Cricket does not need politicians

In the lead up to the India-Pakistan match at the 2019 World Cup, an India-based Twitter handle tweeted a sentiment which this writer wholeheartedly disagreed with - there is so much jingoism in the build up to this match, the user opined, that they would rather root for a Pakistan win.

Immediately after India beat Pakistan, politicians from all sides of India's great political tamasha rushed in to congratulate the Indian team for the win - India had only won a group match and not the World Cup itself - which they well might - so the congratulations were a bit silly, if politically expedient.

This, however, is the age when everything in India is a matter of political manoeuvre, an age where unquestioning obedience to the dominant political force seems to be rapidly spreading, and one in which the failure to celebrate every little thing, irrespective of consequence, is sought to be made out nearly as big a sin as showing the willingness to criticise the wrongs of the PM, the party and the army, in that order.

But for a lifelong cricket fan - and one who believes that the cynicism and constant snickering about fixing speaks more about those that do the insinuating than about India's cricket players - this interest in cricket by political leaders of all hues needs to be unequivocally resisted.

Cricket is India's national sport and one which Indians, apart from those that profess not to care for it, love with a passion.

For politicians to wade into it risks changing cricket into a crutch for all sorts of political opportunism - sample, for instance, Home Minister Amit Shah's blatantly political tweet which mixed cricket with his party's chest-thumping over "surgical strikes".

Two instances of this politicising of cricket stand out - after the Pulwama attack which claimed the lives of 49 Indian soldiers, social media went into overdrive demanding India not play Pakistan at the World Cup. Two of India's greatest and most respected cricketers, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, were the subject of much bile when they called out the stupidity of that idea. This, at a time when there was no political will for India to cut off trade, cultural and diplomatic ties with Pakistan.

More recently, when MS Dhoni was asked to remove a logo of a territorial army unit from his gloves as its presence ran afoul of the ICC's logo policies, Indian social media again went into overdrive demanding, among other things, that Dhoni should refuse to comply, or that the BCCI should withdraw the Indian team from the World Cup. The latter led to a most watchable snippet on live TV when Sunil Gavaskar's acerbic response to the suggestion left no one in any doubt about how much merit he thought it had. Good sense, often in short supply at the BCCI, eventually prevailed with Dhoni complying.

It is this tendency for politicians and the entire industry of hyper-nationalism that has sprung up in recent times to attempt to make cricket a proxy for everything their politics that stands for which hurts the sport. It is entirely possible that a stupid administration will make a mess of cricket as is the case with the Sri Lanka's SLC or Pakistan's PCB. That can be remedied - but the misuse of cricket as a political proxy is both dangerous and damaging.

How far it has already gone is evident when Twitter users want the Indian cricket team to "dedicate their win against Pakistan to the martyrs of Pulwama" or when Facebook users post tweets by Balochistan politicians celebrating an Indian win.

The objections to this political abuse of cricket - or any other sport for that matter - are not based merely on separating the purity of sport from the fundamentally abhorrent nature of politics, though that, on its own, should suffice as a reason. The objections are also based on what politics does to sport - virtually every sport in India today, especially if it is an Olympic sport, is a sorry mess thanks to political interference. Anurag Thakur, BJP politician, but also a cricket fanatic who wanted to get into cricket administration is a case study in how cricket can so easily be bent to the will of politics and, in doing so, hurts itself. Thakur, with no real cricket playing credentials, nevertheless met the requirement that BCCI office holders should have played first-class cricket by the simple expedient of using his substantial political clout in his home state of Himachal Pradesh to get himself picked for all of one first-class match, at which he turned out as captain!

The distance from Thakur to a completely politicised, messed up cricket structure is much shorter than we realise - all it needs is a look at India's southern and western borders to see what politics has done to their cricket teams.

Make it clear to politicians that they aren't welcome in the sport. Or risk making a mess of it.

Playing loose and fast with stats - a rejoinder to Cricketing View

A wag once remarked that when you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.

Nowhere is this truism more evident than in the shoddily written clickbait article by Karthikeya Date on ESPN Cricinfo following the IPL final.

Let us examine the claims made in the article.

Date points out, rightly it must be said, that Kohli scored 54 off 35 balls and therefore scored his runs at less than the asking rate at the start of the innings.

To buttress his point further, Date picks on a stat, which was that Kohli scored only 15 runs off his first 18 balls, something Date contends a “true-blue T20 hitter” would not have done when his team was chasing 10.45 per over to win.

The stat itself is indisputable – but this is where the hammer-nail analogy comes in. 

A piece of reasonably well-known cricketing wisdom is that when batting alongside a partner who is batting well, hitting the ball and looking in total control, the worst thing a batsman can do is to deny him the strike. It upsets the rhythm of the set batsman and generally hurts the team. 

Added to that is another significant stat that Date missed (hopefully, and did not just gloss over) – 4 overs into the RCB chase,  Gayle had faced 19 balls and scored 32, while Kohli had played a mere 5 balls of which one yielded a boundary. 

When you consider these two facts together, it made sense for Kohli to defer to his more aggressive and already settled partner which was what he did. 

Date then offers this gem “When the asking rate is ten runs per over over 20 overs, there simply aren't many options. This is not a problem of the imagination, it is a compulsion of arithmetic.”

At this stage Date declares AB de Villiers the best RCB player at IPL 2016. 

It is not entirely clear what that claim is based on but consider the stats – which Date did not bother to provide (source: ESPNCricinfo)

	Virat Kohli	AB de Villiers
Runs	973	687
Strike Rate	152.03	168.79
Average	81.08	52.84
Fours	83	57
Sixes	38	37

Green highlight denotes the better performance – and considering that the only place where de Villiers outscores Kohli is on strike rate, it is difficult to accept, solely on the basis of that stat, the contention that de Villiers, in this IPL at least, was the better batsman.

In other words, and to respond to another of Date's unbacked-by-data claims, a team of 11 Kohli's would beat a team of 11 de Villiers' by about 320 runs (assuming each batsman on either team maintained the averages above).

On that count – strike rate – by the way, Date offers us the fact that Kohli played 233 balls more than De Villiers with the suggestion that this goes against the former. 

It would be interesting to know why this is considered a negative. 

The fact that Kohli played more deliveries could - and does - indicate a number of things:

• He came in to bat earlier than de Villiers each time, which was the role he was presumably meant to play,
• On average he batted 14.5 balls longer than AB in each innings,
• He got out cheaply less often than de Villiers did.
• In other words, he was generally more consistent. 

None of these stats makes those 233 extra balls that Kohli played look wastefully spent, as evidenced by the 286 additional runs that he managed off them. 

Date also tells us that “He (Kohli) used up more than 25% of the deliveries available to his team and scored at less than the overall asking rate.”

As mathematical facts go this one too is indisputable. 

But even here Date does a great job of presenting a half-truth.

When Kohli got out, RCB needed 69 off 43 balls i.e. an asking rate of 9.62 runs per over. 

This means two things:

One, Kohli’s opening partnership with Gayle (who scored 76 from 38, at a strike rate of 200) had reduced a 10.45 starting rate to an asking rate of 9.62. This is where Kohli’s initial preference for giving the strike to a rampaging Gayle paid dividends. 

(On a side note, when Gayle got out RCB needed 95 off 57 i.e. an RPO of 10, which by the time Kohli got out was brought further down to 9.62)

Of course, there is also the small matter that by the time Kohli was out RCB had scored more than two-thirds of the runs RCB were chasing, which meant that the remaining batsmen had to score less than a third of the original target. 

Two, it means that the remaining 8 batsmen that followed Kohli and Gayle mustered a total of 61 runs between – that was just 7 runs more (in 13 balls more) than Kohli managed. 

Essentially that meant that 

(i) the remaining batsmen were no longer looking at the higher rate that Date speciously suggests Kohli’s seemingly slow batting left them with, but also that 

(ii) they even failed to score the already reduced RPO that was required of them with 69 needed off 43.

But, by far the most damning indictment of the lazily written hatchet job on Kohli is what the piece yet again, forgets to mention.

Even making allowance for the fact that the Bangalore wicket was flat and full of runs, RCB’s problems were not created merely when they batted.

Their bowling line up consisted of three relatively inexperienced domestic bowlers in the form of Sreenath Arvind, Iqbal Abdulla and Yuzvendra Chahal. 

But in keeping with their strategy, they also chose to have their two most experienced international bowlers – Shane Watson and Chris Jordan – bowl their last three overs. 

Apart from the fact that both bowlers had a pretty bad day and leaked 52 runs in the last three overs, their overall figures which combined to read 8-0-106-3 were not just significant in the context of the match but, in the final analysis, decisive.

Looked at holistically this way then, the statistics tell the story of a team that lost its way despite being in control more than once in the match - that seems a more reasonable conclusion than questioning the credentials of one man!

Small gains from the Big Game country

The tour of South Africa was talked about for more than it actually lasted. First there were questions as to whether the tour would take place at all, then there were questions as to whether Sachin would play and once that was laid to rest, there were questions raised as to whether India would even be able to compete without Sachin in SA.

Thankfully though, the wait for the answers wasn't long. The one big sore point of the tour was that it was way too short. It started well after the other marquee series the Ashes had started and ended with still a test match left in the Ashes.

There is always the risk of reading too much into the results of a series that had all of 3 ODIs and 2 test matches, but some of the messages that came out were crystal clear and the powers-that-be of Indian would do well to take note if they have intentions of ridding the Indian team of the tag of "Tigers at home, paper tigers abroad".

MS Dhoni mentioned about his boys being "Fantastic" in the series, but the scoreline tended to paint a slightly different story.

First the ODI series. India lost 2 of the 3 matches with the other being rained out. The margin of defeat in the 2 ODIs was comprehensive with no doubt whatsoever in anyone's mind as to which was the better team. This mind you, when SA were actually the underdogs going by the ODI team rankings. The Indian bowling was savaged and their batsmen battered into meek submission. Had the weather gods not intervened SA would in all probability have made a clean sweep of the series, going by the form book. The only gain if one might call it that, India had, from the ODI series was the recognition of the gulf that existed between the two teams, especially where bowling was concerned. India went into the ODI series with Ishant Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami to man the pace attack with only Ishant managing a somewhat respectable 4-for in one of the matches. That in turn proved more to be a bane than boon as it ensured his continued presence in the team for the ensuing test matches where he bowled at a pace noticeably lesser than his partner, 10 years his senior and was unable to extract either bounce or movement from the wicket. As for the others, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Mohit hardly found any purchase and while Shami had his brief moments, Umesh Yadav, who was expected to actually do well, given his pace, had very disappointing returns. Umesh Yadav's ineffectiveness in the ODIs he played and his subsequent banishment from the test team, based on the same, rendered the Indian bowling attack pretty much toothless.

An ODI squad to SA with 3 spinners meant that one of them would have lots of time to do shopping and sight-seeing in SA. That "chosen one" was Amit Mishra. The newspapers, particularly, The Hindu, in India hyped up what Ashwin's spin could potentially do in SA. At the end of the ODI series Indian supporters were none the wiser.

The batting in the ODIs was again a disappointment. While it may have been commonsensical to assume that the batting would never touch the lofty heights achieved in the ODI series versus Australia at home; to see it come crashing down in SA was quite underwhelming. There was only one 50+ score by the Indians (MSD's 65 in the first ODI) as against 9 by the Saffers (albeit having an extra innings), and there in lay the story of the ODI series. No points for batting, none for bowling. The fielding looked sharp without being spectacular.

Coming to the test matches, a 1-0 scoreline in a 2 test series is one which is open to many interpretations. However the scoreline could well have been 2-0 had SA not lost their nerve and more while chasing 16 off 19 balls. This was without a doubt one of the greatest escapes in test cricket, in modern times. What this draw did achieve, was to create a "Aisa bhi hota hai" moment for all of us who still haven't understood Dhoni's reasons for refusing to chase 180 in 47 overs versus the WI in 2011.

The test series brought about an overall uptick in performance in all 3 departments of the game. Kohli and Pujara were superb, firmly laying to rest the largely imaginary ghosts of the post Tendulkar-Dravid era. Vijay and Dhawan (although only in the last innings when his position at the top was being questioned) made up with resolve what they lacked in technique. The find of the tour was Ajinkya Rahane. Toting up tons in the domestic circuit, there was still a big question mark as to whether he would be able to adapt to the international arena; which he answered with aplomb. Plucky in the first test and classy in the second it was a treat to see this little man stand up to whatever was thrown at him by the Proteas. Rohit Sharma saw his career average plummet by 77%, and will probably be best remembered for shouldering arms to a ball on the middle stump. While this seemed like a shoo in for "the brain fade" of the series, it was trumped on the very last day of the series by none other than "Sir" Ravindra Jadeja with his wild hoick against Robin Peterson, while trying to save(?) a test match. What really transpired in Jaddu's mind will be one of those unexplained mysteries that will confound Indian cricket lovers for ages to come. There was nothing much to write home about Dhoni's batting and the bowlers made us feel glad that they at least knew which end of the bat to hold.

On the bowling front, spin which was supposed to be our key weapon let out more of a meow than a roar. Ashwin's spin performed wonders in mysterious ways mostly to the detriment of Dhoni and Team India's plans and Jadeja showed that a lack of talent could be compensated by toiling tirelessly.

When it came to the pacers, the "re-assembled in France" Zaheer Khan stayed true to the quality best exemplified by French made automobiles - great in terms of looks but underpowered in terms of performance. Ishant Sharma posed a few questions to the South Africans, most of them to those who were not on the field and had found their calling in hair styling (or is it hair "management" like everything else these days). Mohammed Shami seemed like the only Indian pacer who could shake up the opposition, but with Steyn and Morkel on the other side it was more like a .32 Beretta against the .44 Magnums.

The ground fielding, not the catching though, was quite spectacular. Rahane's run outs of Smith and Du Plessis at key moments in the first test contributed as much to the "Great Escape" alluded to earlier as much as SA's pusillanimity.

Dhoni's captaincy was well "Dhoni-ish" or unimaginative depending on how you choose to call it but it was positively brilliant when compared to that of Graeme Smith in this series.

At the outset a probable 3-0 blank out in the ODIs and a potential 2-0 whitewash in the test series may not really seem to be a cause for celebration, but better things could be in store for Indian cricket if only
a) some fast (not medium pace) bowling support can be unearthed for Shami,
b) someone is able to convince Dhoni of the axiom that 5+0.5+0.5=6; meaning that playing 5 specialist batsmen plus Ashwin and Jadeja will provide the same security as playing 6 batsmen
c) and BCCI is convinced that creating sporting wickets in the domestic tourneys is not really injurious to health.

While this tour cannot be described as an outright disaster as the one to England or Australia in 2012, the batting gains did little to dispel the tag of "poor travellers" that India have zealously cultivated over time.

When I watched Tendulkar and Gavaskar bat together – almost

This happened more than two decades back. I wish I could be more specific about the dates, but am unable to recall it. But then, it hardly matters what the year was, because more than the date and day, it was an opportunity to see what would have then been considered the equivalent of cricketing nirvana - that of watching India's two finest batsmen bat in the same team.

The setting was an improbable one.  The royal house of Udaipur had decided to hold a cricket match to commemorate a landmark date in Udaipur's history - unfortunately, I do not remember whether it was just from Udaipur's incredibly rich heritage or a more mundane cricketing landmark, but either way it was a an event worthy of bringing Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar together in a cricket match.

The ground in question was Udaipur's main cricket field. Set amidst colleges, hostels, playgrounds, basketball courts, football fields, athletic tracks, and the inevitable cricket ground it was billed as a venue capable of hosting international teams and players, and maybe one day an international match as well, an honour it still awaits.

But more specifically, it was built as the coaching camp venue for the Indian team before the 1987 World Cup. India's cricketers did arrive for the camp but found the pitch and the ground neither suitable nor safe to play and practice on.

The less charitable of Udaipur's offended citizenry felt that the wickets and conditions were merely an excuse for the absence of too many options after a day’s play. Whatever the reasons, the camp ended in a hurry, and there were not exactly a lot of displeased people from Udaipur when Gatting and co ended the Indian team's hopes of retaining the World Cup.

It was this ground then that would play host to this commemorative cricket match. A one-day, limited overs game, featuring two of the biggest names in Indian cricket.  The recently retired Sunil Gavaskar, my all time favourite cricketer, and Sachin Tendulkar, then just a young man who was expected to follow in the Little Master’s footsteps and achieve much batting greatness. Maybe Azharuddin and Jadeja were there as well, as was Vinod Kambli - but not being able to recall that for sure is not meant to slight them. It was just that Gavaskar and Tendulkar remained the highlights of that day.

Back then Gavaskar was already a legend of the sport -  a man who, in a more genteel, and cricket-loving world, was admired across the cricket world for his feats of batsmanship and in the aftermath of whose retirement, Indian cricket looked a bit forlorn and lost, in the absence of a batting anchor. But such was the man's draw that even in retirement he was a marquee cricketing name, and people still wanted to see him bat.

Alongside Gavaskar, the big draw - possibly as big, if not yet bigger - was Sachin Tendulkar. Indian cricket's rising star, a batsman whose career was just beginning to take off. Maybe it was the fact that by the time he arrived for that event in Udaipur, that over against Abdul Qadir had already happened, a few other big knocks had already been played, and comparisons with the Don were increasingly common. When Tendulkar headed back into the dressing room after a session of practice on the outfield, he was mobbed for autographs. It took him so much by surprise that he did not seem to know quite how to react, clearly a long way from the great batsman who would draw from that incredible adulation to light up world cricket.

As for the match itself, it looked like just another game of cricket. Batsman, bowlers, fielders, fours, sixes, catches, etc.

As with all such events the highlight from the game was the opportunity to see both Gavaskar and Tendulkar bat – they probably even batted together, though I am ashamed to admit that I am not entirely sure if that was what I actually saw, or it is what I wish I had seen. Some aspects of those two innings remain in memory – a delectable leg glance from Gavaskar which raced away for four, and which will forever remain etched in memory, a couple of sixes from Tendulkar and then the eventual moment when Tendulkar was out. Tendulkar returned to the cheers of those present, who then listened with a mixture of disbelief and wonderment as the youngster seemed to be getting an earful from, presumably, Raj Singh Dungarpur, for not batting longer - yet another of cricket's rituals, where a good batting performance is rewarded with a hauling over the coals for not getting more. There was another innings worth recalling – an innings of eighty-something from a young local batsman, and a fellow member of my school’s district-level inter-school cricket team.

How the match ended, who won, who was man of the match, these details were incidental to the main story - and that is also a pretty handy excuse for not remembering those details.

But the things that remain in memory are that rare glimpse of watching Gavaskar and Tendulkar play in the same team, that leg glance, and the autograph of Sachin Tendulkar which a friend, who was an event volunteer, managed to get me later.

All that happened nearly as long back as when Tendulkar started his career. As he now bids the game adieu, it is great to know that I was among the few who saw him bat all those years, and nearly 200 Test matches, ago!

India's captaincy conundrum

As a busy home season gets underway for India, it has been disheartening to see the team go backwards. As If the twin whitewashes in England and Australia were not bad enough, a home Test series defeat for the first time in 8 years followed by a first ODI home series defeat in three years has actually shown the future to be not only uncertain but bleak too. India continues to be let down by the senior players which has left the youngsters looking confused and the team looking rudderless. India is also struggling to come to terms with the retirements of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman from tests. Also, Sachin Tendulkar retiring from ODIs has left the team floundering especially in bowler-friendly conditions like in the recent series against Pakistan.

That India is now looking quite inept in all forms of the game should set the alarm bells ringing. One cannot take each defeat in its isolation and convince oneself that it was mostly ill-luck like the 5 minute rain-break in the World T20 before the start of the Australian innings which made it difficult for a wet ball to be gripped by the spinners or the post-tea collapse in the second test at Mumbai against England which ultimately turned the series on its head. Teams unaccustomed to winning tend to lose from any position as they forget the habit of taking control of a game. Everything that can go wrong seems to be for India and no one seems capable to arrest this slide. The blame lies at many doorsteps – the captaincy, the players and the selections. However, while the players (with retirements vacating spots and new talent emerging) and the selections (with some chopping and changing) have started to sort themselves out the question of captaincy remains a vexed one.

The team has stumbled from one defeat to another and inevitably the Captain’s role has to be come under scrutiny and one has to ask if it is time for change and if there are realistically any alternatives available.  The options are limited because India is in transition and that means there are either cricketers who are nearing the end of their careers like Tendulkar and Sehwag or youngsters like Kohli and Pujara. Of the others only Gautam Gambhir and Dhoni could be considered to be in the prime of their careers - with at least 6-7 more years of international cricket still left in them.

Gambhir ought to have been the natural choice to succeed Dhoni in at least one of the formats for India. However, his own recent performances have fallen well short of what he could have delivered. As it is, the pressure of underperforming is playing on his mind which can be seen in some daft shot selections and panicky running between the wickets. Also, Gambhir’s experience as a Captain is not very extensive. His most recent high-profile captaincy stint was leading the Kolkata Knightriders to an IPL triumph earlier this year but that really cannot be a benchmark for leading the national team.  The best player need not be the Captain but a Captain ought to be an automatic selection choice too. For someone who is considered a certainty for India in all three formats Gambhir’s form recently has been patchy at best. His test match average is 28 since the West Indies tour of 2011 while his ODI average is a far healthier 39 since that same tour. However, he does give the impression of someone who is not as sure of himself now as he has been in the past.

On a positive note if there is one thing that Gambhir never seems to be short of it is the intensity. Maybe the additional responsibility of captaincy will get him to channelise the intensity for the team. He has had the experience of international cricket, has done exceedingly well for India at least till the 2011 WC and knows by now the ups and downs a player faces in his career. He is likely to take the Captaincy as additional responsibility but would also be aware of the tremendous opportunity it could be.

If Gambhir is not the choice but India still needs a change at the top the alternative is to throw a youngster into the deep-end. By far, the most suitable from amongst the youngsters is Virat Kohli. Giving a youngster the captaincy is a double-edged sword. While South Africa have gone from strength to strength under Graeme Smith who was made Captain at the very young age of 23 we have seen how Tendulkar struggled to handle the additional responsibility. There is always a danger that a career could be harmed with captaincy which is given too early and right now Kohli along with Cheteshwara Pujara is one of India’s brightest young talents. The ability is certainly there and it is now up to Kohli to translate that into consistent performances especially in the tests. His struggles against England in the recently concluded test series and against Pakistan in the ODIs – both in difficult batting conditions  - showed his batting is still not the finished thing.

Kohli has fair exposure to captaincy having led the Under-19 Indian team to a World Cup win and also captaining the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Again, captaining a u-19 or an IPL team is a completely different ball game to leading the national team.

A losing team always looks a bunch of individuals torn by mistrust and as India has started losing regularly tales of dissent in the team especially involving the high-profile players have surfaced with regularity. There might be absolutely nothing in those except an over-zealous media looking for smoke where there is no fire. However, India would be stepping into unchartered waters if Kohli is made Captain and if the tales of dissent are true then Kohli will be saddled with responsibility without having the seniority to assert himself. The role of the selectors and the board would then become increasingly critical in backing Kohli and getting the errant players to fall in line or face the prospect of being dropped.

Finally, India does have the option of continuing with Dhoni. Maybe a heart-to-heart chat between the Board, the selectors and Dhoni could lead to resolving some issues. The team is going through a phase of rebuilding and it might be unfair to judge Dhoni in this state of flux. However, for this to work Dhoni has to be backed over a period of 12 to 15 months. Give him the XI that he wants and make him an integral part of the rebuilding process so that he is comfortable with the players he picks including a large part of the squad rather than being saddled with a team whose composition which makes him nervous.

No one would like to keep leading a team which loses and Dhoni more than anyone else would be aware that results have to improve. Dhoni might also have realised that a calm exterior is excellent in a pressure-cooker atmosphere like an ODI or a T20 where his calmness can rub off on the fielders and bowlers. However, test cricket needs a more thinking and proactive captain and having seen the past results Dhoni is likely to change the way he approaches it. There were already signs of that change in approach in the test series against England.

These are interesting times for Indian cricket. There is much uncertainty over almost every aspect of the national team and it would be up to a strong leader to pull the team out of this rut like Sourav Ganguly did in 2000 when he took over at the helm.

India steps into uncertain future

About an year back, India's Test match team, spearheaded by its storied batting line up, arrived in England for a four Test series.

At stake was not merely another Test series but India's No.1 ranking in Test cricket. In a somewhat anti-climactic outcome, India lost the Test series 0-4 and, in doing so, surrendered the No.1 ranking to their hosts. Worse followed that eminently forgettable result as the exact same outcome in Australia hastened India's slide in the Test rankings. Soon the highs of the 2011 World Cup had become a distant memory, and the IPL failed to provide any real solace from those defeats. Subsequent lack of success at either the World T20 or the Champions League T20 only served to deepen the gloom.

By the end of 2011 England series, Indian fans have been waiting to return the result when England visited India next, and some measure of that was extracted with a one-sided 5-0 win in the ODI series when England came calling. However, the Test defeat continues to rankle and so the upcoming series is going to be closely watched in the hope that India can get back some of the bragging rights.

But, as management specialists will always say, change is the only constant and the amount of change in Indian cricket since the England and Australia series has been substantial and dramatic. India's strong batting line up has lost two of its three pillars, with the retirement of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, and while Sachin Tendulkar continues in the side, age appears to be catching up with the greatest batsman of the modern era.

Inevitably, as it is with Indian cricket, the transition from Dravid-Laxman to a newer generation has been characterised by a lack of clarity about who will fill their shoes. Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara remain the only names almost certain to retain their places. However, a combination of circumstances - Kohli was around when Dravid and Laxman were playing, so he is not really a replacement, India's quest for batsmen to fill the No.3 and No.7 slots remains an enigma, and the presence of a horde of contenders for these slots such as Rahane, Tiwary, Yuvraj, Raina, Badrinath, Irfan Pathan, Vijay has meant that India's batting, often the difference in all conditions, has an unsettled look about it. In addition, with the exception of Kohli and Pujara, India's batting is hardly looking in the best of health. Sehwag and Gambhir have struggled to provide India strong starts either home or away, and that has often put the rest of the batting on the back foot from the very beginning. Their decline has been most telling in the recent two away series where they average a paltry 13.60 for the first wicket, which has in turn helped the opposition bowling tighten the screws and, as a consequence, yielded a number of sub-par scores.

So, as India enters the England series there is nothing to suggest that the team has the ammunition required to return the 0-4 drubbing to the visitors. In addition, despite losing the top ranking to South Africa, the present England side is no pushover. Not only is this still the No.2 ranked team in Test cricket - hardly the worst ranking in the game - but it would be no exaggeration to contend that England have not fielded such a strong team to an India tour in recent times. And though it looked for a while that the Pietersen stand-off would restrict KP's role to trying to emulate Chris Gayle's rendition of the Gangnam Style dance number, saner counsel prevailed and England's most effective batsman is now back in the fold - even if the use of fancy terms like "reintegration" appears to be no more than a management-like form of eating humble pie. Pietersen's presence lends England's batting some much needed all-weather strength, something which they seemed so sorely lacking in defeats to Pakistan and Sri Lanka not so long ago, even with KP present.

So, while India appear to be well-armed with the right spin weapons - Ashwin and Ojha, with Yuvraj Singh probably solely in to do his pie-chucker number on Pietersen - they are still up against a challenging England team.

However, India's biggest mistake would be to focus too much on the England series alone. While there is no doubt that beating England would be good - from a cricketing perspective and for putting behind the results of the last series between the two teams - India's Test team has more long-term challenges which could be instrumental in determining the long term future of the Test team.

The England series quickly gives way to the visiting Australians, after which India travel to South Africa, their last good overseas result before the defeats in England and Australia.

In that context the England series is the first of several opportunities which the different contenders for vacant batting slots will get to prove their credentials. And the sooner the young batsmen fit into those roles, the better it will be for Indian cricket.

At the same time, though, this is also the time to embark on what promises to be no less challenging an exercise for Indian cricket, and one which has been pushed to the periphery after the retirements of Dravid and Laxman. The series in England and Australia also demonstrated how dangerously low India's stocks of quality bowling options are running. As the statistics show, in the two series India managed 20 wickets in a match just twice, and picked, on average, 8 wickets per innings. The number of big scores - both team and individual - that india conceded in both series was testimony to a bowling line up which lacked penetration.

Considering that India's most effective bowler in recent times, Zaheer Khan, is not too far away from retirement himself and, of the newer crop of bowlers, only Umesh Yadav has looked consistent home and away, it would seem that India's bowling challenges need more attention than the batting. The success of India's Test teams was built around a strong batting line up backed up by a bowling attack which had enough teeth to be competitive - the bowling was led by Anil Kumble and Zaheer Khan, well supported by the likes of Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, and provided enough firepower to give India a realistic shot at wins in home conditions and overseas. However, the recent lack of penetration and the struggle to stem the flow of runs or take wickets should cause much concern among those who run Indian cricket. Some alternatives are already available - R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha, for instance, have been more than a handful for visiting sides, with both the West Indies and New Zealand teams struggling to play them and India will bank heavily on them if they have to win against England. The spin twins, though, have not had the same degree of success away, with Ashwin having a somewhat poorer Australia series than Umesh Yadav. The trio of them - Yadav, Ashwin and Ojha - appear to be the best placed to build upon the initial promise, though it would be risky to focus too much on just these bowlers without developing a full complement of bowlers to call upon as replacements should the need arise. At the same time the more established names - Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh - will continue to have a role in leading the bowling and guiding the next generation, as long as their form and fitness allow them to command a place in the side, for reasons more valid than sentiment alone.

Cliched as it might sound, the fact is that Indian cricket is in the cusp of major change with a real possibility that the bowling and batting line ups an year from now looking very different from an year back - that change is not going to be easy and the results it will yield will not be early enough for many. But as Australia's experience shows, the transition from a strong team to a new one can often be difficult. It requires time and investment, with liberal doses of patience, all of which Indian cricket can afford. England is just the first of several challenges that the new order has to overcome.