Perks of Inconsistent Aggressive Approach

GEET BEHERA

India lost.

From a position of absolute dominance, India lost yet another test match. Sounds stale? The reason behind that maybe because of the frequency of these occurrences in the recent Indian test cricket scenario. Still this particular loss came as a brutal shock to the critics and fans alike. It was disheartening to see the young team full of exuberance, to still not being able to learn from their previous mistakes.

The words of skipper Virat Kohli reverberates across the cricketing domain. The words, which comprised of buzz words like aggression, positive intent and fearless approach, were a sign of a young leader having colossal self confidence. He had his most preferred team at his disposal and presumably, he had done enough homework to inculcate his aggressive intent in his team mates. Glimpses of that intent was on display during the match at Adelaide Oval last year, where he was the stand in captain in the absence of regular skipper MS Dhoni. He remained true to his character and led a spectacular attempt to chase down a humongous target in a fast deteriorating strip.

Everybody was so impressed by that approach that they started touting him as the future leader of Indian cricket team. Moreover, the perennial criticism of his predecessor for the defensive brand of cricket and safety first approach, he was providing a new, refreshing brand of cricket. Also, it was much more imperative to show that kind of intent in an era, where even a traditionally conservative team like England is also talking about aggression and achieving lot more success. So when MSD came back for the rest of the series, some of his on field decisions didn’t go well with Virat’s perspective. And he was outrageous enough to hint at it to ever prowling media.

And there was the birth of a debate in Indian cricket. Whether Virat’s aggressive approach is the way forward, or MSD’s cool head will be sorely missed. Though it appears a straight-forward clash of ideologies and methods, but it hardly is. As the proofs of one better method out of two was never substantiated with defining clarity. Without being too harsh on Virat (he has only skippered in 3 matches), the fact remains that India lost matches from similar position in both Virat’s as well as MSD’s captaincy.

If we look at the recent past of Indian test team, we will find more heart breaks than outright losses. For example, there is a marked difference in the twin losses in England and Australia in 2014-15 season, as compared to 2011-12 season. Back then India got a hiding from both teams, even in the presence of stalwarts. But a relatively young team showed the guts to fight out the alien conditions and rampant teams having massive home advantage. But both the tours culminate in painful ifs and buts. And those arose from plethora of missed chances, either in pressing home their advantage or in closing out the game from a near invincible situation.

After winning the Lord’s test on the back of some inspired captaincy by MSD and impeccable bowling by the Indian seamers, the team couldn’t sustain the same aggressive intent. It became a burden for the players to conjure up the same energy levels for the rest of the series. Then a rejuvenated India approached a fresh series in Australia, and circumstantially, they happened to play it under a fiery skipper. But the negative result, albeit a close one, did no good for the morale of a team, whose belief in wins outside sub-continent was visibly shaken. And another inexplicable batting collapse at Gabba in the next match hampered it much more, even though bowlers made it close again. Then India returned to the MSD’s brand of cricket for the remaining couple of matches and earned respectable draws.

But the question raised was whether those draws are more preferable than the gamble Virat risked in first match, where an easy draw was there for the taking. It could’ve resulted in a more respectable 0-1 series score line. But then in MSD’s own words, a loss is a loss. Similar consequences preceded these tours, when India had toured South Africa and New Zealand earlier in the year. An assured winning position was squandered at Wanderers, when South Africa nearly chased a record 450 odd runs on the face of some insipid Indian bowling. And the drop of confidence led to another drubbing at Durban on a sub-continent like pitch. The series which could’ve easily in India’s favour went the South African way by 1-0 margin.

Similar series followed in New Zealand, where after losing the first test, they showed a significant turnaround to stamp their authority. Trailing by nearly 250 runs after first innings, New Zealand was reduced to 5 wickets for just 93 in their second dig. But Brendon McCullum and BJ Watling not only saved the innings defeat, they took the test far out of reach from India. Again, the inability to polish off the lower order came into the forefront.

After the last series in Australia, looking together at all the 4 series, the young generation of this Indian team didn’t showed any major technical deficiency, and actually created excellent winning situations, that too early in the series, but failed in capitalizing the crucial moments, either through defensive mindset, or lack of a final killer blow. They happened at a frustratingly consistent basis, to the utter dismay of their fans and administrators alike. Something was wrong. MSD left the future leader to find the solutions to some of these recent as well as long standing problems of Indian cricketing psyche.

When Virat went to Bangladesh and then on the Sri Lankan tour, he repeatedly emphasized the need to play aggressive cricket. To play for wins rather than draws and to stamp authority on the opposition from the word go. In Bangladesh, the rain played the spoil sport, but the sporadic play signaled otherwise. Kohli failed to declare in the evening session even after having a substantial score. It might be just plain inexperience on his part. But then what has now happened in the Galle test against Sri Lanka underlined an important lesson for him and his team. 

It was another of those recent tendencies to offer the match to the opposition on a platter from a fairly dominant position. And in this case, the effect was more acute. The supposedly best players of spinners were humbled on a far from alarming slow turner. The aggressive intent was inexplicably missing, with aggressive players like Shikhar Dhawan going into their shell, in a situation, where quick aggressive runs would have thwarted the Lankan tweakers. On the contrary, when Dinesh Chandimal attacked the Indian bowlers, they couldn’t recover from that. It was humbling for Virat, however benefit of inexperience we may give to him. It was more of a lack of intent and the missing desire to earn the hard yards.

So we had two opposite instances of losing from a winning situation. Like in most of the matches under MSD, the defensive and relaxing approach led to the downfall, whereas the Adelaide and Galle test under Virat provided another such situation due to aggressive intent. So basically both failed in their approach to arrest an unsettling trend for the Indian cricket.

Any batsman can step out and whack an odd delivery or any bowler can deliver an attacking delivery once in a while. But what real aggression means the timing of attack and the relentless approach regardless of the match situation. It is what the Australian team of yore and the present New Zealand team do on a consistent basis. So basically there is no need to abort this attacking approach. The need of the hour is to back up this attack with little bit of prudence, immense determination, grit and relentless approach to capitalize dominating situation and guts to turn around a hopeless situation into a potentially match winning or saving situation.

And the discernible lack of appetite for a gritty fight to recover from Chandimal sized shocks is quite concerning, if this young team under the young leader wants to scale new heights. And a full time coach may just provide the lack of clarity in thoughts and a new direction towards resilient attacking brand of cricket rather than directionless attacking cricket.

Virat’s start to test captaincy has been inauspicious, unlike MSD. He has plenty of time to identify the problems and rectify them, and with experience that will surely happen. But for the time being, the Indian team should focus more on the buzzwords like determination, resilience and grit, if they want the mantra to go back to winning ways and win crucial moments. And rather than debating on the right method and right skipper, we should focus more on the basic nuances of test match cricket, that is the virtue of patience, which will always remain a good ally in front of the challenges that test cricket puts forward.

And well, more than MSD, the skipper, India is currently missing MSD, the batsman in those Sri Lankan pitches, as they remain obdurate on their 5 batsmen, 5 bowlers’ strategy. Hopefully, the heart breaks will diminish soon from the Indian cricketing scenario.