Quiet introspection essential for young players to discover cricket’s joy

Dileep Premachandran, Wisden India
This column could have been written hours after India had suffered a second successive innings defeat inside three days. But without distance and perspective, it would just have been another rant. And what do those really achieve anyway?

It was clear as the tour went on, however, that change was needed. Michael Holding, one of our Wisden columnists, put it perfectly when he wrote: “You can’t have a collapse like this and just move on to the next series and next tour.” Sacking Duncan Fletcher was never an option. There is still much to be gained by having him tutor the young batsmen. Jacques Kallis made 104 runs in four Tests in England in 2008, and when he began the domestic season poorly, he enlisted Fletcher’s help. In 2009 and in 2010, he enjoyed one of the most prolific periods of his career—1198 runs at 79.86, with six centuries. If Fletcher were a mug, Kallis would hardly be wasting his time with him.

But, Fletcher doesn’t always look like the genial uncle. Where would a young player going through a crisis of confidence have gone? Who could he have spoken to at length without jeopardising his future prospects? Where was the Paddy Uptonlike figure in this team?

My favourite Upton story concerns one of the modern-day giants of Indian cricket. “I will tell you everything,” he told Upton, “including my darkest thoughts. But it needs to stay with you. The minute it’s leaked to the media or someone else, our trust is broken.” Needless to say, I came to know this through the player, and not Upton.

In his years with the team as mental conditioning coach, Upton was so much more. He never lost the players’ confidence. He was also often the fall guy when things went wrong. During India’s Champions Trophy campaign in 2009, there was a big furore over a so-called ‘sex dossier’. It was Upton who took the rap.

The caretaker that India have turned to is hardly a new face. Ravi Shastri has performed the role once before, after India’s first-round exit from the World Cup in 2007.

His involvement with the BCCI may have led to him becoming a butt of jokes in some quarters, but there are few sharper minds in Indian cricket. When confidence is low, it also helps to have a mentor who knows not what it is to take a backward step. As a player, Shastri was a debonair individual without any artifice. In a society that embraces sham values, his lifestyle made him a soft target. On the field, he was anything but, taking 151 Test wickets and batting at ten different positions in the order.

He scored four centuries in his 17 Tests as opener, and only Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Vijay Merchant have averaged more than he did (44.04) at the top. He scored a double-hundred in Sydney, and two centuries in England. There were also two hundreds apiece in Pakistan and West Indies, at a time when they boasted by far the best attacks in the game. Whatever else he was, Shastri was certainly not soft.

Right now, Virat Kohli could do with a drink and a chat with someone who’s been where he is now. The recurring theme when you speak to the greats of the game is that fallow runs and troughs usually coincide with the joy being sucked out of the game. When it becomes a chore, you need to step back and try to see things differently. Shastri will certainly help with that. Bharat Arun, who comes on board as one of two assistant coaches, would have worked with some of the players at Under-19 level.

Sanjay Bangar would have played against a few of them in domestic cricket. These are young coaches with the hunger to succeed. As for the players, a little perspective wouldn’t hurt. When Greg Chappell came to England as a 26-year-old in 1975, he made 106 runs in four Tests. Kallis made one century on his first three tours of England. Kumar Sangakkara’s first three visits to England fetched him 520 runs in nine Tests (one hundred). Both Kallis and Sangakkara have benefited from IPL contracts. Yet, how many call them ‘lazy, arrogant, overpaid, flat-track bullies’?

“If nothing succeeds like success, and winning is a habit, the same is doubly true of failure,” wrote Michael Ferreira, world billiards great, in a column for Mid-Day. “Perishing in the same manner several times set off a chain of negativity and doubt in Kohli’s mind... To overcome this, he needed some quiet introspection, some serious ‘me time’ which in this age of relentless media intrusion was not possible.”

That is the view of a champion, not a rant from a social misfit or chump with nothing better to do. Teams win. Players succeed. They also fail. That’s the nature of sport.

(The author is editor-in-chief at Wisden India)