Holding five-day domestic matches just before the two-Test series against Bangladesh was a well-timed move by the BCCI
India ‘B’ players celebrate a wicket during their match against India ‘A’ recently. Pic/PTI
Holding the Duleep Trophy just before the Test series against Bangladesh starts is one of the smartest moves by the BCCI. It’s never easy for the best of players to go cold into an international competition, never mind the quality of the opposition.
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By beating Pakistan in both the Test matches played in Pakistan, the Bangladesh team have shown that they are a force to reckon with. Even a couple of years back, when India toured Bangladesh, they were given a good fight by the Bangladeshis. Now with the series win against Pakistan under their belt, they are primed to take on India too. They have some fine players in their ranks and some new promising players who no longer have the awe of the opposition that seemed to characterise their early forays into the international game. Now, every team that play them know they can’t put their guard down as they could be knocked down as the Pakistanis found out. It will certainly be a series to look forward to.
Exciting summer of cricket
India have 10 Test matches coming up over the next four and a half months and they need to win at least five of them to give themselves a good chance to qualify for the World Test Championship final. None of these Tests will be easy and so we could be in for an exciting summer of cricket.
The Duleep Trophy was once a tournament which gave the selectors plenty of information about the players and the players also were aware that their chances of being chosen for India would get bolstered if they did well in the matches. Those days, Indian cricket was built on zones and so, the five teams were zonal teams and with the innate rivalry that was there between different state teams in each zone, the matches between the zonal teams were also very hard fought with the best of players playing. The selectors could thus get a good idea about the talent.
Now, with the Elite and plate teams comprising the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep teams are not based on performances in the zone. The selectors have picked squads and called them India A, B, C, D and the players in each team are from different teams and not from a particular zone.
Also Read: Duleep Trophy: Tilak Varma-Pratham tons guide India 'A' to total command
This time, having rested all the India bowlers, it won’t be easy to see which batter is good as they would be playing basically second string bowlers. So while the matches would be good tuning for the season to come, the selectors won’t get much insight how good the batters really are.
Boost domestic structure
If Indian cricket has to remain strong then it’s important that the domestic structure is strong too. That means scheduling the red-ball tournament in such a way that those playing for the country should also be available for at least some part of the Ranji and Duleep Trophy matches. Otherwise, it will only be a false dawn as far as talent is concerned. The many state premier leagues going on are a perfect example of that. From all these games there will probably be at best a few players who will have a long career. Scoring runs or taking wickets in these state leagues doesn’t really mean much because the quality of cricket is not high. Some of the players, lucky enough to get picked for the IPL are quickly found out in the highly competitive season end spectacle. Their scores in these state leagues are pretty much like most of the matches between Associate member countries. Here, some teams get bowled out for scores as low as 20 and some batters are hammering 100s and sixers every other ball. Then we get to read that someone has equalled Yuvraj Singh’s record of hitting six sixes in one over and has gone on to score the fastest 50 in T20 internationals. Sure, these games are played between countries and so are called internationals, but to equate the performances here with those that have taken place between full member countries and calling them records, is a joke. They can be called List A internationals or some such and their records be kept separate from those scored between full member countries and in World and Asia Cup games.
The Qualifiers simply cannot be on par with the internationals between full member countries. Someone much more intelligent than me can find a nomenclature for those games to differentiate it and the sooner it is done, the better for the game.
Professional Management Group
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