Mid-Tour Crisis Report: Say No to Long-Term Thinking
by Devanshu Mehta
India is 2-0 down against Australia, and the Indian punditry has suggested every possible cut and change except for the blasphemous.
Sharma for Kolhi. Sharma for VVS. Ojha for Ashwin. Ashwin to open. Drop Dravid. Drop Sehwag. Drop Sehwag down the order. And so on.
So many unfortunate conundrums.
Replacing Ashwin makes sense for the bowling attack, but makes the tail even longer. It’s the unfortunate side-effect of having an underperforming bowler who bats better than your batsmen. Pushing Sehwag down the order might be genius on the order of pushing Tendulkar up the order in ODIs, but then who opens?
The three 38-year old elephants in the room– Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar– are implicit in every story about the series. In theory, India had a transition plan, but the kids have not lived up to expectations. Kohli is 74 ODIs old, Raina 135, Rohit 72. This has not translated to Test success. But Raina, Kohli, Sharma, Rahane (Pujara, Mukund) are the next generation, with proven class in the shorter form and first class. They just haven’t translated it to the longer and overseas games. This doesn’t mean India didn’t have a plan. It means the plan hasn’t worked. Yet.
The punditry calls for long-term thinking over short-term fixes. Screw long-term sense. There’s a time to build, but it’s not half-way through an overseas tour against a resurgent Australia. That’s called throwing in the towel.
Now is the time to fight with your best men, or go down fighting.
I was going to post most of this in response to Ducking Beamers’ post on (not) Dropping VVS, but figured I’d blog it instead.
Deep Backward Point 
how many tests combined have Raina, VK, RS, CP played? Compare their numbers to similar numbers of SRT, RD, VVS…they did not exactly start scoring 100s in the delvery room where they were born…
India had a succession plan held hostage to the whims of SRT, RD and VVS because ‘they still enjoy the game’.
1. I wouldn’t blame the 38 year olds that they haven’t been canned. It’s not their whims, it’s the selectors’ whims we should worry about.
2. At least two out of three of them (SRT and RSD) are *still* the best batsmen in the team. Age be damned.
3. Raina got a full tour (eight innings) in England. Kohli is on his way to get close to that. Pujara has been a tad unlucky, I agree. And Sharma seems to be on the verge.
The next year-and-a-half in the sub-continent will be a time of transition. After this tour, and not during it.
Sensible mate. The time for long term view was when the team for Aus was being planned, could have dropped one of the elephants then (ideally after Eng tour VVS should have retired.) But now that we are there and all fit to play (as in, not injured) then we need to have them on the field. Whats worrying is the fitness and athleticism of younger chaps like Ashwin and Ishant – that costs us a bit in leaked runs and intensity….shoulders drop too soon…..