During the 2015 cricket World Cup in Australia, hockey legend Ric Charlesworth, had spared an hour to talk about anything under the harsh Perth sun. A brutally blunt and pragmatic man, he spoke about cricket too. And this wasn’t an outsider poking his nose into others’ business.
An accomplished Western Australia first-class opener, Charlesworth once scored a commanding 95 against a touring Indian team that had Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna. He didn’t mince words to call cricket ‘pretty primitive’, caught in a time-warp and ruled by fixed ideas. He had a pet peeve about the sport he once played at the highest level.
“Take the batting order for instance, why is it such a sacrosanct thing? Batting is batting, you go in first or fifth. When we started inter-change in hockey, people had to struggle, now when they go on-and-off they don’t even think about it, it’s because they have learnt new skills,” Charlesworth says with a touch of exasperation.
A decade later, despite cricket’s T20 radicalization, batting witnessing unimaginable innovations; all the big decisions around the game are still true to the archaic template framed a century ago. Had cricket moved with the times, batting-order flexibility was seen as a norm and if Charlesworth had been an India selector for the Asia Cup, a blunder could have been averted. Shreyas Iyer would have been in Dubai and not playing Duleep Trophy at Anantapur. And big-hitter Rinku Singh, who scored nearly 400 runs less than Shreyas this IPL but still made the Asia Cup cut, would have been at home ironing his range-hitting to be more consistent.
When the Asia Cup team was announced, the chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar had justified the selection committee’s decision to turn their backs on Shreyas’s dream IPL season — 604 runs, 175 strike rate, 50 average and the knock of the tournament, 83 against MI in the Eliminator. “It’s no fault of his, but neither our’s … Who can he replace?” Agarkar had said. It wasn’t as difficult an answer as he made it sound. Shreyas for Rinku – 206 runs, 153 strike rate and 29 average in 13 matches — was a no-brainer.
So why did a selection committee that had taken many wise calls of late, get it wrong this time? It’s because cricket, like Charlesworth pointed out, hasn’t been able to break silos that divide the batsmen in the team.
Pressure’s loud. Those maximums were louder 🚀
🎥 Captain Shreyas Iyer puts #PBKS on the brink of a seat in the GRAND FINAL ❤
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Apples versus Oranges comparison
So Shreyas, the No.3 for Punjab, had to compete with other top order batsmen while Rinku, who plays No.6 or 7 at KKR, was in a race with other lower-order batsmen. Cricket’s conservatism looks at a ‘Shreyas vs Rinku’ match-up as a ‘Apples vs Oranges’ comparison.
Cricket is infamous for its absurdities. Shreyas can take his team home in crucial games but he still isn’t seen as a finisher. Meanwhile, Rinku hasn’t been able to seal many games but still he reserves the right to play down the order. India’s decision-makers need to wake up to the new T20 reality where the batting approach has become uniform from top to bottom.
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The role of openers and other top-order batsmen isn’t too different from the power-hitters coming in late. The anchor is dead, every batsman needs to hit the ground running. Hit out or get out, T20 teams have way too many batsmen and too few overs. And it is in this context, that the selectors need a rethink.
What Rinku can do, Shreyas can do better. He can slog sixes but also can delicately guide a near-perfect Jasprit Bumrah yorker to third man boundary for four – the shot of the tournament that he played in the virtual semi-final against MI during the do-or-die chase. It was a stroke that oozed poise and class. It showed the dexterity of a batsman with high-level skills developed by spending hours at the nets from an early age.
As strange as it may sound, Charlesworth, back in 2015, had spoken about players like Shreyas, who show a touch of class in pressure situations, pluck brilliance from thin air.
That afternoon at the hockey great’s backyard was days after Kane Williams had won a close game for New Zealand by hitting a sharp, full Pat Cummins delivery for a straight six by a slick subtle shuffle to the leg-side. “You should have the chutzpah to do it,” he had said. Shreyas has that chutzpah.
Charlesworth would launch into a monologue that gave a different perspective to the much-abused word used by sports commentators to describe everything eye-pleasing – Flair.
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“I am not a fan of the word flair. It is what we call superior practice skill. When you see someone, you know that he has practiced it. He has done the same thing before. So I just see it as an expression of superior skill not as anything else. You should have the chutzpah to do it. Shot that Williamson played to win the match (against Australia). It is a brave shot but it is also a beautiful skill. The execution.
“Virat Kohli can play all the shots, putting them in context, I don’t think that is playing with flair, he does that because he has practiced them. He has spent a lifetime getting brilliant at them. Was Murali a bowler with flair, no he had variety and he could do it very well. The best thing about Warne’s bowling was his accuracy. That allowed him to do all the other things.” He would end his answer with a question: ‘Did you understand?
To understand Charlesworth better, put Rinku and Shreyas on the split screen and it is there to see who has ‘plain flair’ and who is the one with ‘superior practice skill’. Maybe, the selectors got blindsided by antiquated batting hierarchy – etched in stone – top, middle, lower departmentalisation of batting order.
And this meant another heartbreak for a player who stands out on the field for his swagger. Young cricketers who chew gum, walk, and don’t come across as people pleasers, have always had it tough in Indian cricket.
His IPL coach Ricky Ponting saw a bit of himself in Shreyas. “You watch him walk out to bat the other day, he walked out with a certain amount of swagger about him because he’s confident, he knows he’s playing well, he knows he’s preparing well, and he knows if he does his little things right, then, you know, he can’t fail.” Ponting said during the IPL at The Indian Express Idea Exchange.
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Players like Shreyas need to be rewarded and indulged. They need to stay confident. And playing for West Zone, when the national team is in Dubai, isn’t good for him. But there is a bigger tragedy. Such is India’s batting strength and so weak is the opposition at Asia Cup that the selectors can get away with this wrong call.
Shreyas might not be missed at the Asia Cup, but he deserves to be in the playing XI every time India plays T20.
