Leading From The Front..With The Team

Things are changing fast in cricket. And it's not about the usual talk of T20 and the effect it has cast on Tests and ODIs. The point is well and truly settled that 300 is a below par score in ODIs and a run rate of 3 doesn't make you an aggressive, result-oriented test side. The change which is becoming more apparent is the aggression with which the game is being played and the captains who are coming out all guns blazing and setting an example for their teammates.

We have always had captains in international cricket who will have a great tactical and strategic head on their shoulders but will rarely be seen shouting or being over-animated in their approach on field. They would go about their tasks in a calm and composed manner and leave the aggression to some of their teammates who are willing to offer a piece or two of advice to their opponents. Remember how Steve Waugh used to go about his tasks in the calm and composed manner, which I believe has been matched by MS Dhoni only till now. Continuing with yesteryears, Ranatunga could be one more example though he used to be a little bit more animated than the above two gentlemen. I think its about 2 things which are changing in the current crop of players. One is the attitude, and the second is the willingness to show it through performance. Also, I am not saying the winner's attitude was not there earlier. It is just that it is much more visible these days than it was earlier. I will take the example of some of the prominent names here for 3 tournaments (ODIs). Let's see if we can pinpoint some other similarity which connects these captains.

1. Brendon McCullum: World Cup 2015 was a fairytale for New Zealand. They lost in the final game at the hands of their arch-rivals but not before they had shown a new brand of New Zealand cricket to the world. As much as the credit goes to the whole team for making it to the final of the World Cup for first time in their history, the same goes for the captain, Baz. You will not find him being very vocal on the field against the opposition, but his attitude and style does the talking. He is explosive at the top of the innings, be it any bowler in the world. Sometimes, it doesn't click for him and he gets dismissed cheaply as well, but when he gets going, the opposition can do nothing else but pray. His innings against the English in the World Cup game can only be described as a gem as he just tore through the English attack and would have finished the game in 10 overs had he continued. And very few words can even begin to describe the live-wire Baz when he comes for fielding. This brand of cricket from a captain is quite a different sort of phenomenon. A captain was supposed to steady and control the innings from one side when the other batsmen might be going great guns. However, New Zealanders have worked out what works for them and they are showing the world the results as well. The trust the team has on Baz and his captaincy is what taking the team forward, even when Baz himself hasn't been very consistent top of the order.

2. Eoin Morgan: The English suffered a humiliating loss against a spirited Bangladeshi side in the World Cup leading to their subsequent elimination from the group stage itself, but boy, haven't they bounced back strong in the just concluded ODI series against New Zealand. England have shown great cricket beating the Baz's side 3-2 in the ODIs and clinching a convincing win in the lone T20 as well. For me, I was mightily impressed by Morgan leadership in the 5 ODI matches than anything else. It was fearless cricket to say the least. Although the score line of 3-2 suggests a closely fought contest, I personally felt England were the stronger of the 2 sides, barring the loss of 5 wickets for 14 runs in the 2nd ODI by the English. Eoin Morgan has an air about him which has brought this team from the edge of disappointment and criticism (KP's incident is only too fresh in all our minds). His aggressiveness is shown by the way he backs his players on the field and off it. And he enjoys his time when he takes the field. Be it batting or fielding. During one of the matches in the series, a misfield by him was being jeered by the fans in the stands. When the ball next came to him, he fielded it properly and then raised his cap towards that stand and the crowd saluted its captain. This shows he is not taking results too seriously but wants to enjoy the game and take his team to new heights together. The best part of all this, the team sticks together and the players back each other on the field and off it. Exactly what McCullum does.

3. Masrafe Mortaza: If the above 2 captains believe in enjoying the game more than worrying for results, Bangladesh skipper is getting the job done in a different fashion. Masrafe's side has seen a lot of good victories starting before the World Cup 2015. Right from series win over Zimbabwe, Bangladesh evolved as a side and beat New Zealand in a home series before going to World Cup. There too they reached the Quarter Finals for the first time in their history. More than this, their biggest moments of joy would have been, undoubtedly, a Banglawash of the Pakistani side and a series win against the  neughbours, India, and hence, guaranteeing themselves a place in the upcoming Champions Trophy. Masrafe on the field is a captain, the likes of whom is difficult to find that often. He literally screams at mis-fields and keeps shouting at players if they drop a catch or don't seem giving their 100% on the field. His aggression is literally visible on the field. He is not one who will sledge the opposition, but he expects his players to keep trying even if they are in a losing position. And when he bowls himself on for a spell, there is more than 100% behind every delivery. And that too, when he has spent a lot of time undergoing surgeries. He is a man who has the confidence of his teammates and the result is there to be seen.

So what connects these fine captains and what can others learn from them? To me, the answer is two-pronged. A captain needs his aggression to begin with. And it doesn't need to be verbal banters and the like on the field. It can and has to be through performance. A player can run through a rough patch and its no different for a captain. What will make him better is his ability to still give 100% on the field and keep trying. The second most important aspect for a captain is the way he commands respect from his teammates. You cannot be right always and you have to understand it. You can't demand respect, you have to earn it. All the 3 captains listed above have both these things going for themselves. They have different ways of showing aggression and all 3 of them command respect from their teammates.

This brand of leading a side is not very new. MS Dhoni has perfected this concept long back and that's what has earned him the title of Captain Cool. As I mentioned earlier, Steve Waugh used to captain in a similar vein. Take any successful captain, and all of them will have the above 2 points. When Michael Clarke came up as a captain, he was aggressive but lacked the command which Ponting had. He has worked hard at it and now is one of the most successful skippers of the Aussies. Closer home, Sachin Tendulkar commanded (and still does) the most respect for any team he played, but his aggressiveness in the field as a captain was always missing. He had a larger devotion towards his batting and his team doing good, but somehow that didn't transform into the aggression a captain needs. Does Virat Kohli have the two facets needed to get a world class team? Is there anyone else who has this, if not Kohli? As Jeffrey Archer says, 'Only Time Will Tell'.

Please feel free to comment in the section below. Tweet to me at @NishantSinha88.

Cricket is for batsmen AND BOWLERS!

So the season of test cricket starts. Brendon McCullum and some of his countrymen have left the Indian shore and are already playing against the English at Lord's. And this time, the play is not only for batsmen. This time, its test cricket, or as the purists say, the highest form of competitive cricket.

Hang on a second there. What made me say 'this time, its not only for batsmen' for T20 cricket, the Indian version of which has reached the playoffs by now. But, isn't that the case with cricket all along? It has always been more about the batsmen than the bowlers. And this has been like this since the advent of one-day cricket.

The reasons for starting a limited overs version of cricket were simple. People were not turning up for test matches in the huge numbers they used to in the 50s and 60s. They were getting bored by the 'slow' and 'drawn' games lasting for 5 days. Everyone wanted results and quick and fast cricketing action, like boundaries being hit on a regular basis and results coming out after a day's play. The ICC wanted cricket to stand up to other sports and we gradually shifted to ODIs and other limited overs domestic tournaments and leagues. Time moved on and even the ODIs started to seem long enough to search for even shorter formats and we have T20 on our hands now, which has really caught the attention of the crowd with towering sixes of Gayle and AB de Villiers and with some small bowling marvels once in a while.

But somehow, during this whole transition, we forgot about our bowlers by constantly limiting their armoury. There have been many debates over a lot of points on how to bring more 'equality' in the game of cricket. One of the major ones being allowing 1-2 bouncers every over (depending on the format being played). But a lot of benefits still are in the batsman's favor. He can go for a switch hit whenever he wants, but a bowler has to tell the umpire before delivering which side he wants to bowl from (over the wicket or round the wicket). A batsman can shuffle in the crease all he wants, but a bowler can't be an inch outside the bowling crease, otherwise he runs the risk of conceding a 'free hit', which in turn, again gives the batsman an edge. These points have been discussed over and over again by the pundits and it cannot be outrightly denied that some of these batsmen-friendly rules have helped the shorter version of the game.

The point which I want to put across is regarding the over limits for bowlers. Test cricket gives a batsman and a bowler to play to his strengths and keep going on. A batsman can play one whole day in a test match and similarly, a bowler can keep bowling as long as he wants (by taking appropriate breaks in between). But when we shift focus to limited overs cricket, batsmen still have the license to keep going for the entire duration of the innings, whereas the bowlers just can't. Every year we are seeing new boundaries being breached in cricket, the highest individual score or the fastest 50/100/150/200 and so on. The latest world cup itself saw 2 double hundreds, one from Chris Gayle and the other from Martin Guptill, where they single handedly took the game away from the opposition by batting for 40-50 overs (Guptill actually batted through the entire 50 overs - watch https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGkG6-02yHg). But do the bowlers ever get such a chance even when they are bowling well. Take for instance Wahab Riaz during his game in the QF against the Aussies. The spell he bowled to dismiss Michael Clarke and literally terrify Steve Smith and Shane Watson has been dubbed as one of the most lethal bowling spells in the history of modern cricket. Even the greats of yesteryears, like the Akrams and the Chappels and the Bothams hailed it as one of the best spells ever (watch https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmkBKY7CAjE). But even though that contest was a great one to watch, how many overs would it have lasted for, at the maximum? 10 overs and that's all about it. Do we ask the batsmen to retire after they have scored a century or played, say 150 deliveries in a one day match? No. Then why do we limit the bowlers who might be really bowling well in a particular match. Why can't we allow, say, 2 bowlers who won't have the cap of 10 overs (ODI) or 4 overs (T20)? This will give the bowling side something to play for when a Gayle or a McCullum is going all guns blazing. I believe this would definitely tip the scales a little bit towards the bowlers in a match. Also, it would be adding another exciting feature in the game and keep the batsmen wondering if they can really play out a bowler by just defending him.

If we analyze other team sports, we don't see a limiting feature on certain teammates, like the way it exists in limited overs cricket. We don't see a pitcher getting only 10 pitches in a baseball match. We don't see a goalkeeper in a football match being replaced by someone else after he has saved 5 goals. It just doesn't exist in competitive sports. Its time that the ICC and other national boards look into this matter and some of the other long-standing points which have kept the bowlers as second grade citizens in a game of cricket. They can probably look at instituting the above modification in domestic tournaments and see how it goes there. If successful, we can take this to the international arena and enjoy the gentlemen's game a little more.

Comment in the below section as to what you think. The more the discussions, the better it is for the sport.

A More Meaningful Cricket World Cup

The one event all the fans of the cricket playing nations wait with bated breath. The one event which comes every 4 years. Yes, the 50-over World Cup of cricket. Currently, the 11^th edition of the World Cup is being played in the beautiful grounds and locations across Australia and New Zealand. 14 teams started the competition on 14^th February 2015, and one of these 14 will be crowned the World Champion on 29^th March on the historic ground of Melbourne, the MCG.

The format of the current tournament is similar to the one played 4 years back in the last edition in the Indian sub-continent. The teams have been divided into 2 pools of 7 teams each. Each team in a pool plays every other team and the top 4 teams from each pool proceed to play the knock-outs, consisting of 4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and 1 final. That makes a total of 49 matches to be played over a span of 44 days. The teams reaching the final have to play a total of 9 matches, and only then one of the 2 finalists is crowned as the winner. Comparing this to the FIFA world cup, the two teams which play the final have to play a total of 7 matches (including the final). By this data, a cricket world champion seems a more deserved champion of the world, playing and beating more number of teams than even the ‘Beautiful Game’s’ champion.

When we are talking about football and cricket world cups, we can look at some more basic data as well. Football world cup features 32 world-class teams which have qualified after beating a lot of teams in their respective confederations. These world cup qualifier games generally run for around 2.5-3 years eventually producing 8 pools of 4 teams each. These 32 teams vie for 16 spots in the pre-quarter-finals, with the winners advancing to play quarters, semis and the final. This whole event generally runs for around 30-35 days and is one of the most-watched and most-followed events in the world. Around 200 nations worldwide start their campaigns, the better of the lot keep advancing forward, and the best wins the Cup. There have been cases when even the best of the teams have failed to qualify for the mega-quadrennial event.

Coming to cricket, it’s a well-known fact the game is played by a handful of nations across the globe. There are many leagues and divisions in which these handful of teams compete in and eventually 4 out of around 20-25 teams gain the 4 spots available for Associate nations in the World Cup. For the 2015 edition, the 4 teams that made the cut are Ireland, Afghanistan, the UAE and Scotland. It is also known that traditionally there are around 7-8 teams only which are given any chance of winning the Cup (or even coming close to reaching the semi-finals). The cricketing super-powers are so strong that in most of the cases the Associate nations hardly stand a chance of creating a dent and making their presence felt, barring an upset or two sometime in the month-and-a-half-long tournament. Ireland is one team which has always created headlines in all the 3 World Cups it has been a part of (2007, 2011 and 2015). Apart from that, there are hardly any team whose name comes to mind when we talk about world cup success (Kenya in 2003 sprung a surprise, although it was mostly due to non-cricketing reasons than the cricketing ones). And quite frankly, the small lot of cricket fans like us around the globe care little about UAE defeating Scotland or Bermuda putting up a brave show against Ireland. No offense to any of the teams mentioned above.

In a World Cup, for which we wait for 4 years, we want to see meaningful matches and close contests. We don’t want an Australia putting up 400+ runs on the board against an Associate nation and then bowling them out and winning by 250 runs. This doesn’t do justice to the sport and certainly not to the morale of the Associate nation, whom the ICC wants so much as it looks to expand the reach of the sport. We want matches in a World Cup between evenly-poised teams. And we want a good number of these matches, not just 7 (4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and 1 final). The format for the World Cup should be such that the nation which comes out as the Champion should have beaten most of the world-class teams in its wake and emerges as THE team to beat in the world of Cricket.

A Solution In Sight?

There have been many calls during the past few months on overhauling the format of the competition for the 2019 World Cup and include just 10 teams. Equally strong have been the voices which have sternly opposed this idea by voicing their concerns for more international exposure to the Associate nations for the ultimate betterment of the sport. At the end of the day, ICC has to propose a solution which takes care of both the concerns in world cricket today. One, the ultimate championship should feature meaningful games, and two, the Associate nations and other smaller cricketing powers should get more exposure on the international platform for them to develop. The question is how do we accomplish this task.

I don’t think we need to look too far away for a probable solution and football and FIFA, once again, can serve as a benchmark for cricket and ICC to make the World Cup more relevant. We can start by dividing the cricket playing nations (big or small) in zones or confederations. Currently we have around 10 Full Members of ICC in cricket which can be said that they compete on equal footing when they meet. Given this, we can have 5 confederations and ensure that 2 of these 10 teams are in each confederation. So, we can have something like the following:

1. Oceania: (Full Members) Australia, New Zealand
2. South and East Asia: (Full Members) Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
3. Central Asia and Sub-Continent: (Full Members) India, Pakistan
4. Africa: (Full Members) South Africa, Zimbabwe
5. Atlantic: (Full Members) England, the West Indies

Each of the above confederations can be divided into 2 tiers or divisions, one main league and a feeder league. Based on the geographical location of a country, it would be put in one of the 5 confederations listed above and play the other teams in the same confederation. The main league of the confederation which will serve as the World Cup qualifier will constitute of 6 teams (2 full members as listed above and 4 Associate nations). The top 4 teams of the feeder league will join the 2 full members and play the qualifier games for the World Cup. In other words, say in the Oceania confederation there are 10 teams in the feeder league (or Division 2). These teams will compete against one another and the top 4 teams will qualify to meet Australia and New Zealand for the Oceania World Cup Qualification Championship. Finally, the top 2 teams from the Confederation World Cup Championship will eventually play the World Cup finals. This is essentially on the same lines as FIFA World Cup Qualifiers and Finals and it solves one of the 2 problems of Cricket currently, that of Associate nations getting more exposure. The final round of Qualification matches can be evenly spread out by ICC and national cricket boards by making necessary adjustments in the international calendar.

Coming to the 2^nd problem plaguing the Cricket World Cup, that of more meaningful matches to be played between equally matched side, we can have a look at the 1992 World Cup. This was played in Australia and New Zealand and was won, deservedly, by Pakistan. Most of us know these details, but something which we don’t know much is the format of the 1992 World Cup. This edition initially featured 8 teams and they were slated to play each other during the course of the tournament, thus totaling to 28 games in the group stage. South Africa was later inducted in the World Cup after the nation freed herself from Apartheid and hence the World Cup featured 9 teams which were supposed to play each other (36 group stage games). The important thing to note is that this World Cup did not divide the teams in Pools and each nation was supposed to play the other at least once. This same format can be inducted in the next World Cup along with the above Confederation system.

The top 2 teams from each Confederation will make a total of 10 teams qualified to play the quadrennial event. These 10 teams can be pitted against each other, thus ensuring each nation plays the other in the 1^st round (round-robin). The top 4 teams from this round will qualify for the next round and the rest 6 will be eliminated. In the format which is being followed in the IPL for the knockouts, the teams placed 1^st and 2^nd will play a qualifier (Q1), with the winner earning a place in the Final. The teams ranked 3^rd and 4^th will play an eliminator (E1), with the loser bowing out of the tournament and the winner to meet the losing team of Q1 (the match being called qualifier 2, Q2). The winner of Q2 will meet the team already in the Final and the winner of the Final will be crowned the World Champions.

The total number of matches in this particular tournament will be 49 (45 matches in the 1^st round, Q1, E1, Q2, Final), the same as the current edition of World Cup being played in Australia and New Zealand (42 matches in group stage, 4 QFs, 2 SFs and Final). The foremost benefit of this new method will be to the audience and fans who will get to see meaningful contests between top teams, who have made the cut after a rigorous Confederation Qualification championship games.

And as is the norm, more interesting games for the fans means more revenues to the host countries, the organizers, the media and ICC.

The Cricket World Cup has seen a lot of changes in the format since 1987. It is high time we try to concretize our way this grand event is conducted. As cricket slowly becomes more global, the number of teams in the Confederations can be increased and we can re-look our strategy for our two issues: One, to keep the World Cup interesting, and two, give Associate nations more exposure to international level action. Hopefully, ICC and national boards will take some steps in this direction soon.

Nishant Sinha

Comments are welcome.
Twitter: @NishantSinha88