The eagerly awaited World Cup is all over with Aussies ruling the roost yet again, stretching their unbeatable streak in the world cups to 29. On the other hand, the hopes of billions of Indians came crashing after the team’s shocking defeat at the hands of minnow neighbours leading to an early exit.As expected, there were significant changes in the team management with Ravi Shastri appointed as cricket manager though only for Bangladesh tour. Former cricketers Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh took the role of bowling and fielding coaching respectively.
Now the Indian team is all set for a new action packed season starting from the Ireland series at the end of June. India will be playing a mammoth 45 ODIs and 15 test matches in the coming year up to April, 2008 compared to Australia’s 26 ODIs and 9 test matches and England’s 20 ODIs and 11 test matches. No other teams are playing as many matches as India is. This means 120 playing days leading to nearly eight months of hectic traveling.
The team is suffering from frequent breakdowns and loss of form of many key players, especially fast bowlers. This kind of a packed schedule is not going to help them either. A detailed view of the schedule reveals yet another hardship to the players. That is the number of practice matches the team will play in every tour. Two, three day match before the start of the test series against England, against Sussex and England A teams. In its tour down under they will play a solitary three day match against Victoria before heading on to play four test matches on trot.
In India domestic cricket has always been a sorrow picture with no fan following, no credit given to the domestic level players. In the last decade, there have been hardly any members of Indian cricket team played in domestic tournaments. This has also taken the shine away from it. Above all that, there has always been a wrong perception that no leading cricketers prefer playing domestic cricket. Now tell me, where is the time for them to take part in such
tournaments?Such a scrambled schedule will only expose players to more injuries. The players won’t have any time to sit and reassess their performance every now and then and recharge their confidence. It will only add unnecessary pressure on the cricketers. The Indian board seems to doing nothing to address these issues. On a recent comment by skipper Rahul Dravid on improper scheduling of matches, BCCI Vice-President, Lalit Modi counter attacked him saying, the rotation policy is in place to solve the issue of player burnouts.
It will be a welcome sign if BCCI working committee from hereon include former cricketers or the senior cricketers of the team to have their say on such matters. It looks like BCCI consisting of top politicians and powerful businessmen are not bothered about all these except milking money. They should remember that it is the name and fame of these cricketers that is bringing in the big bucks.
Also, the selection of coach has drawn a lot of speculation among the media. It seems that there is no proper plot in place to choose a coach. The BCCI was once again in a poor light handling such issues. There had been many occasions when the big boys of BCCI complained about the jaded administration of International Cricket Council (ICC). And now, it's time for them to have a look at their own back.
Such a senseless administration will only show the way to repeated failures of the team on the field and agitation among die hard Indian fans taking away the interest and FANatic following, the game has in this country.
BCCI needs a revamp!
