Watching India capitulate to an abysmal 94 all out last night, it got me thinking about why top class cricketers, seem to have such difficulty playing in the Test match arena in conditions that are not perfect. Even Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara, possibly two of the finest young batsmen in the world right now, looked out of their depth against James Anderson, Stuart Broad and the other English bowlers.
The problem with all of these players seems to be an over-tendency to play strokes and feel for the ball before they are set in. This, more often than not leads to an edge and an easy catch for the keeper. This has become more apparent in recent years as players have not put as higher price on their wicket as in previous years. The easy solution to this is for batsmen to see off their early deliveries to get their eye in. The more difficult problem is the putting a high price on their wicket, which comes from many factors, the most glaring of which is the amount of One Day and T20 cricket that players play around the world these days, which allows players to put in a few shocking performances as long as they entertain the crowd with big hitting, all the while making thousands and millions of dollars doing it.
Maybe a less obvious problem, but to my mind almost more important is that so few Test players play domestic first-class cricket, for so many years the stepping stone into the big time. Now, the stepping stone is just as likely to be the Big Bash or just being a talented player, which means you don’t really have to prove yourself before starting your career. Another reason for first-class cricket’s importance is that many pitches on the domestic scene are under-developed and bowling wickets and thus teach players about how to tough it out on tricky pitches, the sort that players like Jack Hobbs were known for their play on. Even the Sheffield Shield pitches now are batting paradises that are used for Test cricket like the Adelaide Oval and Brisbane. If we want our cricketers to truly be the best in the world, we would make our Shield games be played on suburban tracks rather than the best. This might teach our kids on the values of playing a ball on its merits and being cautious rather than slogging. It is no surprise to me that out of the top ten players with the all time test highest batting averages, four are English players who had long and illustrious County cricket careers (Sutcliffe, Paynter, Barrington and Hammond), who would’ve played on all sorts of pitches that swung and spun prodigiously and were unpredictable in bounce, which forced them to play each ball how they saw it and defend for long periods if they had to, which would’ve taught them well for Test matches.
One Day and Twenty20 cricket need to have a diminished role in the future of cricket if the standard of batting is going to improve, because the fundamentals can only be found in a longer form of cricket where runs and longevity are valued more than fun and entertainment. Money and fun can only go so far in sport, and to my mind with the current leadership of the sport, batting and real batsmen who see off the new ball and don’t worry about run rate will soon be something of the past.
The Paddy File 