Autopsy of India's loss to England.

India traveled to England from West Indies with a crop of new cricketers, seasoned travelers, some passengers and a large kit full of bandages, relief sprays, magic sprays etc. The series started with a Panther coming out to play for Somerset, who ended up lifting the trophy after whitewashing the opponents whiter than the kit he was wearing.

This may be one of India's worst defeats in history. But India fought for 17 days of the series, and lost only 4-0. Spare a thought for Natasha Zvereva, who was crushed 6-0 6-0 by Steffi Graf in 1988 French Open. Lasted only 32 minutes, shorter than India's 7 man tail lasted in the last test.

I look at some major reasons why India lost the series to England.

1. That Blimp
Right from the start of the series, the television presenters were hell bent on giving more importance to the floating piece of clueless hot air balloon than what was happening down in the cricket ground. The cricketers had to do something crazy enough to attract the attention of the 7 month old baby which would otherwise have been gazing at the blimp.

It is also believed that Lalit Modi lived in that blimp, preparing to unfurl his IPL-IS-GOD nuisance as soon as India would win a test. The needless and pointless ZanduBalm Pressure became a huge Vicks 500 Headache for the Indian team, and like all humans they suffered from fatigue from the over expectation generated from the man in the MRF Blimp.



That blimp...

2. Snapping Samson's Hair

Never change something that is going well.

Ishant Sharma was the leading wicket taker in the WI series. He had the most wickets for an Indian in a single tour of WI. And within a couple of weeks of landing in England, he becomes a cropper. His hair was cut. Along with the length of his hair, went his powers. Ishant, is Samson.



Ishant's form dipped, injured himself, and is now back home.

3. The Rise of the Barbie

Before the series started, Stuar Broad was a man going nowhere with his form. He was spraying the ball all around for an year. His enforcing abilities had diminished to near nothingness. It took him three and a half ODIs to pick his first wicket of the series against SL, preceding the IND series. Such was his plight, fighting against Bresnan for a spot in the playing XI.

And on 21st July, as England started their campaign at Lord's, a sad thing happened in California, USA later that day. Elliot Handler, the co-inventor of Barbie Dolls, passed away due to heart failure at the age of 95.

The spirit of Barbie seems to have returned to the sole owner of the name - Stuart Broad.

We all saw what happened next - a few match turning innings with the bat, a series of destruction of the batting line up with the ball and with commanding assurance, owned the Man of the Series Award.


(Elliot Handler, RIP. This world got a lot from you. Barbie and HotWheels to name two.)

4. Denying the Battle

When Andrew Strauss opted to play for Somerset on loan to improve his batting (not sure how much he did...), Marcus Trescothik made way for Strauss for the one-off practice game vs India. This meant there was no Trescothik vs Harbhajan face-off. One of the most fun-filled pocket of rivalry was denied bluntly.

I'm pretty sure that Bhajji would've nailed Tresco atleast once. And then he would have that spring in his step. And he would spring on that board for the whole tour.



Well done, Tresco! You've eliminated one bowler off the Indian ranks right off.

5. The Lucky Fellow

And yes, Tim Bresnan played for England. There. How can a team win against England when they field Tim Bresnan in the XI?

And such was the luck and plight of the series, that nothing would put India back on track in the series. India ended up losing 4-0, a whitewash that painted the Indian team whiter than England's whitest white Adidas test kits.

Congratulations to England, the new no.1 in test rankings. Strauss does like the mace. Good luck with it! It seemed like he used it on the Indians to reduce them to rubble.

And as I type, India slip to no.3 in ODIs too, to go along with the no.3 in tests, courtesy SL's victory in the last ODI vs Australia.

Why so serious?

Make Test Cricket a Tradition To Sustain It.

Test cricket, the best form of cricket, needs a serious revival in India, with regards to spectators in a venue.

Test cricket in recent times has seen a big drop in ground attendance across many venues in India. One of the best prepared pitches and outfield in Mohali would be presided over by a crowd which you can count on your fingers. Cricket in VCA/Jamtha in Nagpur was attended by a mere 2000 spectators last year (vs NZ, November), and another 3000 students were filled in just to make the stadium look a bit more filled. Didn't help much. Deccan/Hyderabad saw a poor turn out too.

There are two major reasons for poor turn outs :-

1. People not as interested in attending test cricket than they would attend ODIs.

2. Stadium too far away from the city.

As for reason no.2, one can't help it. And some of those cities having a stadium in the outskirts have a stadium inside the city limits too.

Price of tickets is never a reason. I attended a test match in Nagpur which costs Rs 200 for the whole test match (all 5 days), i.e. Rs 40 a day. That's less than a dollar. I spent more on my headphones.

It all points to one little fact, that there are more purists in some pockets of the country, where people are wanting to attend any day and every day of a game of test cricket. Also, they are willing to pay a higher amount of entry fee to enter into the city (big city economy and all that).

Any cricket board has atleast one eye on the money. And I'm talking about cricket in India, meaning, atleast 2 eyes. One-Dayers and T20s generate huge turn out, even if the stadium is in outskirts of a village in the middle of nowhere. People are willing to shell out money for a one-time shorter format outing.

Take Dharmasala for example, which had a good turn out during the IPL. And I remember Nagpur being house-full for a T20 international game. My friend told me he couldn't buy a ticket for a Hyderabad ODI game at 9pm on the day the ticket sales opened, as all tickets were sold out within 12 hours. ODIs in Cuttack, Rajkot, Gwalior etc are always jam packed. The last time I saw a good crowd at a first class game in India was the Ranji Trophy final between Karnataka and Mumbai at Mysore. People climbed on trees to watch the watch the precious last session on play.

So, we need to keep the interest of the people and generate money out of it. In a balanced manner. The solution is quite clear -

1. Host the test cricket in the prominent "traditional" test venues, thereby getting rid of rotational policies, where attendance is guaranteed.

They would include - Chennai, Mumbai (Wankhede), Bangalore, Kolkata, New Delhi, Kanpur, and maybe Ahmedabad (Motera). I hope and pray there are a couple more to add? Hyderabad hasn't been a sweet spot for test cricket. And Mohali, howsoever good the ground and stadium is, never generated the attendance.

2. Create, or revisit a tradition in scheduling the tests at particular venues. I learnt that the last "Pongal test" in Chennai (Madras) was more than 2 decades ago, and that was the "Hirwani test". Assuming we play cricket from July/August to march/April, there are enough openings for Diwali, New Year, Sankranti/Pongal, Holi etc. Schedule 2 series across 4 or 5 months, starting with a test series, then both ODI series (or tri-series?) and then finishing with the other test series. That can cover the dates above mentioned which are spaced well apart.

I read that some CLT20 games were shifted out of Kolkata, as advised by local police, because of Durga Puja. In that case, I'm sure a test either just before or just after the festivity will be lively. It will be like, "to set the tone" or "to finish the festivities".

3. Schedule ODIs and T20s in other stadia in the country, implement rotational policy, weather compatibility and all that. Crowds guaranteed. Money guaranteed. Allot a fixed amount to the stadium that hosted the LOI games, and put the rest of the income in a common pool. Use the money in the pool to cover excess expenditure at the test venues to improve the ground, pitch, infrastructure (not all stadiums have a good wi-fi connectivity at press-box, for example) etc.

4. Nothing wrong in increasing the price of tickets a bit at the test venues. People will be willing to pay Rs 500 for five days' entry to the stands for sure. It is not a guess, it is what the people have been cheerfully paying for the love of the game, of test cricket.

Such formats are followed in Australia and England. Australia have had this for long enough to use this as a strategy, to weaken the opponents chip by chip.

5. Better scheduling of a test by days of week. A test in India's WI tour started on Monday. That will in no way attract crowd to a game. A test match should ideally start on a Thursday or Friday, woo people to the ground and make them come back for all days. People have enough love for the game in their heart to attend the last day of a game on a Monday or Tuesday. I've seen it.

Indian cricket fans are very sentimental, and it will be a risk to now hold tests in less prominent grounds now, when Indian team has just lost the mantle of no.1 test cricket team in the world. Luckily, India host West Indies in New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Cliché or not, uphold the spirit of test cricket.

(built on inputs from Venkat Ananth, Dileep Premachandran and others)