffice nicely), good running between the wickets, keeping your head when 30,000 people are screaming and you need 11 off 18 balls.

Now let's try and look at a few players from these two prisms:
S S Das: I was horrified when Venkat Sundaram (former manager of the Indian team) said in a television programme that Das should be drafted in into the one-day team as well. I wanted to scream at him. Bloody murder, bloody match-fixing! For heaven's sake, whose side are you on anyway? In this land, starved of Test-openers, here is a good (and potentially excellent) opening batsman, possessing all the skill-sets for Test matches mentioned above. Why, for God's sake, do you want to mess up his technique by throwing him into some mindless one-dayers? Why make him juggle with two different mind-sets?

S Ramesh: Skill sets? What skill sets? We'd better draft a new set if we want to fit this guy into a set. Complete lack of discipline. Both, while playing outside the off-stump, and in abilities of concentration during the course of a crucial innings. An opener who doesn't know where his off stump is? Now I've seen everything. I can't, for a minute, believe that this is the best partner India can come up with to face the new ball along with Das. Or, maybe, the selectors know something about the guy that I don't, and hasn't shown in two years of his career.

V V S Laxman: Again reminds me of that Sundaram fellow and his interview. He (after that Sehwag century) spouted that Sehwag must be included in the Test team, what with his confidence after this innings being so high! Sure. With that confidence, why not include him in the hockey and kabaddi teams as well? Sigh! I don't, for a minute, have a problem with Sehwag being in the Test team if he has the skill sets for it and can adapt to it. But Mr Sundaram, have you, for a moment, considered whether young Sehwag can handle a few snorters around his nose? Whether the dasher can resist himself from having a go at a good ball outside off stump when there are four guys in the slips waiting for you to kiss the ball to them?

Laxman got drafted into the one-day team obviously by someone impressed by his brilliant Test inning(s) without considering whether he can cope with the one-day demands. Now make no mistake, I think, Laxman is a brilliant Test batsman, and on his day can win a one-dayer too on his own. But those days are unfortunately few and far between, for the man does not possess the required skill sets for a one-dayer. I'm sure any captain will prefer a batsman who can score 30 singles off 38 balls in six matches out of 10, over one who blasts two centuries in 10 matches. Laxman can prove me wrong quite easily in the one-dayers -- all he needs to do is score a quick single. Just once.

Drop him from the one-dayers. Tell him he is in the team for the next ten Test matches. Tell him he'd better show some acceptable level of consistency in those 20 Test innings. Allow him to concentrate and tighten his technique for the Test matches. It's criminal to waste such talent -- by both the selectors and the player himself.

Robin Singh: 'Arguably the fittest cricketer in India,' is what you read about him. Included in Wisden's Dream one-day team, you read on.

Has the man not performed with the bat? Well, I didn't say that. Has he been a miserable failure with the ball? Not really. Is his fielding not up to the mark? Please...! Is the guy not determined enough? Are you kidding or are you kidding? Then why did you drop him? Well, errrr.., you see, (psst..why did we drop him?) Yeah! Got it. I remember now. We dropped him because of his age, you see. Sigh! The perfect one-day player. Possesses and fits the skill-sets like a body-glove on a scuba diver. Even with the World Cup less than two years ago in your sights, I fail to see how, arguably, India's fittest cricketer can slip to India's 12th fittest cricketer in less than two years, so as to make that a reason for his noninclusion in the eleven. For heaven's sake, the guy would walk through fire for the team. Isn't that reason enough for him being in the one-day team?

The core team (with scope for tweaking and tuning for a particular series) of 15:
Although I'm skating on thin ice when I include Mohammad Kaif, or Hemang Badani, or indeed the openers, in the Tests, as they really haven't shown what they are capable of, here goes nothing!

Tests:
Das, Williams/Bangar/Jaffer/Mane, Laxman, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Kaif, Badani, Dighe, Harbhajan, Kumble, Agarkar, Nehra, Khan, Srinath.

One-dayers:
Sachin, Sourav, Sehwag, Dravid, Badani,Yuvraj, Sodhi, Robin, Dighe, Kumble, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Agarkar, Nehra, Harvinder.

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Mail Bharath Kedlaya