Indian Fielding is a Joke

India's attitude towards fielding was best reflected by Dhoni's post-match comments in the aftermath of the fourth ODI. Dhoni said and I quote "Quite a few players would be fit by then (the WI tour to India). We then may not have a very good fielding side. But then grounds in India are small and there is not much opportunity for batters to take singles or twos".

Just because Indian grounds are small, should poor fielding be excused? Fielding has been an Achilles heel for Team India for years on end and yet nothing has changed. The fourth ODI was a classic case in point. India were perhaps a trifle unlucky that the match was not completed. Had the full quota of overs been bowled, India may have been able to snatch victory given that England were 8 down. However, India got what they deserved as there is no way England should have been allowed to get to the situation they ended up in. There's no hiding place in modern day cricket and the biggest difference on the day between the two sides was the fielding.

When VVS was dropped from the ODI side, his lack of ability in the field was given as one of the main reason for his axing. I fully agreed with the decision as India needed to inculcate a culture of fitness within the team even it meant dropping a player with tremendous ability. But if that was the rule then don't the likes of R.P. Singh & Munaf Patel come under the same rule? The irony here is that whilst VVS is a truly class player, you can hardly say the same about the duo mentioned above.

What India desperately need after this tour is an honest evaluation of what went wrong. Unless they discover an attack that is capable of bowling teams out, it is unlikely that they are going to be a top team for the foreseeable future. The aim now should be to work towards building an attack for the future even if it means losing a few matches in the present. What is clear is that the current attack is taking us nowhere. With that being the case, I cannot for the life of me understand the continued reluctance to play young Varun Aaron. Can he really be any worse that our current attack?

Drop the slow movers and ensure that players are not picked unless they are reasonable fielders. Is it that difficult?

'Dustbowls'

Back in the nineties, matches involving India were very predictable. If the contest was taking place in India, more often than not the match would be played on surfaces known as 'dustbowls'. Indian batsman, used to playing on such wickets, would pile on the runs. When the opposition batted, it would normally be a completely different story. The ball would turn spitefully, the bounce would be extremely unpredictable and India generally used to emerge victorious.

When India played away from the comforts of home, the situation was the exact opposite. Wickets would normally have a fair covering of grass and even half decent fast bowlers would fancy their chances against batsman who looked all at sea against the moving / bouncing ball. 

What used to amaze me even back then though was that there was one rule for wickets in the subcontinent and one rule for wickets away. If visiting sides got out for a low score in India, it was due to the 'dustbowls' and it would be conveniently forgotten that India made runs on the same wicket. But when India lost badly away from home, it was always because the Indian batsman lacked the technique to perform well in seaming conditions.

A lot has changed since then but the unfair criticism 'dustbowls' get remains the same. India run world cricket today. The pros and cons of this can be debated but facts are facts. No decision can be approved without India's say-so and this is precisely why I think India need to back Sri Lanka and ensure that the ICC do not penalize the Lankans for the wicket prepared at Galle. 

Wicket conditions are very different today then what they were a decade or so ago. It's not only wickets in the subcontinent that have changed, but even surfaces in Australia & the West Indies seem to have become a touch different. Even in this T-20 age, test cricket's biggest problem is not cricket's brash new format but test cricket itself. Test cricket is at its best when it is played between evenly matched sides on a surface that encourages an even contest. Unfortunately, too many matches are today played on dead surfaces with almost no chance of a result. This problem is especially true of the subcontinent where dead tracks have become the norm rather than the exception. This is why the track at Galle was great to see.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a minute suggesting that the only way forward is to prepare minefields. Certainly not. However, unless a pitch is so poor that it endangers the safety of the cricketers, I don't see why there should be a problem. According to the ICC, a pitch that is dead from ball one and remains exactly the same 5 days later is deemed a 'good wicket'. But a pitch that tests the batsman from ball one and more often than not results on riveting test cricket is condemned. Cricket's administrators need to understand that cricket is not just about 500 + scores and big hundreds. After all this is supposedly a game between bat and ball, not bat and bat. Any wicket that gives the bowlers plenty to work with needs to be encouraged. Very often these dust bowls separate the men from the boys. 

Test cricket's most endearing feature is it's diversity. You expect the ball to zip around in England, you expect it to bounce in Australia and similarly you should expect it to spin in the subcontinent. I can't see what the fuss is about.

Donkey-Gate & the DRS

"India have a handful of good fielders, but some of them field like donkeys" Nasser Hussain.

Now then, what's wrong with that? The way the Indian media and the BCCI are reacting, it would seem as if Hussain has accused India of some heinous crime. Had the BCCI reacted with the same level of passion after a disastrous performance, it would have at least sent out the message that the BCCI have taken note of the poor performance by team India and are serious about taking steps to improve. Instead they have decided to vent their frustration on comments that if anything were 100 % true. The fact is that India's fielding right through this series has been a joke and it's about time somebody does something about it.

The other major talking point has been GG's naming in the KKR squad for the champion's league. One would think that a player who has been ruled out of the current ODI series and has been advised rest for a minimum of 10 days, would decide to skip the champion's league and ensure that he is fit for the upcoming India matches. India have a busy schedule ahead and it is hardly unreasonable to expect their top players to put India before any club matches, however attractive the remuneration may be. Priorities have changed!

In the middle of all this discouraging news, the second ODI between India & England was washed out. India will consider themselves unlucky as for the first time on this tour, they looked on top. Parthiv had set India up and cameos from the impressive Rahane, Dhoni, Kohli & Raina had given India a competitive score. Praveen Kumar had then taken out two England wickets to leave the home team in a difficult situation. However, rain had the final say and no further play was possible.

Rahul Dravid continued to make the headlines although this time around it was not for his imperious batting. For those of you who missed it, Dravid fished at a moving delivery outside the off stump. Despite a vociferous appeal by the English, the onfield umpire ruled in the batsman's favor. England reviewed and to the astonishment of everybody watching, Erasmus, the third umpire, overturned the decision despite have absolutely no grounds to do so. Hotspot showed nothing and it later emerged that Erasmus based his decision on a sound that he claimed to have heard when the ball passed the bat. 

I have been a vocal critic of the BCCI's anti-DRS stand. It is only recently that a compromise was reached with the BCCI agreeing to implement the DRS provided ball tracking technology is not used. Decisions like this is likely to give the BCCI more fuel to consign the DRS to the bin. To be fair, can you really blame the BCCI if such decisions are made?

One thing that such decisions have shown is that despite the availability of the best technology, unless there is consistency it is not going to work. By giving Dravid out, umpire Erasmus effectively overruled hotspot. What purpose does hotspot then serve? If a consensus cannot be reached, I believe it would make far more sense to revert to the system that existed before the introduction of all this new technology. Let the onfield umpires be the masters and as long as we accept that there will be the odd bad decision, it should still be fairly smooth sailing. After all cricket has survived for all these years without technology. I have no doubt that it will continue to survive with or without it.