The Hindu : Sport : India not going forward

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Sunday, Sep 02, 2007
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Sport

India not going forward

India needs to develop dual-purpose players, writes
Geoffrey Boycott

To lose a match that you should have won can be pretty soul-destroying, and I would think India’s bowlers must be particularly demoralised to have let England off the hook after having them at the brink of defeat. The cardinal rule of any sport is to not allow a fallen opponent to rise and India broke it mainly due to lack of finishing skills. Had I been in Dravid’s position, I would have continued with the seamers instead of allowing the spinners to bowl exten sively.

But I feel for Dravid. He isn’t a bad captain, and it is unfair to blame him for India’s recent string of poor performances in ODIs. A general can only be as good as his troops, and the sad truth is that Dravid, who to begin with is not a born leader as Sourav Ganguly was, is further hampered by the scantiness of the resources at his disposal.

Nothing that I have seen of India in this NatWest Series has given me reason to believe that they are going forward. The old failings — poor fielding, lack of athleticism and fitness, lack of mental toughness — are still very evident. And I have to reiterate what I have said many times in the past — stop treating a player like a star after just a couple of good performances.

The adulation and the money can go to their heads and make them forget that they are here for a purpose — to replace three of the world’s greatest batsmen, and one of India’s champion bowlers. I refer, of course, to Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid, and Anil Kumble.

The big three

For the past decade, the big three of Indian batting have carried the team forward. Particularly glorious was the Tendulkar-Ganguly partnership, which at its peak was the best ODI partnership in the world by far, covering a multitude of the team’s sins. Now, as the tired legs seek rest, where’s the next batting or bowling sensation coming from? And that’s only one part of the story. What India really need to do is develop dual-purpose players, a term that I prefer to all-rounders.

I believe it is time India came out of the ‘batsmen and spinners’ mentality and began grooming dual-purpose players and fielders from the National Cricket Academy at Bangalore that I hear Dav Whatmore will run for a while. If you don’t have these, and you are fielding badly, you really ought not to be playing one-day cricket.Of course, all this can’t happen overnight and India go to Headingley down 3-1, but it’s time someone took a long-term view of Indian cricket instead of the team lurching from series to series. As of now, they can try a few different things — such as sending Dhoni in at No. 3 instead of in a lost cause at six — and get Yuvraj and Dravid to follow, but these are cosmetic changes that will not hide the real malaise.

Gameplan

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