ALWAYS criticise and attack the BCCI, but never the players. This has long been the mantra of cricket writers in our part of the world. After spending close to a decade in the print media, I have realised most writers want to show that they are very close to the players. You are also considered cool if you receive calls on your cell from players when in a party or a throng. You are also regarded stylish if you can talk on your cell and refer to them players as Bhajji and Gauti etc. Then everyone at the party is in awe of you.
But this cannot be done if you write against these players – criticise them, question their tactics and comment about their poor form. But these writers also want to show that they are the ones with perspicacity and perspective. So they go about attacking the Board.
Too much money is coming into cricket – attack the Board. Too many matches are being played – attack the BCCI. T20 is becoming too strong – attack the Board. The Test match at Motera (Ahmedabad) ended in a draw – attack the BCCI. “The richest Board in the world is making flat pitches and killing Test cricket” and all that….
At Motera, Sri Lanka just made one elementary mistake – they left out Ajantha Mendis from the Playing XI. Last year, I was in Sri Lanka to cover the Test series and apart from Sehwag (and to some extent Gambhir) none of the Indian batsmen had a clue as to what was going on when Mendis was bowling. Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and even Sachin had trouble reading Mendis. Psychologically, Mendis had the upper hand in all the three matches and it wasn’t surprising when Lanka went on to win the Test series.
Since then, batsmen have started reading Mendis better. But psychologically the Indian batsmen are still in awe of Mendis. At 32 for 4 in the first innings, Mendis could just have provided the spark to catapult India into a deep hole from where it would have become extremely difficult for the home team to extricate itself.
In the first innings, the famed Indian top-order collapsed against little-known Welegedara. So, what do the media do? It attacks the Board at the end of the game for producing a dull track.
If the strong Indian batting line-up cannot handle Welegedara on the first morning of a Test at docile Motera, how can the BCCI be held responsible?
The truth is that even at home, it is very difficult to decide, what are the strengths of this home team. If a true green wicket is given at home, the hosts will surely end up losing the game. The Board will again receive flak for not playing to the strengths of the home team – i.e. preparing a spinning wicket.
But against Sri Lanka, their spin-attack is better than the spin-attack of the Indians. Their opening bowlers are more effective than those of the home team. Their batsmen are less of stars but more efficient than the ones of the home team. Their fielders are more agile and athletic than those of the home team. So what kind of a wicket do Dhoni’s men want?
If on the same pitch, Welegedara can take wickets but Zaheer Khan cannot, how can one blame the richest Board? Perspicacity is not about criticising someone just for the sake of criticism but the ability to write it as you see it. If the star players deserve criticism for their ineptness, then they need to be criticised. (It’s a different matter that they won’t answer your phone for some time to come).
The senior sports editors in print also have another way of dealing with this predicament. Sometimes when it becomes absolutely necessary to criticise a player (for example, if Bhajji slaps Sreesanth with full-on camera coverage you can’t keep praising him), these big editors then ask some junior writer in the department to do a “scathing piece” on Bhajji. But if it is an interview with Sachin on his completing 20 years in cricket, they then want to do it themselves. Of course, PR is more important than perspective.
Again, when too many goody-goody stories of star players have been done in a newspaper, then you pick on some young, junior cricketer (like Sreesanth or Amit Misra) to show that the paper can criticise players as well. Both Harbhajan and Misra bowled equally badly at Motera but the experts want Misra alone to go back to some domestic games. It’s a different matter that Bhajji has been bowling consistently badly since the one-day series against Australia started. But of course it cannot even be suggested that he (Bhajji) go and get some rhythm back in the Ranji games.
The Indian Board needs to be complimented for making the game so rich, for transforming some ordinary cricketers into celebrities, for making domestic cricket financially lucrative for players, for bringing in pension for former cricketers, for constructing new stadiums and developing new facilities and so on. Of course, a lot more needs to be done and, along the way, the Board has been guilty of committing misdemeanors as well. But to blame the Board for everything (when bowlers can’t get you wickets for example), is simply going too far.
Sometimes the players need to be criticised as well. Even if they are stars.
