Make No Excuses

The downslide of the Indian cricket team started with the unsavoury manner inwhich Sourav Ganguly was ousted. Excessive experimentation with our batting andinability of our players to come to grips with the contract system have furthercontributed to our dismal performance.

Still, there are no excuses for our poor display in South Africa. The Indianteam should have prepared itself better knowing fully well what to expect there.Even a schoolboy knows they were not going to offer flat wickets on a platterfor the Indian batsmen to flourish.

The groundwork was not done. The team should have either gone to South Africamuch earlier than they did or at least put the gap between the matches duringthe ICC Champions Trophy to better use.

Nowadays information is available with the click of a mouse even if it isnot forthcoming from the South African Board and there are search engines likeGoogle to do the job for you!

They should have got acclimatised to the conditions by planning a few morewarm-up games. But it now seems by the time they will do so, the tour will beover!

To put the entire performance in proper perspective, it should be said thatour strength is batting and we have undermined it by the excess amount ofexperimentation that has been carried out.

A player like Rahul Dravid can cope up with the constant change in hisbatting order but not someone like Virender Sehwag who struggles when he is sentin the middle order.

And pray what are we doing with Irfan Pathan by sending him at number threewhen even a great all-rounder like Kapil Dev has not batted at this position!

These experiments have become too much of a hindrance to the team's progress.You need to be mentally strong to play at this level and these constant changeshave made the players unsure about their roles in the team.

There are so many players padded up, it's a joke! No one knows who would gowhere! It's looking like a team of schoolboys and not the India team.

It is time to identify 14 or 16 players for the World Cup, which is the mostimportant thing that's coming up. I do not think this has been done so far. Bynow the players must know their jobs, whether they are openers, middle orderbatsmen or what.

Our other traditional strength is spin bowling and we have not used it fullyto our advantage. Because of the amount of one-day cricket that isplayed now wickets are slowing down and spinners will have a role to play. Wehave Anil Kumble back now which is a good sign. Though Harbhajan Singh has notbeen in form, I think he will get his act together soon.

Then there are people like Ramesh Powar and even Murali Kartik to do the job.But they need good support in the slips which is not happening now. For a bowlerthese missed catches are very disturbing.

We do have some good medium pacers now but spin should always be looked uponas our strength in bowling, even on bouncy wickets as batsmen the world over arenot able to play spin well.

The same team was doing very well earlier but the downslide, I feel, startedwith the unsavoury manner in which Ganguly was ousted.

Coach Greg Chappell had no business to send the e-mail to the Boardcriticising Ganguly, resulting in the spat being made public. What happens inthe dressing room should never go out of its four walls.

All these fitness regimens and commando training are not for us. We areunlike the Australians who are rough and tough from childhood. Our culture isdifferent and we have to balance it properly.

We should concentrate on getting the players, who come from different regionsand speak different languages, blend as a cohesive unit. Otherwise groupism maytake place.

You leave it to the players to remain fit or else go out of the team. Afterall they will be losing not only allowances but also modelling assignments ifthey are chucked out!

I also feel the poor performance of the Indian team in South Africa andin recent times in one-day internationals show that the players are yet to cometo grips with the contract system which is new to our cricket.

It seems the Indian players are yet to understand the implications of thesystem. They are happy to sit out when injured as they are assured of a fixedsum. I would advocate going back to the old system where players are only paidmatch fees and allowances.

Yes, the Indian Board is a very rich body now and lots of money has flowninto its coffers. But it would make sense if the contract system is done awaywith and a new system, in fact the age-old format, is resorted to.

Give them big money as match fees and allowances, offer them bonuses forperforming well. I feel that is the way we can go back to put the game ontrack.

As for Sachin Tendulkar, I think he will bounce back. He is still gettingback into the groove after his injury lay-offs. But I'm sure he will come backstronger. He has two or three years of cricket left in him and hopefully hisinjuries are a thing of the past. But I feel he requires support from the otherend which is not forthcoming.

PTI