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BCCI needs to hunt and groom bowlers

If TRDW produced results then why not revive it, writes Makarand Waingankar

In cricket a captain is only as good as the team he leads. Would the great West Indian captain Clive Lloyd have won accolades for his captaincy had he led a weaker team? Would Steve Waugh have been able to demolish oppositions without the strong cricketing characters in his team?

The teams under Lloyd and Waugh had a very good attack that backed the batsmen.

Former West Indian fast bowler Wesley Hall once summed up the making of a great West Indian team. He said: “During my time we relied on five batsmen and five bowlers to do their respective jobs. If the batsmen failed to get runs, bowlers weren't expected to get runs and when bowlers couldn't get 20 wickets, batsmen weren't asked to get those wickets. It was as simple as that.”

Compare Mahendra Singh Dhoni with other captains and one observes that though he has quality, experienced batsmen, he doesn't have the attack that will get him the 20 Test match wickets or contain batsmen under 280 in ODIs. And yet he is the most successful captain in all formats of the game.

Dhoni's approach to the captaincy reminds me of the captaincy of Chandu Borde and Ashok Mankad. Both Borde and Mankad took instinctive decisions that sometimes defied cricketing logic.

In the 1969 Duleep Trophy match between West Zone and North Zone at Ahmedabad, North Zone batsman Vinay Lamba and stylish left-hander Ashok Gandotra were building a partnership for the second wicket when Borde hurriedly called Mankad to bowl his friendly off-spinners.

Mankad strikes

The field was set quickly and Mankad suddenly became unplayable. From one down for 91 North was all out for 176. Mankad took five wickets for 21. The same Mankad was very unpredictable as a captain. He was candid enough to admit that though he discussed a lot of cricket with his father Vinoo, it was Borde's approach to captaincy that he followed.

Dhoni hasn't seen either Borde or Mankad play but he keeps assessing the situation very minutely and being a wicketkeeper he knows the intensity with which a bowler bowls. His palms are his indicator. The thud in his glove makes him decide the effectiveness of a bowler. And the most important part is he takes his decisions and does not get carried away by a campaign.

Master stroke

He was lucky to get coach Gary Kirsten to back his thought process. When he took up the assignment, Kirsten had said it was Sunil Gavaskar who sent an e-mail and followed up with a phone call seeking his availability. When a person was not coaching even a State side, it was indeed a master stroke by Gavaskar in picking Kirsten, who gave different dimensions to coaching at the international level.

India is at the top of the cricketing nations. As Allan Border said “they will have to maintain the standard that they have now set and for that the BCCI will have to hunt for bowlers and groom them.” Not being able to find replacements for Zaheer Khan or Ashish Nehra when more than 500 matches are played in domestic championships indicates the gravity of the situation.

At present there is one genuine fast bowler in Varoon Aron of Jharkhand who consistently bowls quick. There has to be a system in place.

All the small town players in the Indian team — Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Piyush Chawla, S. Sreesanth — have emerged from the process of Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW). If the process produced the desired results, why not reinstate it.

The next World Cup will be in Australia and unless we have strong fast bowlers, it will be difficult to produce results on pitches which will have good carry and bounce.

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