From: pvr@argo.rice.edu (PVR Narasimha Rao)
Subject: Re: Indian Cricket:--> JOKE OR WHAT????!!!!?!?!?
Organization: Rice University
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 09:29:07 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.065618.4102@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>, moonunit@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Benjamin Ruse) writes:

	[writing "on the delusion common to many followers of Indian cricket"
	that "the Indian side is being stopped from achieving its rightful
	spot as the world's top team by a combination of poor captaincy and
	team selection"]

		[stuff deleted]

|>    like a wheelbarrow full of Amputees.  I watched with disgust as their
|>    bumbled their way through a 4-0 thrashing in the most depressing Test
|>    series I have ever seen.  Time after time their batting collapsed
|>    against McDermott,Hughes and finally Whitney. Srikkanth, Sidhu,
|>    Manjrekar and Vengsarkar played in 16 Tests between them without 
                    ~~~~~~~~~~           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|>    scoring a single 50 between them. The Indian bowling was workmanlike
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's not a correct statement (though the spirit behind it is right).
Vengsarkar scored a 50.

He topscored in the second innings of India in the second test
(at Melbourne) with 54 (he had a decent partnership with 10dulkar
who made 40).

|>    but with the exception of DEV never looked like taking many wickets.
|>    (Perhaps something to do with the fact that Australian beer is
|>     generally sold in tins with ring-pull tops rather than
|>      in bottles? )
|>    Even India's much vaunted spin bowling attack appeared reduced to two
                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~

India's spin bowling attack is no longer "much vaunted". It used to be so.

However, that " headbanded Nerd" took 16 wickets on his debut. Raju got rave
reviews on his debut in NZ. (I'm not saying they are greta bolwers.)

|>    innocuous trundlers one headbanded and looking like the archetypical
|>    "Nerd" from an American Sit-Com and the other a grimacing Rowan
|>    Atkinson look-alike.

		[stuff deleted]

|>    This may be an unfair reflection of the tour but it is not out
|>    by much. And more worryingly it appears to have been the history
|>    of every indian team over the last few years. 

May not be much, but it was somewhat an unfair reflection.

India didn't do badly on the Pak tour. They drew all the matches. In NZ,
they didn't do badly except in the first test which they lost. In Eng,
they made Eng follow-up in the third test after drawing the second one.

Their performance was bad, but it wasn't very bad. They just failed at
the crucial moments. They failed when it mattered. They just couldn't
deliver. With a little more luck, their stats could've looked totally
different. I don't think they were totally outplayed in either of the
last 3 test series they lost (NZ, Eng, Aus).

		[stuff deleted]

|>    team that doesn't play like the Keystone Cops on LSD? Why is it that
|>    players of the calibre of Sandeep Patil, Sadanand Viswanath, 
|>    Arshad Ayub, Chetan Sharma, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Vivek Razdan
|>    to name but a few tend not to live up to their early promise?

Poor team selection policies are part of the reason. Selection policies
can make or break careers. From the first class performances of various
players, selectors should be capable of deciding which player deserved to
stuck to despite temporary failures and which players had to be ditched.
Most other boards seem to be arriving at good combinations after reasonably
small periods of trial and error. BCCI's experimentation never seems to
converge. In the process, they kill a few promising careers.

Let us take the case of Razdan. He was 19 when he was taken to Pak. He
barely played in some club matches. He didn't even play in first class
cricket! His training at the MRF pace foundation (head coach: Lillee)
wasn't yet complete. Lillee made a statement that he was very impressed
with Razdan and expected him to be a very good bowler. That was a reason
enough for BCCI to select him for a tough tour!

But, it didn't prove to be a bad decision (in case Razdan was thrashed
then, it could've totally wrecked his confidence, thus killing a promising
career even before it really started. Luckily, he wasn't). He took 5 wkts
in the first innings of the Sialkot test (all wkts of genuine batsmen, no
tailenders). Within 2 months of the Sialkot test, there was a tour to NZ.
Razdan was taken to the tour, but only to sit in the pavillion. Wasson had
to be tried in his place.

BCCI takes someone and removes him after a good performance and tries someone
else hoping that he would be better. This sequence never seems to converge
unfortunately.

Even the case of Chetan Sharma is somewhat similar. He was exposed to
international cricket rather too early. By the time he started to look
good, they removed him because there were "promising" alternatives.

Just imagine this: suppose they take Kuruvilla (he made his first class
debut just in the last summer in the finals of Ranji trophy. So, effectively
he played in just one season. However, he is 25, i.e., he is getting too old
to make his debut by Indian debut standards!) for the tour of Aus. Suppose
he does just like Srinath did in Aus, this being his first tour. Suppose
Zaidi (or Vaidya or Prasad or ...)  does well in the Ranji's during that time
(also, Kuruvila will miss most of the season because of the tour and the series
with England). Then they will drop Kuruvilla and take Zaidi! By the time he is
tested, someone else will emerge.

This process will never end .......

		[stuff deleted]

|>                  ((( the end ))) p.s Replies are welcome.

--------
PVR Narasimha [SRT is simply the best
               Whether it's an ODI or a test] Rao