Technical Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has suggested many changes in the domestic cricket in order to improve the quality of game in India and it can be said that most of the changes that they have asked for, will augur well for Indian cricket and cricketers. The biggest challenge before the board was however to ensure that India do well overseas and the technical committee, under the leadership of former India captain Sourav Ganguly, has given their valuable inputs in this regard as well.
But this is not the first time that they are facing this challenge. Whenever there has been a meeting of this type, Indian team’s overseas performance has always been a topic of discussion and despite knowing the reasons behind it, nothing much has happened to improve India’s dismal performance abroad.
Here are some of the measures that should be taken straightaway if India want to save the blues abroad:
Have more pitches like Mohali:
It is hard to believe that the richest cricket board on earth cannot prepare more hard and bouncy wickets. We keep saying that our youngsters need to practice on tough conditions. So why not prepare more pitches like the one we have in Mohali. In the recently concluded IPL-5, Dimitry Mascarenhas, who is a medium pacer, took a five-wicket haul for his home team Kings XI Punjab and said that he felt like he was bowling in England. If we can have a pitch like that, we surely can have more pitches of such standard.
Stop controlling our fast bowlers:
India have struggled to produce any genuine pace bowlers and whenever we have got a talented newcomer who can bowl fast, we have wasted him trying to teach him line and length. Bowlers like Munaf Patel, Sreesanth and others started their career with a lot of promise. They liked to ball fast and looked threatening. But look at them today. They bowl at around 120kph and that is not acceptable. It is true that they have had their share of injuries, but hasn’t Brett Lee or Andrew Flintoff got injured? Did they ever compromise with their pace? The answer is no. We have some good pacemen in Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron and it is high time that we let them bowl the way they want to.
We should sort out our playing calendar:
Last year India played two back-to-back Test series abroad and were outplayed in both of them. But they can have a sigh of relief as they will not travel outside the sub-continent for the next two years. We will play all our coming Test matches in the conditions suited to us and who knows, we will get to that number one Test position once again. But what will happen when we travel outside after a long gap of two years. Won’t our batsmen and bowlers struggle to adapt to the conditions that they would have almost forgotten. There should be a proper mix of tours as playing in similar condition for a long time can hamper a team’s chance when they play abroad.
Choosing players according to the format:
Indian team do not believe in change. But times have changed. Gone are the players who could play in all the formats and India will have to adapt to the modern technique of playing the game. Look at the number one side in Tests today. England have many changes in their team for ODIs, Tests and T20s. But we won’t dare to do that here.
By Indian Sports News Network
