Most of the cricket talk is revolving around few really good players and the money earned by them. It appears that our main concern is the money earned by cricketers rather than how thy perform.
Cricket like any other sport is a display of personal skill and there is no reason why any other team who we like or not can not have better skills than our players.Even if those team/s are minnows and they beat us at international level. While we may go Ho Ha India , Aa Ya India, as we are the only team playing n the tournament and other teams do not exist.Or if those teams are poarticipating then they are doing so only for loosing to TEAM INDIA. All teams are trying to do better / excel and hence it is more important to build a system that can nurture the talent and make them competitive. Then we need not keep an account of who earns how much (IT can do the job they are paid to do)
BCCI is wealthiest board in the world and am sure thay can pay astronomical sums to make some good all types of wickets viz: - REAL FAST & BOUNCY TRACKS, at 10/15 centres.Some real fearsome where even reputed players may think of not playing even after selection. - SLOW and LOW tracks , that do not encourage big shots and one is forced to pick up singles and twos - Damp and Moist tracks, most of the tournaments have rains comming in to play at some time or other. - Interview , Test and Appoint atleast 11 players for each position.These are employed by BCCI and should follow a regimen of practice and matches. - Selection to team India on the basis of national ranking and not Zonal basis.The ranking to be separate for pace and spin bowlers, opening and MO Batsmen, WK , Al rounders. - Fielding / running between wickets at intnl level is athletic (not to demean the understanding while running singles).Experts to work out a test to quantify the good,accepatble and bad .Players have to be tested for the same and those found below acceptable level should be ignored (even of the player is a better spinner, batsman , pace bowler than any of the legends)unless these skills are pulled upto atleast acceptable levels. - Forceful rest after a specified number of international games. - Larger participation on International Teams in the Ranaji Circuits. - Use funds generated from cricket for improvement in other sports also eg tennis, athletics,weightlifting, wrestling where many individuals have done country proud. - Traditional Skills -Spinners,why not structured programme to build spinners
- Professional Media Coverage only, Stick to reporting on the sport (cricket / other), technacalities, vagaries of the game specially what other countries in the world are doing.How Aussie cricket is managed rather than less relevant features eg one can read betting odds in leading dailies. Why the media is doing it? and people readin it? If it can be tolerated why not players (not only cricketers) , managers, coaches actively participate in it?
If every one ranked , top 10 players from ranking will be automatically selected. Rest of the 4 are coaches/captain picks. one player is sponsors pick. (he has to be different in every series).
The Indian team does have good fast bowlers but consistency is what we have been missing always..Irfan Pathan looked different and great with his natural bowling angle and the swing, when he came in. But did well with the bat too. But now his bowling has been really sloppy. Balaji was a star in Pakistan but later on he too seemed like a mediocre. Ashish Nehra bowled simply superb against England in the previous world cup..He was just unplayable. It was a joy to watch an Indian bowler bowling that kind of a swing..Zaheer too hasnt been consistent. Good thing is, he looks be back in form.. Same is the case with Indian batsmen. If we look at the Indian line up..it definitely looks to be an awesome one. Atleast one of the best if not the best. Just imagine if Sehwag, Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kaif, etc are on top of their game!! India is gonna become invincible. But of course its far from reality currently. I think, cricket in India needs to get more competetive..As some one pointed out above, we need to introduce ranking in domestic cricket. Domestic cricket deserves more attention. It needs a different flavour. We should have different kinds of tournaments like Twenty-Twenty, ODIs at the domestic level. Have one tournament wherein players from all over the world can play too. This will add that extra touch to Indian domestic cricket and will also help the domestic cricket commercially. Domestic cricket then will be much more interesting for the spectators as well as the players! Domestic players will have that extra exposure & experience for different situations. Once competition gets in, the selection process can be made transparent too.. Lastly there has been a lot of talk about giving chance to new players. Agreed its important and fair for the team as well as the players. But a team with all new talent and no experience has very few chances of making it to the top. India has been doing pretty well with entertaining fresh talent. Continuous rotation is also a problem. No one would get enough chances to settle in and mature into a future star.
1. Create a major league (24) and minor league teams like in baseball (USA). (leave the current system and let it die on its own. Abolish all ranji trophy crap).
(for example , each zone , does n't have to be in that zone. Copy NFL format. Game is about sports and team not about region or language.)
2. Combine all good things in NFL,MLB and NBA and modify to suit india.
3. Create a playoff and World Cricket Championship in india.
4. Let all foreign players play in indian team.
5. It should be about cricket and not about indian players. The inherent advantage is that indians will automatically attracted to this commericial adventure.
6. Create ranking system for players play in Indian Cricket League.
7. It is time for india to take next step in sports.
What india need is a transparent selection system. That means we have to have a ranking system for all indian domestic cricket players. We have to devise a system that gives weight to opposition. It may not be perfect but again it can evolve into the best solution for indian sports in general.
I see every community(states) is pushing their batsman and bowler through media. We are selecting wrong guys into indian team. There will be many people ready to play cricket if they can get selected just by performance not politics or caste system.
The reason indian do not have ranking system because indian govt always run by upper class caste (rich)? They will never let another dalit kid to be a star. India is a biggest racist society in the world. You can call it a conservative but it is evil.
But again americans learnt their mistakes about slavery and corrected it. Indians also will learn to correct their mistakes in future. Because that is the only way. I do not beleive there is no indians talented than what we selected in indian team. That only shows blindness and ignorance of the selectors. Open your eyes people. Create a transparent ranking system. You will find 100s of fast bowlers in india.
The question is not whether we have talent in our cricket team or not (we have plenty of them) rather how much our talented players are focussed, dedicated, hard working, determined.
We Indians have, always, high hopes from our players in every match India plays. The players should not feel burdened of it; they need to have undivided attention on the game. This being said, if our players can just keep the GAME SPIRIT high all the time; I am pretty sure, we will be able to convert, any match, to victory which we otherwise loose easily.
Personally, I feel winning and loosing is not that important as is 'doing your best' with the game spirit.
In most of the, old and recent both, games we have seen that Indian players kept on throwing their wicket and we did not notice any sense of responsibility and fighting spirit in them.
If Indian team is doing its best and fighting till the last ball of the match then, certainly, we Indians will not feel bad even if we loose that particular game.
I guess, our Team India needs more counseling on moral fronts, work on getting total involvement in the game and strive for doing their best all the time.
We should not always think that the grass on the other side is greener'. Lets accept that we have one of the best players in world and focus on moral and physical both types of trainings.
RE:We do have talents !!
by vishal mehta on Feb 06, 2007 12:14 PM Permalink
Hi vishal here.You are right in not pressurising our players.But the kind of followers indian cricket has got atleast we shold consistently up there amongst 2nd or third team in world, not languishinag at the bottom of the table.And especially when we have such star studded team.
The way Vengsarkar goes about, he is most likely to miss catching on another Tendulkar who might be in some state/ranji team. Poor guys! Poor cricketers!
Dilip vengy the colonel, when he was crowned the captain of indian cricket team said "I had to wait till 95 tests to get to this". So his main ambition was to be a captain. So selfish. Now when he is the chairman of selectors he mouths another slavo , no talent. Of course we see people like Mohinder Amarnath saying that the Selectors are a bunch of jokers. I am reminded of that when i hear vengy say all this. Always we see Tamilnadu cricketers not being provided with good chances. It is a Mumbai bias in the team. Badrinath from Tamilnadu is grossly overlooked by the colonel and deputies. Similarly L.Balaji got a raw treatment and today mostly forgotten. He was the dreaded PACE bowler in the team that toured PAKIS in 2004 and won the series.
LET vengy be up-partisan and unblind his eyes. C'mon you Khandari.
Get Dhiman. He should be something good in a few years. Manoj Tiwary from Bengal, Rohit Sharma from Mumbai, Ishant Sharma from Delhi... Abid Navi? Actually, would like to see much more from Piyush Chawla, the next big indian spinner... And how about Pragyan Ojha of Hyderabad? Is he good? Infact, our quick bowlers are fine, and Bhajji is still young. We need to unearth some batsmen and one more quality spinner.
