Published: Jun 05, 2011, 11:23 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 25, 2014, 04:02 PM (IST)
By Adrian Meredith
We have seen several eras of dominance in cricket, but two that stand out are the great era of West Indian cricket, especially from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s, and the great era of Australian cricket, especially from the mid 1990s to mid 2000s. Statistically, the Australian era was more dominant, with more wins in a row, more percentage of wins and greater individual records of the players involved. But in terms of flair the West Indian era was more exciting – they just didn’t care too much about winning dead rubbers.
For a long time now I have kind of thought that all of this was a little unfair, when over on the other side of the world we had a country of 1 billion people, the 2nd largest country in the world by population, who were more cricket mad than anywhere else in the world, that were struggling along about halfway down the ladder. India were okay but they weren’t competitive with the best in the world, not regularly at least. Through the 1980s especially, India drew more Test matches than any other team, over half of their Tests ending in draws. So they weren’t losing a lot, but they weren’t winning much either.
I think it should be noted that cricket is the most popular sport in the world in a number of countries – in Australia, depending on which statistic you use, cricket can be classified as the most popular sport, with around 15% of the population who likes it as their favourite sport, slightly more than the various types of football played in Australia, which, combined, is easily the most popular sport. In New Zealand, cricket is the 2nd most popular sport behind rugby, while in England cricket is probably the 2nd most popular sport behind soccer. The countries that make up the West Indies at one point regarded cricket as their favourite sport, with as much as 30% preferring it, but that has slipped as the success of the West Indian cricket team has waned and it is probably not even the most popular sport anymore, probably behind athletics or soccer. South Africans don’t care too much about cricket and it is certainly behind rugby in popularity but probably a number of other sports – while this is largely because South Africa’s population is primarily black and its cricket team is primarily white, the end result is quite simply that proportionally few people in South Africa care about cricket.
And yet in India, and indeed the entire subcontinent, cricket isn’t just the number 1 sport but it is preferred as the favourite sport by virtually all males and the majority of females, with somewhere around 70-80% of the entire population preferring it as a sport. The country outside of the subcontinent that likes cricket the most is probably Australia at only 15%! That is a world of difference! Even West Indies during their heyday still only had 30% that preferred it! There is the world of difference.
So why, oh why, isn’t this translating into results?
If you look at sports in the Olympic Games, countries who love a sport tend to dominate that sport. On an individual occasion, countries which don’t like the sport too much might win, but overall it is the ones that love the sport – the countries that live and breathe that sport. And, of course, the ones with the bigger populations and the more money for facilities.
Logically, it should be India 1st, with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh fighting them in equal 2nd place. Occasionally, one of the other subcontinental teams should be 1st, and perhaps share it around a little, but the other countries that play serious cricket shouldn’t even be in the reckoning, especially not South Africa, who don’t care much about cricket at all.
Part of the problem seems to get back to results. As cricket became more popular in India, they tended to go for the draw at all costs. It was hard to beat India, but even harder for India to win anything. When ODIs came in, India actually won a bit, simply because they had no choice, as the option of draw was not there in ODIs. This in turn seemed to eventually lead to India doing better in Tests.
But India have been consistently getting good results now, not just in one-day cricket, but right across the board. While Australia are still officially ranked 1st in ODIs, India won the World Cup and are currently ranked 2nd behind them. India are also ranked 1st in tests, albeit narrowly. India are also very good at T20 cricket and are possibly ranked 1st in T20s too.
Logic says that if India can keep up this winning feeling, then it will bring confidence in the players. This, combined with that huge fan base and hence that huge player base, should, naturally, mean that India will dominate. It is quite logically the natural order of things.
But one big problem is that India don’t have a “complete” side, at least not for Test matches.
Sure, they have a wide array of fantastic batsmen. If Sachin Tendulkar retires, his presence would be lost, but there are several other great batsmen waiting in the wings. Tendulkar will be missed, but Indian cricket will cope without him.
India currently aren’t in an era of great spin bowling, though there are decent spinners in the wings like Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin. They aren’t all-time greats or anything, but they are good enough to be played for the sake of having a spinner. It doesn’t hurt the team to play them. And, on their day, they can be better than average.
The real problem in Indian cricket is their fast bowling. Thankfully, in recent times a consistent fast bowler has stepped up in Zaheer Khan. But even he, realistically, would not make it to many other Test teams as a bowler. He certainly wouldn’t make it in the Australian, Pakistani, England or South African bowling line-ups. He might just sneak into Sri Lanka’s, given that Malinga is mostly retired. So while he is the best fast bowler India has produced for a while – possibly ever – he still isn’t all that good compared to what is going around for other countries.
Zaheer Khan does, nonetheless, inspire. There’s an array of half-decent pace bowlers going around, like Munaf Patel, Shantakumaran Sreesanth and Ashish Nehra, as well as the likes of Ishant Sharma. With Zaheer Khan about they look a bit better than they otherwise would. And with the awesome batting and decent spin bowling, they can win matches – at least on the subcontinent – and occasionally even outside of that. They can be the best team in the world based on that. But they could do better.
What India really needs, more than anything, is a quality out and out fast bowler. I don’t mean the top speed clocked by the likes of Kapil Dev, Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth. I mean the kind of pace Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee and Shaun Tait were capable of generating at their best – upwards of 90 mph ball after ball and accurate enough to pose an omnipresent threat to the opposition. If India had one true fast bowler playing next to Zaheer Khan they would be virtually unstoppable.
Then they could have a Sreesanth as a third bowler and play Harbhajan Singh as the sole spinner; on spinning pitches, they play two spinners.
And then there is another thing on the wish list – they want a fast bowling all-rounder. Jacques Kallis, Andrew Flintoff or Shane Watson all could bat well and then on their day could bowl genuinely fast. If Australia used him properly, they could be using Mitchell Johnson as an all-rounder too, but India don’t have that.
Sadly for India, all of their part-time bowlers are spinners – every last one of them. In a team that already struggles to get enough pace bowling done, they desperately need someone to fill that void. Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina all bowl spin. They need someone to bowl pace.
India don’t yet have a complete team and they don’t yet have dominance over the other teams. But they are ahead. And they are getting further ahead. If India can fill those two holes, and get themselves a genuine fast bowler and a fast bowling all-rounder, and especially if they can stay on top for the next five years or so, we could be looking at a very long period of dominance, a period where only the other three subcontinental teams will have any chance of breaking their dominance.
(Adrian Meredith, an Australian from Melbourne, has been very passionate about cricket since he was seven years old. Because of physical challenges he could not pursue playing the game he so dearly loved. He loves all kinds of cricket – from Tests, ODIs, T20 – at all levels and in all countries and writes extensively on the game)
