Amidst all the shenanigans surrounding the Indian Cricket board at the minute with myriad selections, interviews, process and what not, the one positive news to emanate is that the India A team (comprising eager hopefuls, emerging stars and several experienced players itching to make a comeback – all cobbled up) tour to South Africa is on.
A cloud was lingering over the tour’s fate after news percolated that Australia A have pulled out of the proposed triangular one-day series because of its contractual differences with their board.
With the rampant proliferation of T20 franchise cricket right around the globe, combined with a packed international calendar, virtually every year lately, the worrying thought was that the concept of A team cricket, which breeds, nourishes and nurtures potential cricketers as a feeder nursery would be lost in this choc a bloc calendar.
Cricket boards almost always line up and are keen to swell their coffers by staging marquee test and ODI series, drawn by the lure of the lucre. But of what use would commerce be in the absence of a relentless supply of rounded raw materials at the factory floor of A team cricket.
There in lies its true beauty, for when a good itinerary of regular A team cricket tours are chalked up, the resultant by-product is that the yawning gulf existing between home advantages and the away failures of cricket teams are narrowed. The sole reason of this is that the players cut their teeth and sharpen their skills before they are thrown into the cauldron of International Cricket.
The beauty of cricket, after all, is the varying weather conditions prevailing in different countries and the resultant change in the playing surface, which is the key challenge to surmount and adapt.
The challenge of facing spin on a turner in Mumbai is vastly different to the swing and seam of Headingley, or for that matter, to the pace and bounce of Wanderers or WACA or the humid, slow and low conditions of Srilanka.
Although fundamentally the fabric of the game is the same, players that succeed constantly are the ones that brace change and ameliorate cleverly to shape up.
My past experiences
It is in this context that I am a big fan of A team cricket, given I have had my fair share of diverse A tours, which helped me get back to my middling form and win back my lost place in the Indian side.
Refreshingly fresh in my memory are two A tours, amongst others of which I was a part of, in the year 2003 and 2004.
In the summer of 2003, we headed to the U.K, where the English also played host to the visiting Proteas.The India A team tour had a mix of some raw young talent like Irfan Pathan, Laxmipathy Balaji, Avishkar Salvi, Parthiv Patel and some yearning for a comeback like yours truly, Wasim Jaffer, Murali Kartik, S.S.Das and Sridharan Sriram – my mate from Chennai, to name a few.
It also showcased the feisty and combative nature of a young Gautam Gambhir as both of us peeled a ton versus Leicestershire at Grace Road in a one day game. After his involvement in an angry and verbal confrontation with David Masters, a seamer, Gambhir put that ugly episode behind him and concentrated fiercely on hitting back at the opponents in the best manner possible.
I remember batting with him in that game and could see what this guy was made of, he was steely and full of grit and most importantly, had loads of talent. One particular shot is still etched in my memory – stepping out to a fast bowler and lofting him over his head for a six. The seeds of a long term left handed and successful opener were clearly sown back then.
In a four-day game against Durham at Chester le street, I hammered another ton and then we also got a chance to sharpen our techniques against the visiting Proteas at Arundel in Sussex.
Along with Gambhir, it was Sriram and Rayudu's turn to hammer hundreds, versus Surrey at Oval. It was a valuable tour for all of us as we experienced the conditions in U.K and how the pitches there behave.
The tour was followed by New Zealand’s visit to India in late 2003 when I notched a ton at Rajkot with a broken hand to fashion a comeback to the TVS Cup Triangular that also involved New Zealand and Australia.
In late 2004, we travelled to Zimbabwe and Kenya and because of an ankle injury I sustained in the first leg of the African tour, I had to miss the trip to Kenya, which more importantly, announced the arrival of a dashing rookie answering to the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who sizzled and blazed with his unique brand of pyrotechnics, carving two tons against Pakistan, where he shelled and pummelled them into submission.
The carefree and aggressive methods with which he cut his teeth at this level enabled MSD to take to international cricket like a duck to water in 2005, where he blistered his way to huge tons versus Pakistan at Vizag and at Jaipur versus the Lankans.
The A tours enabled a young rookie Irfan to announce his arrival in Australia 2003-04 with his banana swing, and Balaji, filled in ably for the last minute drop-out Avishkar Salvi in the VB one day series.
Later on, the Emerging players series was held in Australia at the start of the Southern hemisphere summer which enabled players to pull their socks up and not develop early season rust. India's improvements versus the Aussies, at least in the one day fold, can be credited to this yearly series.
Young batsmen served and raised on a diet of slow-low pitches back home in India, suddenly were forced to square up for the chin music and the perfume balls on pacey Aussie pitches.This experience proves to be immense for the budding cricketers.
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Discarded players like Jayant Yadav, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey and other first timers like Vijay Shankar, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant and few others like Shreyas Iyer, Shahbaz Nadeem would do well to use this tour to Proteas as a platform to leapfrog to the senior circuit.
In arranging such A tours, the Indian Board, with Rahul Dravid as it's A team Coach, have approached the challenges that lie ahead head on.
India senior team's skill and mettle would be tested with tours to SA, Australia and England slated to come up in the next 18 months or so, not to mention the World Cup in 2019. If the earlier forgettable results are anything to go by, with respect to senior side's outings to the aforementioned countries, one must at least applaud the fact that Team India are looking to build a nice bench strength, capable of playing in diverse conditions.
Hopefully, all this thoughtful preparation would help Team India bury the gnawing gremlins that haunt them in alien and hostile foreign conditions.
About time then, for a change in all quarters, least of all for the screaming editors who use the tired old cliche of ‘Tigers at home, Lambs Abroad!’
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