Having followed cricket for more than six decades, I sometimes find the logic of today’s game rather confusing. The game has certainly evolved, and there is nothing wrong with innovation. But innovation should not mean abandoning the basic principles that have made successful cricket teams successful for generations.
I have had the privilege of watching some of the finest cricketers of the game, from Sunil Gavaskar, M. L. Jaisimha and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar to Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. Their styles were different, their roles evolved with the changing demands of the game, but one thing was common: they understood their responsibilities.
Cricket has always been about balance. A team cannot simply be a collection of specialist batsmen and specialist bowlers. The most successful sides have generally had players who could contribute in more than one discipline. The genuine batting all-rounder, particularly around No. 6, has traditionally been an invaluable asset.
There is a reason for this.
A good batting all-rounder gives a captain options. He can strengthen the batting when the top order collapses and provide crucial overs when the frontline bowlers need a break. More importantly, he gives the captain flexibility without weakening either department.
History provides enough examples of part-time bowlers causing considerable damage precisely because batsmen sometimes find them difficult to read. A bowler who is not expected to be a major threat can occasionally become the most dangerous one on a particular day. Cricket has repeatedly demonstrated that wickets do not always come from the most celebrated bowlers.
This is why the obsession with rigid specialisation can sometimes be counterproductive.
What concerns me today is the increasing tendency to experiment with batting orders and player roles without necessarily establishing a clear purpose behind those experiments. We have recently seen our own Bharat become involved in such experimentation, with even an established IPL captain from Chennai becoming the latest talking point in discussions over batting position and role.
Experimentation itself is not the problem. Cricket has always experimented. The problem arises when experimentation becomes a substitute for a settled strategy.
For nearly 150 years, every successful cricket-playing nation has developed a process. Players were selected for specific roles, combinations were built around those roles and batting orders were generally determined by what a player could consistently contribute to the team.
Of course, modern cricket is different. T20 cricket has changed thinking about strike rates, match-ups, floating batsmen and situational batting. A batter may walk in at No. 3 one day and No. 7 on another depending on the match situation. That flexibility can be useful.
But even flexibility requires a framework.
A team still needs someone who can build an innings, someone who can accelerate, someone who can bowl with the new ball, someone who can control the middle overs and someone capable of contributing with both bat and ball.
The question, therefore, is not whether we should experiment. The question is whether we are experimenting within a successful process or simply discarding the process itself.
Having watched cricket for more than sixty years, I remain convinced that the fundamentals have not changed as much as we sometimes imagine. Good teams need good players, but they also need balance, defined responsibilities and intelligent combinations.
Perhaps today’s selectors know something that generations of successful teams did not.
Or perhaps we are simply overthinking cricket.
I leave that question to the readers—and to those who are making the selections.
