The time has come to split the coaching job in Indian cricket

In sport, coaches usually adapt a system to the strengths of the players available rather than the other way around. Players come with different skill sets: the left-arm spinner who is also a terrific fielder, the frontline batter who can bowl a few holding overs and maybe even pick up a wicket or two and so on. It is the coach’s job to understand his players well and use them where they are most likely to mesh their skills to win matches.

All that might seem obvious. But some coaches like to disrupt the pattern. Greg Chappell was fond of moving players around in white ball cricket changing the batting order, for instance, so everybody is prepared for any match situation. India’s current coach Gautam Gambhir does that sometimes too.

Experimentation

Yet, at the end of the year, India, who lost more Tests than they won are yet to find a settled No. 3 in any format. The suspicion remains that Gambhir is trying to squeeze his players into a pre-determined system and not finding one that suits his players. Experimentation — a word being constantly thrown at Gambhir’s face in criticism — isn’t such a bad thing. With the World T20 just a few weeks and a few matches away, it is inevitable. But a coach needs to keep an open mind and ensure he has enough data for selectors to choose the right combination.

Sanju Samson, the smoothest (for want of a better term) batter in the national team since Rohit Sharma finds himself in the wilderness now. Has the coach got enough data to either drop him from the squad or use him as batter or wicketkeeper? There is very little you can learn of a player’s form when he spends all his time in the dugout. He deserves to be told if he has a future; so does Indian cricket.

White ball cricket, especially T20, is a natural platform for experimentation given that Test players need more time to mature. Here you can hit the right note early through a combination of luck and skill.

Currently there are two kinds of T20 players. The first began as First Class cricketers and then adapted to the demands of T20. Most bowlers in the Indian team belong to this category. An interesting case is that of Varun Chakaravarthy who is 34 and came through the TNPL and IPL having lost some years to academics. He is now the No. 1 T20 bowler in the world.

The most successful batter of this group is skipper Suryakumar Yadav who invented shots, played them with confidence and was for long the No. 1 batter in the format.

Attacking game

The second group is the T20 generation. Abhishek Sharma, who began his IPL career as a 17-year-old, and has a strike rate of nearly 190 in T20 Internationals is the natural here. This is the generation of varying ages but identical attitudes to playing attacking cricket, unafraid to go for their shots from the first delivery and most comfortable in the shortest format. Failure is not a stumbling lock. Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Ayush Mhatre all profess a philosophy distinctly different from the previous generation. They may or may not save a Test match, but they will strike their way to many T20 victories.

In cricket, there is a mythical delivery called the ‘unplayable’ ball. Those named above are batters capable of the unplayable shot, one that didn’t seem possible till they played it. Suryavanshi is not yet 15 and is currently setting the world alight at the Under-19 Asia Cup (50 overs). This is an excellent supply line to the senior team. At least a couple of players from this squad, all born in this century, deserve to be promoted to the senior team, and promoted early.

Now that players have become more specialised, with few overlaps between the Test team and T20, it may also be time to split the coaching. Thus, Gambhir for white ball matches, and someone like V.V.S. Laxman for Test cricket.

India do not play a Test till August next year. For a while the conversation will be about T20, with the World Cup in February next.