Knowing your resources and using them
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | ||
| JEC Franklin | 7 | 2 | 16 | 1 | 2.28 | (1w) | |
| SE Bond | 10 | 1 | 26 | 2 | 2.60 | (1nb, 1w) | |
| JDP Oram | 5 | 2 | 23 | 0 | 4.60 | ||
| JS Patel | 10 | 1 | 36 | 0 | 3.60 | ||
| DL Vettori | 10 | 0 | 50 | 1 | 5.00 | (1w) | |
| SB Styris | 3 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 5.33 | (2w) | |
| CD McMillan | 5 | 0 | 23 | 3 | 4.60 |
| | | | |
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The adroitness in rotating the bowlers is a tribute to Stephan Fleming' tactical genius but the fact that he was aware of his options and leveraged them is a lesson for this beleaguered captain.
7 comments:
I think there was a big difference between the Dravid as captain in year 1 and in year 2. During the glorious "we'll chase anything" victory run, he made some truly inspiring decisions and they worked. I guess thats what made them inspiring.
And I thought right through year two , with careers and form of players like Irfan Pathan , Viru , Dhoni, Bhajji crumbling around him , his ability to think on the field started getting to be very questionable. The stats say that we only conceded 300 once in the last 60 games, but that hides the insecurity led inflexibility that we started showing. Think he was so keen on sticking with his plan and not wavering that at some stage that started hampering dynamic thinking on the field.
He's too good a guy to let a weakness fester though. I think. And Hope.
I think there is also a BIG difference in the resources.
India have nobody comparable to Bond. And Vettori has averaged 26 in ODI cricket recently, to Harbhajan Singh's 33.
If doesn't matter how Dravid handles his bowlers if they don't bowl consistently to their field.
More than Fleming's on field tactical nous - it is the strategic preparation - a conscious concerted effort at building a team around players will all round skills.... and building a "sporting" team is what is worth following.
It is what Fleming and his coach do on the drawing board before the team takes the field that makes this happen.
Besides, you have to also remember that this is Flemings 7th year as New Zealand captain and hes spent plenty of years with a rubbish team.
Bond gives this team the winning edge. If anything, i wish Dravid had someone like Bond to throw the ball to...
Flemings players have delivered - Dravid's haven't. Too much is made of "inspiring" captaincy. Just as too much is made of "killer-instinct" and "spirit" and "fight".
It all boils down to how well you bat and bowl.
When Dravid had Utthappa going hammer and tongs in India just before the World Cup - 5-2 in 8 matches - he was looking good.
Kartikeya,
Firstly, even when Uthappa and Dravid were going hammer and tongs, my opinion of Dravid's captaincy was the same - he does things by the numbers; out of the box thinking is not something he is too comfortable with.
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As Sfx says, in the initial phase of his captaincy, he showed flair in how he used his power plays and the super sub.
That flair is non existent now.
And what is inspiring captaincy anyways - recognizing the ebbs and flows of the game and maximizing the flows and minimizing the ebbs with the resources at hand.
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If India's bowlers don't bowl to their fields - the bowlers could be at fault; or the field itself is set faulty.
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Rahul has over 300 ODIs under his belt, Fleming 278 - so that argument about years as captain is a non starter.
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Finally, about not having Bond. The argument could be extended to not having a Lee or a Tait or a Warne - but that is a hypothetical. Fleming today used Patel and McMillan and Styris and more than using them , the way he used them - how often have you seen Dravid use a Tendulkar or a Sehwag or a Yuvraj as game breakers and how does Rahul rotate his bowlers?
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Cricket is more than how you bat and bowl - if only it were that simple :)
Plenty of times... he uses them very well.
I think too many judgements are being passed on too little evidence.
Do i think Dravid has to take the blame for the fact that the team has fallen away in the last 8 months or so... sure i do.
Clearly Flemings handling of his bowlers was non existent as the Aussies where hammering his bowlers to the tune of 330.... in two consecutive games. It was clearly missing when New Zealand failed to make the VB finals where England was the third team....
Its impossible to compare Dravid and Fleming as captains.... just as it is impossible to compare Lara and Tendulkar as batsmen. Their teams are completely different, their sporting cultures are completely different, the conditions they prepare in are completely different, the pressures they encounter are completely different...
I've seen Dravid use Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Sehwag etc. extremely well.
I don't think Fleming thinks on his feet as much as people think. I do think that his team management prepares strategy extremely well and in minute detail... Fleming does not have a long standing culture of maverick individualism to deal with in his team..
The captaincy experience argument is very much relevant in my view...
Hmmm - well I'm not trying to compare Dravid to Fleming or anyone else really. (although I do think Fleming last night was pretty impressive ha !).
I'm just saying that , in my view, Dravid's gotten extremely straitjacketed in his approach to captaincy in the last year or so. Was that because the team wasnt performing? Or was captaincy a contributing factor to the decline of the team? I dont think there is any real answer to that and much depends on which side of the argument you wnat to chose. I guess the correct answer is - a little bit of both.
Likewise, experience is a tough one to debate. I could say that I thought amongs Dravid's first decisions as captain - that declaration with sachin at 194 was amongs his finest. Experience all boils down to what you learn from it. I think Dravid's been choked by the pressure in the last year or so. Has let events dictate to him rather than learn from them.
But I also think one of the better fallouts of the BCCI buyng time since the WC exit is that Dravid will emerge a better skipper. Richer for the experience.And wiser.
But unless he gets a team which can bat and bowl.... and unless he gets one genuine strike bowler, he's never going to be very successful.
Rahul Dravid in my view suffers in comparison to Ganguly - because even if he is tactically far more astute than Ganguly, he is not quite as demonstrative and hence seems to be more subdued.
It may also just be, that Dravid like Tendulkar and Lara, is one of the many great batsmen who don't make decent captains.
Yet again - the lack of quality captaincy material comes from the disconnect with first class cricket. There is nothing much to go on when gauging the qualities of a captain...
Kartikeya,
In our discussion previously, we concluded that Dravid is
"I called Rahul' captaincy whimsical - Kartikeya articulated it more clearly when he called it "bloodyminded - yes, tending towards the recklessly aggressive option rather than the more rational reason ".
And in ODI cricket, that attribute is a negative rather than a positive whereas that very same quality will serve him well in Test cricket.
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