A team’s strategy revolves around the personnel available, and India have several batters who are naturally suited for their flamboyant gameplay.
Test cricket is going through interesting times at the moment. It’s far from dead, though. In fact, it might be in its best health in recent times, more so after the gruelling Border Gavaskar Trophy.
However, the way different teams approach their gameplay is still interesting. There are England, who have adopted a gung-ho approach, prominently known as ‘Bazball’; they just know one way to play, irrespective of the conditions or situations. Then there are teams like India and Australia, who are more open to adapting according to the needs and not being a one-trick pony.
But norms are shifting, and like general life, Test cricket has also picked pace, shedding the traditional reputation as a slow-paced format. Run rates have soared to unprecedented heights, bowling averages have plummeted to historic lows, and matches are now being wrapped up faster than ever. So, teams juggle to find a precise balance between attack and defence.
India’s concern remains the same. A few months back, Gautam Gambhir said they “want to be a team that can make 400 runs in a day and bat for two days to draw”. But Gambhir’s rhetoric often prioritises passion over prudence.
Is it really possible to do both consistently in this era of Test cricket? There are exceptions of course, as in Kanpur last year, but it’s mostly impossible over a large sample size. The examples were against New Zealand at home and Australia Down Under when India faltered in striking that balance between attack and defence.
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It’s now up to them to decide which extreme to take. But the ideal way would be to go on the attacking route. There are several reasons for this.
A team’s strategy revolves around the personnel available, and India have several batters who are naturally suited for their flamboyant gameplay. Rishabh Pant has been doing it for years, while Yashasvi Jaiswal has shown he can replicate the same. Even newer guns like Nitish Kumar Reddy and Dhruv Jurel enjoy going for their shots.
Now the trend of the upcoming batters will remain the same. Someone like Sarfaraz Khan, who has played a few Tests for India, showed how unconventional their batting technique is. Whether you like it or not and whether that is effective are different discussions; what actually matters is that their techniques won’t change.
And it’s harsh to blame them. Such has been the nature of tracks everywhere lately that batters are compelled to wield a high strike rate to find runs. That’s the only survival mode, and a certain delivery will have your name, so it’s better to score as much as possible before that delivery finally comes.
The World Test Championship has forced teams to opt for result-oriented pitches, and India churned out rank-turners in consecutive games against the Kiwis. Even in Australia, pacers dominated the proceedings, and batters got numerous unplayable deliveries. That Sydney deck, for instance, was the most pace-friendly it has ever been.
The only batter to succeed in Sydney was Rishabh Pant, who adopted an ultra-attacking approach and dismantled the lines and lengths of the Aussie quicks. Even if batters want to, they can’t just look to block everything and wait for bad deliveries to score runs. An unplayable delivery will most likely come before that bad one.
In fact, the result-extracting decks have been prevalent even at the domestic level. Several venues in the Ranji Trophy heavily favour a particular bowling type. Then there’s some white-ball effect as well. Most batters from the domestic arena play ample white-ball cricket and try to become elite in limited-over formats, which you’d expect.
With the IPL getting bigger, players would want to fit themselves in that format as much as possible, even if that requires sacrificing the traditional batting approach. Gone are the days when batters could remain a red-ball specialist. In fact, players capable of different formats have a higher chance of selection because their chances of succeeding are higher.
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Take Yashasvi Jaiswal’s case, for instance. He has shown how flexible he can be with his approach and aced the shortest and longest format at the international level. Even Nitish Kumar Reddy is a similar case – he has shown expertise across formats.
Meanwhile, the likes of Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sarfaraz Khan have shown obvious weaknesses against quality pace bowling despite scoring tons of runs in the domestic arena. And they are not exceedingly good in shorter formats, either. Red-ball domestic competitions like the Ranji Trophy can’t be the sole criteria for selection.
So, the new crop coming through should be good enough to adapt across conditions, and that is only possible when they play all formats. And the technique will no longer remain watertight enough when they play different formats. There can be exceptions, but the general trend won’t change.
Even in India’s latest Test squad for the Australia tour, most batters are part of at least one white-ball format or will soon come into the setup. The only players who won’t be near India’s white-ball squads are the same common names – Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sarfaraz Khan. Even Devdutt Padikkal has been a beast in List A cricket and has enough T20 exposure.
It’s not that a batter can’t have a compact technique if they play white-ball formats. Someone like Virat Kohli, and even Rohit Sharma at his peak, has shown you can play your natural game and still succeed across formats. It’s more about being capable enough to adapt yourself.
With the impending transition, India can opt to adopt an all-attacking method with their batting approach. Their next Test assignment is in England, and they can’t find a better place to start this experiment. When the transition arrives, going down the Bazball route would likely become easier with the kind of players cropping up.
Maybe that’s the way forward considering their contingent and conditions across the world, even if it comes at the expense of being accused of taking away the aesthetics of Test cricket.
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