BackHow we can make cricket a team sport again
How we can make cricket a team sport again
PremiumSachin’s solo: Nothing else matters. Photo: Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
Why is the Indian cricket team mediocre? I’m talking not about its greatness, of which there appears to be little doubt, but its record, which is weak. A nation of 1.2 billion whose enthusiasm is for one sport should produce six world-beating sides. We don’t have even one. India has a losing record in Tests against Australia (won 20, lost 38), England (won 19, lost 38), old enemy Pakistan (won 9, lost 12), newcomers South Africa (won 7, lost 12) and faded stars West Indies (won 14, lost 30). We have a winning record against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. In One-Day Internationals, we trail Australia 37-64, Pakistan 48-69, South Africa 24-40 and West Indies 46-57.
On the evidence of its record, India is a second-rate nation. The Indian cricket team’s reputation is inflated by the aggressive nationalism of its fans and by the enormous advertising sums spent in a giant, one-sport nation. In reality, it must be admitted, India is not a force on the field. This is not a case of lack of talent. That’s the other strange thing: We have always had world record holders in a team that has surrendered to all quality sides. But why?
Ian Chappell observed that Indians didn’t care if they lost the match as long as Sachin Tendulkar scored his century. Let us accept this observation as true.
This produces a hypothesis: Our focus on individual greatness eclipses the desire for the team to win. So the team doesn’t, because that’s not the primary objective. What can we do to make cricket a team sport again in India?
I have a device to help this happen. It is easy to implement and likely to be effective. The giant scoreboard in the stadium must stop carrying individual scores. It must display only the team score, number of overs and the target, all that’s really needed for players on both sides. The audience at home, which is 99% of the total audience, can view the full statistics on their television screen and not be denied their idol worship.
Is this an unusual and extreme solution? Actually, it is the international standard.
No team sport’s scoreboard has individual scores highlighted in the manner of cricket. Not baseball, not football, not basketball, not volleyball, not hockey. Only cricket advertises the batsman’s current standing while the game is still undecided. Why is this so?
Someone, I cannot remember who, speculated that cricket was a batsman’s game because early on, the aristocracy were always at bat. They played for themselves (W.G. Grace was notoriously selfish) and were concerned about their score. It was the men of lower class, like Harold Larwood, who bowled. Perhaps this is why.
Anyway, not knowing what their own score is will focus our batsmen on what is to be achieved—winning the match at hand. Incidentally, that’s what the board pays them multi-crore rupee salaries for, not to break someone’s record or build mountains nobody else may climb.
Sunil Gavaskar famously never looked at the scoreboard when he batted. On reaching Don Bradman’s mark, Gavaskar wrote in his second memoir, he was surprised when non-striker Dilip Vengsarkar came up to shake his hand after a boundary (“Bloody hell, it’s your 29th!"). Gavaskar thought he was only at 80 or so. He was also confused, if I remember it right, because the crowd’s applause was indistinguishable from its general shouting through the match.
Forcing oneself to ignore the scoreboard in Gavaskar’s fashion is a selfish act because you don’t know what your team score is. I don’t endorse this method. It was probably devised so that Gavaskar wouldn’t frighten himself in the 90s and deprive himself of that precious gift (the Indian obsession with collecting and hoarding centuries precedes the worship of Tendulkar).
However, his ignorance of his current score didn’t stop Gavaskar from getting 35 centuries, so clearly, it’s not a problem so far as motivation goes.
In his first memoir, Gavaskar wrote that his father gave him ₹ 10 each time he scored a hundred in college. He did this so often in one season that he almost bust the family’s middle-class budget. Touching story, but perhaps Gavaskar senior should have rewarded the boy for team wins instead. The wrong lesson may have been learnt.
Let’s consider the drawback of this scoreboard idea. The stadium audience will miss the tension that builds as these marks are approached, true. But applause and ovation can always come when the public address system announces a century.
No rules need be changed in doing this, just a modification of the board.
Of course, the bigger problem will remain: Our heroes play for themselves because we want them to. This is why, and Chappell must know this, a David of less than 25 million people regularly spanks the Goliath of 1.2 billion.
Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist.
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Also Read | Aakar’s previous columns
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