Time India seek the worldly touch
Glenn Maxwell standing on one leg to deliver a scintillating double hundred against Afghanistan in Mumbai starts to make more sense once you are told that his highest IPL strike at all venues where he has played at least 10 innings is 178.05, at the Wankhede. A stint with Kolkata Knight Riders could have played a small role in Pat Cummins dismissing David Miller—Gujarat Titans’ trusted finisher in the last two seasons—off a slower short ball with 16 deliveries remaining in the semi-final at Eden Gardens.
It can’t be about skill, or else India would have been found out at least once in 10 matches before their World Cup final defeat to Australia.(PTI)
David Warner—whose 18-ball 29 was half the reason Australia won that semi-final—calls India his second home. Devon Conway and Mitchell Santner bleed yellow for Chennai Super Kings; Quinton de Kock and Marcus Stoinis have been pillars of Lucknow Super Giants while Adam Zampa continues the legacy of the great Shane Warne at Rajasthan Royals. Little wonder then that the aforementioned names find prominent places in the most recent World Cup winning and semi-finalist teams.
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It’s a different cricket world now with India at its core and the Indian Premier League as its beating heart, attracting the finest from all over the world. These cricketers play dozens of matches, spending nearly three months across several cities, embracing different cultures, exchanging notes and absorbing every byte of information on pitches, outfields, dew and other elements that tend to come into play. With overseas players gaining encyclopaedic knowledge of IPL venues, India is becoming less daunting as a cricketing destination every passing year.
The same however can’t be said about Indian players vis-a-vis Australia, England or South Africa because they are not allowed to play in overseas leagues. Yes India are touring more, winning more Tests too, but only a fraction of the Test players figure in all formats. White ball tours—the combination of ODIs and T20Is varies according to the ICC tournament cycle they fall in—these days don’t last more than two weeks and the only multi-team tournament India participate in regularly is the Asia Cup. Compared to a top-tier Indian player thus, globe-trotting Australian, English, South African and New Zealand cricketers have more worldly experience to bank on in ICC tournaments.
It can’t be about skill, or else India would have been found out at least once in 10 matches before their World Cup final defeat to Australia. Temperament thus becomes pertinent, especially while comparing them with a bunch of Australians who not only know how to win in India but have also mastered the skill of reading situations equally well, if not better than Indians. Ravichandran Ashwin is the most high-profile name to have brought this to notice by elaborating on his YouTube channel.
In a gist, this is what Australia chief selector George Bailey told Ashwin during the mid-innings break of the World Cup final: They chose to chase because red soil (like at the Wankhede) pitches disintegrate but black soil (found in Ahmedabad) ones get better to bat with time. Also, black soil pitches are good turners in the afternoon before turning into solid ‘paata’ pitches—perfect for batting in the second innings. “I was flabbergasted listening to that,” said Ashwin, “seeing all the experience from IPL and the bilateral series and India becoming a central hub of world cricket. They can read the pitch perfectly.”
Often losing traction amid the talk of IPL giving overseas players a serious foothold is how less India play away from home these days. In the last five years now, India have hosted Australia in 14 ODIs but played only six bilateral matches away as part of a new broadcaster-supported touring template that makes India the focus of world cricket. What will also be feebly mentioned is Australia winning seven of those 14 matches—just the right win/loss ratio to have kept Australia in the hunt for the World Cup even when it seemed they were not in the running even a month before the tournament began.
The 2027 ODI World Cup will be held in South Africa. Two out of the next three T20 World Cups will be hosted jointly by the US and the Caribbean (2024) and then in Australia and New Zealand (2028). Skill not being an issue, the only way India can close in on Australia or South Africa or England is by playing them away from home more often, either through bilateral tours or by playing in overseas franchise leagues. In India’s 10th year without an ICC trophy—the most recent failure coming at home no less—this might well be a point to ponder.
Since the ICC is in charge of the Future Tours Programme (FTP) in consultation with the member boards, change in bilateral fixtures would involve other nations too. A simpler solution could be to allow Indian cricketers play in other leagues — if not all the time, then at least where the next World Cup is scheduled. That the IPL is highly lucrative is an understatement. It offers the best contracts, highest sponsorships and biggest prize money. And the BCCI is completely within its rights to protect its interests and those of the players by limiting the scope of injury considering India’s packed international schedule. But maybe it’s time to reassess that policy.
Because preventing Indian cricketers from playing in the Big Bash, The Hundred or the SA T20 league is in its own way limiting their range of experience against different opponents and in different situations in the longer run. Having Indians play abroad isn’t a difficult scenario to envisage nowadays, with IPL franchises picking up stakes in almost every overseas league.
All they now need is an NOC from the BCCI for, say, Jasprit Bumrah to turn out for MI Cape Town or Rishabh Pant for Pretoria Capitals. Imagine them passing on information about Newlands, Wanderers and Centurion during the 2027 World Cup, knowledge that can’t be gained in a few bilateral one-dayers. Now wouldn’t that be a great advantage?
