Jan 31, 2007
" I have always played the way I wanted to play according to the situation. I have been playing for a long while now, so people should appreciate that."Feb 07, 2007
“It’s you guys, who criticised them more, knowing the fact that it’s a team of youngsters. And look at them now. Mumbai have won the championship with these youngsters only,”Brilliant!!!
Why would anyone want to come to Wankhede?
PS:- Conditions are no different for International matches.. Trying sitting in the North stand with a million other people crammed like sardines. Its a never to forget experience!!!!
was drafted by Mumbai in their semi final line up in the Ranji Trophy. He is a precocious talent from what I hear, and this performance goes a long way in confirming the rumors.
Mumbai has had a history of fine left arm spin bowlers, with Paddy Shivalkar, Bapu Nadkarni and Ravi Shastri being the stand outs.
So here is my question - What is the MCA in general, and Dilip Vengsarkar in particular, going to do to ensure that Iqbal Abdulla fulfills this early promise and goes on to wear the India cap?
Update :- I forgot to mention Nilesh Kulkarni in the list of slow left armers.
Plenty of worthies who can take the young kid under their wing and help him get better and mature. Is the MCA game ?
37 times over!!!!!
Congratulations Amol Muzumdar and your band of gritty warriors..You have put the K back in Khadoos!!!
The Trophy is coming Home!!! YIPEE!!!
Congratuations also to the Bengal Team, especially Ranadeb Bose and Manoj Tiwary. You have the heart of Champions!!
is the title of this post by Mukul Kesavan on the CricInfo website. With such a provocative title, some research and a long post becomes mandatory. So here goes -
1. Nature of wickets
Nilesh Kulkarni, long time servant of Mumbai cricket and ex-captain, also left arm spinner, was dropped from the Mumbai squad for the finals of the Ranji Trophy as the coach deemed the need to take 4 pacers on the Wankhede wicket.
When was the last time 4 pacers were taken in the finals of the Ranji Trophy? I have been around for a while, and have been following the domestic scene for a while longer, and 4 pacers going into the finals was blasphemy even 5 years ago.
And dropping a quality spinner for a pacer was sacrilege.
But it has happened and will continue to happen.
Looking at the leading wicket takers in the Ranji Trophy ( 2006-07), 6 of the top 10 wicket takers are pacers. 4 of the top 5 wicket takers in the country in India's domestic championship are pace bowlers.
So what changed?
In the early 90's, we used to lament on the need for pace bowlers, of domestic cricket being dust bowls, of pitches being so benign that batsmen would score 300 before lunch and then another 400 between lunch and tea.
Then came the move to change the nature of the wickets across the land. Some of the wickets were re-layed, some other had their soil- clay content altered, some others made the move to leave the grass on the wickets.
Today, if one looks at the match stats of the games that had a definite result versus games that ended in draws ( point of reference - Ranji Trophy 2007-07), most of the games with outright results have not lasted the total distance. 4 day games have gotten over in 3 and 5 day games have gotten over in 4.
Swing and seam have done most of the damage, and so, for the most part, unless the game has dragged on to the final day, the spinners really havent had a significant role to play.
2. A problem of plenty( or how we treat our spinners)
Think back to the time, in the early and late 80's, when we used to moan about not having a single left handed batsman in the team. Think back about how much joy swept through the land when Vinod Kambli took guard in Indian colors.
Think also of the time when Rashid Patel said "Left arm over" and the nation went into raptures coz finally, finally we had a left arm pacer.
Today, we gleefully omit a left arm pacer without playing him for a single game, ditto a left hand bat.
Ditto left arm spinners ( Sunil Joshi, Murali Karthik, Maninder Singh, Venkatapathi Raju, Nilesh Kulkarni).
Ditto off spinners and leggies ( L. Sivaramakrishnan,Sarandeep Singh, Rajesh Chauhan, Narendra Hirwani...).
Piyush Chawla was drafted, with much fan fare,into the Indian squad against England. He played a test. And then he was dropped. And has not been heard of since ( unless u follow the fortunes of UP in domestic cricket and U-19 in International cricket).
Amit Mishra, good leggie with nice variations ( atleast when i saw him on telly), was taken to Bangladesh for, get this, an ODI tournament. And then dropped. And has not been heard of since ( unless u follow the fortunes of Haryana in the Ranji Trophy).
Today, we are secure in the thought that Anil Kumble has sort of reinvented hinself and will be around for a year or so, if not more. We are also secure in our thought that Harbhajan is our off spinner for the present and the future.
Look again at the list of the leading wicket takers in the Ranji Trophy. Of the 4 spinners in the top 10 list, 2 are 20 years old and one is 27.
What happens when Anil Kumble retires and Harbhajan Singh hurts his finger?
We will draft, we will dump but we dont groom. Thats how we treat our spinners.
2. Impact players
Sarandeep Singh is a contemporary of Harbhajan Singh. From what I have heard and seen, he was as good if not a better off spinner than Harbhajan ( and definitely more in the classical mould). So what happened to Sarandeep?
Paddy Shivalkar and Rajinder Goel are the most famous examples of players who were of domestic gods who never wore India colors.
Think also of Stuart McGill and Shane Warne.
What is the difference? One is an impact player, the other is not.
Anil Kumble made the leg spinners job his own during the England whitewash of 1993. Harbhajan's entry into Test cricket is all too well documented for me to repeat.
Both bowlers made a huge impact in the initial opportunities given to them, and basically sealed the deal on their presence in the side. In the meantime, just about how many trundlers have plied their wares in the domestic scene while being fully aware that they will never get the opportunity to wear the India cap because they either did not or cannot make the sort of immediate impact AK and HS had.
3.Role of the slow bowler
What exactly is the role of the slow bowler in Ranji these days? Strike bowler? Stock bowler? Attacking option or defensive option?short spells of 5 overs or longer spells of 30 overs? spread out fields saving runs or attacking fields to take wickets?
4. Captaincy
Saurav Ganguly did not have a clue on how to handle Murali Karthik. Nilesh Kulkarni was made to bowl round the wicket into the rough as a defensive option ( in a match that India was in the drivers seat and eventually won).
Rahul Dravid is the best captain Karthik could ever have, but now finds himself in the sidelines.
Just how important is captaincy in the maturation process of a spinner?
Everyone talks of Bedi and how great he was. But let us not forget that his first captain was one MAK Pataudi. Can you imagine if Nasser Hussain had been Bedi's captain? Or Monty Panesar's for that matter?
In the domestic scene today, just how many captains understand slow bowling and slow bowlers? When Bedi got tonked for a six, he would applaud the batsmen, and the field would not alter. Today, if a spinner gets tonked for a 6, with the opposition score reading 103/6 chasing 550 to win, the captain will immediately push long on and long off back. And take out the slip and move him to deep extra cover.
5. Maturity
Spinners take time to mature is what we get to hear every time the question is raised. If one were to discount Sunil Joshi, Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj Bahutule, most of the current crop of spinners in the domestic circuit are fresh graduates from the U-19 circuit.
Saurasish Lahiri and Rajesh Pawar, along with Ramesh Powar, are the only 3 spinners who can be considered to be of the age where they can be considered mature enough in their skill set to take the next step ( ie: international cricket).
However, what support systems do Bengal or Baroda or Mumbai have to facilitate this next step?
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Sure, One Day cricket has made an impact on how bowlers think, and sure short boundaries and heavy bats have made the spinner's job more difficult.
Slow bowling is an art that needs time and space to come to fruition. But in this age of instant gratification, do we have the necessary patience to let our slow bowlers mature? In our search for the next "impact" player, are we sacrificing someone of quality who might take a little longer to find their feet?
Do short term gains justify long term losses, especially in the domain of slow bowling where it is the long term that matters ( spinners have a longer shelf life than pacers and generally tend to get better with time) ?
If so, must we rephrase the title of the post and ask - Is the Indian spinner obsolete?
Corollary - Have Indian batsmen forgotten how to play spin bowling?
Nilesh Kulkarni was the captain of the Mumbai Cricket Team last season. And now he finds himself out of the team and is not even informed about it!!!
reads this article by Sidharth Monga on the CricInfo website.
Few points here
Doordarshan will no longer be forced to straggle by seven minutes in beaming major cricketing events. The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a move to introduce an ordinance that would make it mandatory for private broadcasters to share the telecast of sports events with Prasar Bharati. The sharing norms are meant for sporting events of ‘national importance’,
