O India! May the Fours be with you!

Finally, we are at the business end of the CB series and I am glad to stick with my finalists at the crucial juncture: Aus v Ind. Frankly, the Lankans have not beefed up their game. Australia definitely go into the finals as favorites but the Lankans will have to pull off a Houdini act to make it to the finals from here on. Expecting them to win against the Indians and Australians at the business end of the series is a big ask. Yet, if they do manage it, they will have an edge going into the finals with a win against the Aussies.

I did predict that the Indians would get better as the series progresses and I am glad it has panned out that way. Going into their last game, they would like a few more runs from their top order and I feel one of Sachin and Sehwag will fire in their last pre-final game against the Lankans. Nevertheless, I whole-heartedly believe the Indians will make it to the finals and give the Australians a run for their money.

Call me a fan but I have my money on India to win the last edition of the tri-series down under. I still feel, India must go in with five bowlers on a featherbed of a pitch for the first final at Sydney and I also feel Piyush Chawla must have been given a few games as he would have been useful at Sydney and Adelaide. I expect the Indians to win the second final at Brisbane and if they can pull off a thriller in Sydney, India have an outside chance to beat the Aussies 2-0 in the grand finale.

If Dhoni gets lucky with the toss at Sydney in the first final, expect Sachin to fire away batting first against Lee and Johnson. Sachin is due big time and being the quintessential cricket purist, I would love Sachin to get big runs in the finals. Sachin getting runs is a celebration of cricket and is beyond winning and losing.

Trust me, the Aussies are not sitting pretty; they have had the better of the Indians in some close encounters over the last month but that streak is bound to end. Given the weight of performances, one must regard the Australians as the favorites but the forthcoming finals are by no means a "David vs Goliath" affair. I would rather compare them to "Bheema vs Jarasandha" borrowing two champions from the Mahabharata and delightfully leave it to the reader to decide who's who amongst the two!!

A Terribly Consistent Rudi!!

Never seen an umpire who so consistently fails to hear thin edges. I guess age is catching up with Rudi Koertzen. He failed to hear the thin inside edge on Gilchrist's bat and adjudged him Leg Before and he so faithfully failed to hear Sachin's thinnest of thin edges.

To be fair to Rudi, watching these wickets on television, Rudi seemed to have got them right. Coupled with the noise exodus in a thickly populated MCG, it was difficult to hear these close edges. Gilchrist's dismissal was the easier one to spot. While watching it live, I thought there was some odd deflection in the line of the ball before it hit the bat; a deflection that didn't look like late swing but of course, one couldn't hear a sound. In Sachin's case, watching the match live with a few friends at home, none of us heard anything or picked any deflection. Only after repeated replays and snicko's could one be sure that Sachin had nicked it.

This brings us again to the question of employing aging umpires in international cricket. Bucknor paid the price for too many mistakes and I feel, Rudi is aging fast and needs to be careful before he is reported by some disgruntled captain.

Surely the ICC must be doing some "Umpire hunting" overtime!!

Experience vs Youth in cricket

Essentially, the conundrum in Indian ODI cricket is valuation of experience and youthful energy. This is not a problem of economics but a puzzle of perspective. The term 'experience' is often used to mask the lack of athleticism among senior players in the Indian cricket team. Of course, Sachin Tendulkar, as of today remains an exception. He has still got the zip in spite of 18 years of international cricket but for all practical purposes, let us exclude him in our analysis; after all, the entire cricketing intelligentia considers him a legend of the game, so for our analysis, he is a pleasant exception.

Of course, Sachin's case might be put in perspective if you look at international standards of player performance. Ponting, Hayden et al are in the same age bracket (albeit with lesser years at the international level) and they set the benchmark when it comes to aging gracefully as an international cricketer. Nevertheless, the experienced bunch in Indian cricket - Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Kumble et al - live by the standards of an older era: the bygone era of Indian cricket when "senior" players were mollycodddled for having that rare gift - experience. This bygone era includes Azhar and Kapil Dev to name a few. If truth be told, both these greats (match fixing or not!!) were given huge career extensions without due regard to their performance on the field. Again, the selectors were ready to stick with the 'old bunch' in search of that abstract gift: experience.

It is but obvious that we need to ask ourselves, "what exactly does experience bring to the table?" The answer is verbose so bear with me! A cricketer, while playing the game in the heat out in the middle at any level, 'experiences' different situations. It doesn't matter if he is playing test cricket at the county, grade, Ranji or international level. He still learns from his role in the middle. He grows as a cricketer and the sum total of these 'cricketing episodes' are somehow hard-coded in him. He is supposed to find himself in similar situations and react in a more informed manner given that he has already been through more of the same. Therefore, if he has been in a huge fourth innings run chase at the Ranji level, he is supposed to be more anticipating when confronted with a similar situation in a Ranji final. He is supposed to know exactly, how to pace his innings; when to press the initiative, when to block, when to play for time and so on.

In the limited overs contest, the player learns precisely the same issues via experience. He learns how to assess pitches, how to visualise a target, how to pace his innings etc. Watching the game between India and Australia on Sunday, I daresay, the Indian youth were trenched in their belief that anything short of 300 is useless while playing against Australia. Some might say, they still have the hangover of the T20 world cup experience. Then again, that should be classified as a lack of 'experience' and count against 'youth' in this contest with 'experience'!

Then again, in this circular argument the question always remains, "If one cannot go with experience indefinitely, then how to ensure that the youth builds experience?" The answer is simple: Make sure the experiences built at the domestic level are meaningful enough at the international level. For this to happen, domestic cricket must meet the standards of international cricket. This is precisely the reason why Australia do not have the problem of bleeding new charges straight out of domestic cricket. The difference in quality between domestic cricket down under and international cricket is not insurmountable. This is not the case with any other cricket playing nation. India have the best chance to ensure that domestic cricket takes a quantum jump in quality and they are taking minute steps over the last few years. In general bowling standards have improved but batting standards haven't. This would be puzzling but the root cause is the pitches. Even today, India does not have enough sporting pitches to even out the contest between bat and ball and at the same time, India has too many domestic teams!

A multitude of domestic teams means a lot of weak opposition for quality players. Therefore, the performance statistics do not reflect the true merit of the player - bowler or batsman. The 'experience' gained at the domestic level needs to be put in perspective taking into account the lack of quality opposition. It would be fruitful for India to cut down the elite domestic competitions to 6 teams only and continue building infrastructure at a level below that. More focus should be on the zonal teams than the state teams. The zonal teams must play more cricket against each other so that quality reveals itself. When someone from the zonal team makes it to the international circuit, he will not feel a quantum leap in quality.

I am also critical of giving preference to players in touring A and B teams. Just because they have international experience playing against other A and B teams does not mean they have adjusted to international cricketing prerequisites. This is also detrimental to the quality of domestic cricket. If you take out the creme de la creme for international duty, the cream below the cream for A and B team duties, then the domestic leagues are going to languish far, far behind.

Australia's dominance in world cricket must teach every other cricket playing nation at least one sure truth - There is no short cut to international success. There is no bypass to international cricket. There is no possibility of building a consistently successful national team if a country does not have a high performing domestic cricket setup.