India’s dismal show in the recently concluded Test series in England, where it won the second Test at Lord’s only to lose the next three at Trent Bridge, Old Trafford and The Oval, has prompted a debate on the advantage of playing a season of county cricket. Among the many reasons given for the failure were the lack of experience and essentially poor knowledge of the playing conditions. Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram lamented the fact that the Indian Board did not permit its players to accept offers from the English counties.
While the BCCI has not always been keen on a county stint for our rising stars, the news that Cheteshwar Pujara has been permitted to play for Derbyshire reflects a welcome change in the Board’s attitude. He was a failure in the Test series against England, his technique thoroughly exposed along with Virat Kohli’s, who was a shadow of the brilliant batsman that he has proved to be in the last few years.
“Playing in county will help Pujara,” notes former India spinner Murali Kartik. “County is considered a finishing school. It teaches you to be a professional in every sense, the way you carry yourself on and off the field, not just the physical art of cricket. The praise can be lavish and criticism acidic,” says Kartik, the first bowler to have taken 10 wickets on debut in county.
Kartik wore county colours for Lancashire, Middlesex, Somerset and Surrey but it was a pity his county success did not count for a comeback to the Indian team. “The different pitches and conditions that assist seam, swing and spin test your technique thoroughly,” he asserts.
Pujara will play four weeks of cricket for Derbyshire. “How will it help I don’t know. India goes to England next only in 2018,” says Manoj Prabhakar, who turned out for Durham for two seasons. “The only good thing is he will get to bat against good bowlers in the ‘nets’ also. County cricket teaches you to take wickets and make runs.”
Among the notable names who honed their skills in county cricket are Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (Sussex), Sunil Gavaskar (Somerset), Bishan Singh Bedi (Northamptonshire), Farokh Engineer (Lancashire), Kapil Dev (Northamptonshire and Worcestershire), S. Venkataraghavan (Derbyshire), Rahul Dravid (Kent), Dilip Doshi (Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire), Ravi Shastri (Glamorgan), Mohammad Azharuddin (Derbyshire), Anil Kumble (Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Surrey), Sachin Tendulkar (first overseas player for Yorkshire), Zaheer Khan (Surrey and Worcestershire), Virender Sehwag (Leicestershire) and Sourav Ganguly (Glamorgan, Lancashire and Northamptonshire).
Bedi and Doshi had long stints to grow as bowlers of incisive skills. Azharuddin and Zaheer impressed enough to benefit in their overall approach while Dravid tightened his game after a one-season contract. As Dravid proved, county cricket was about picking the best lessons in professionalism apart from improving the technical aspect of the game.
Incidentally, the Board viewed it differently, denying permission to Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel, after allowing Gautam Gambhir (Essex), Harbhajan Singh (Lancashire and Surrey) and Zaheer Khan to pursue their comeback trails through county cricket.
Zaheer had managed a comeback to the Indian team after a stint with Worcestershire in 2006. “It was more about opportunities and learning than financial considerations,” was how Zaheer put it.
As New Zealand great Richard Hadlee writes in his autobiography, “England can take credit for developing countless international players, a lot of them ineligible for England. Playing county circuit aided my cricket education, sharpened and refined my skills.” Hadlee’s compatriot John Wright claimed, “County cricket gives tremendous opportunity to improve your game because you get such a lot of experience in a short space of time. You are playing consistently good opposition and you are enthusiastic. You face the best bowlers in the world.” But for the English county circuit, the cricket world would have been deprived of the likes of Barry Richards and Mike Procter, two great South African players, who spent their prime years in cricket exile. Procter represented Gloucestershire for 16 years while Richards played ten seasons for Hampshire. A study of West Indian cricketers shows how they rarely failed in England because they understood the conditions inside out having spent years on the county circuit. The same applies to cricketers from Pakistan. They always gave a good account of themselves in England. County cricket is not always about two men and a dog. It never was, right from the times of W. G. Grace and Jack Hobbs. It had a charm that attracted some of the finest names in world cricket, some even before they had played for their country. Viv Richards, Greg Chappell and Gordon Greenidge made their county debuts before wearing the national cap. Not a bad example to follow for some of these modern ‘stars’. If it is important to do well on the spinner-friendly pitches of the sub-continent and bouncy ones in Australia, it is also true that you can never be termed a complete player until you shine in the demanding conditions of England.
