Opinion: Why the team management should not constantly change a winning combination

The success blanket is probably the heart of the expression 'never change a winning combination.' It's tempting and so easy, so typical of human behaviour, that all the captains have done it.

Virat Kohli is no different. But he tends to overdo it sometimes. He has fielded the same playing XI in successive Test matches only once during his captaincy stint so far. He likes to chop and change every game even when the team is winning, which has backfired more often than not. He is always under fire for his 'horses for courses ' policy.

Having won, no one really wants to rock the boat. Innovation at this stage seems risky (it always is but seems riskier when you believe you've cracked the magic formula) and experimentation seems unnecessary. Unfortunately, things have sometimes started to break and nobody has noticed this happening.

Virat Kohli's men thrashed the touring West Indies side in the first ODI in Guwahati, where left-arm pacer, Khaleel Ahmed returned with figures of 64 for 1 in his full quota of ten overs whereas the other two senior pacers were taken to all parts of the park. Despite Khaleel doing well compared to the other two, he had to sit out in the next match, which is never a good sign for a youngster. In addition to that, Umesh Yadav was drafted to the team only as a replacement for injured Thakur. So, it isn't the first time he has done that.

In any winning team for example, there are a few underperformers, along with many over-achievers. In fact, all teams have their share of under and over-performers. It's the ratio that varies across teams and decides how good they can be. Just because the team has won, it would be foolish to continue carrying deadwood.

It's easier to cull when the team is down since it's not debated and anyway people expect that to happen. It is just as imperative when the team is winning and the mood is celebratory. Australia did that well. They let a great sportsperson like Ian Healy go as soon as it became apparent. As indeed they did with other legends like Steve Waugh in 2004 and Adam Gilchrist in 2012.

The underlying assumption in the concept of a winning combination is that there is a formula that works well for you once and that it will continue to work again irrespective of how much time has elapsed between then and now and the circumstances that it worked under.

The fact is, success is always in the context of time, space and scale, of when, where and at what level. You need to look at the context in which success was achieved. If that has changed, then the probability of the same formula working has perhaps changed too. It might still work, but not necessarily it will. Therefore Virat Kohli and the team management have to understand the side effects of changing a winning team.