Onward to the next Overseas Test

India continued their tradition of not losing a Test at the Wanderers by beating SA in the third and final test. A hard fought match with a lot of pain for batsmen - watch this one from Bumrah to Elgar :
http://www.espn.in/video/clip?id=22223231
That moment almost caused the match to get called off. The game went on and India recorded one of their more famous recent Test victories. A few things to carry home (and abroad) from this series :
1. This team does indeed have a chance of giving us Test Series wins abroad. But the players need a lot more practice. That either means more practice matches or as someone had suggested (I think that was Boria Mazumdar) start the series with the T20 and ODI matches so that the team gets enough time to get acclimatized to the conditions.
2. Maybe Parthiv Patel should play a little more and open as well - the 2nd innings of the third test might not be an accurate sample, but it did change the pattern for India. And oh yes, Parthiv Patel held onto the chances (when keeping) in this one.
3. India has good fast bowling options; bowlers who can do well when there is seam, swing and bounce! So, it might not be easy for Eng and Aus to roll over this team.
4. Lastly - Dan Elgar's the man to learn batting from (for an opener atleast). He bats ugly, but he does the work required of an opener - stick around and tire out the opposition team so that the rest of the team gets a chance to play. Maybe crude, but very effective. Lets hope we can train our openers under him!

India vs SA - 3rd test. Time for a change in plans?

I remember discussing England's disastrous Ashes tour of Australia (2017-18) and saying " No matter what, India wouldn't fare like this on a tour. They would show far more spirit and put up a good fight". Well, well - I was quite wrong. The India tour to SA has reaffirmed that we travel badly and that we make the same basic mistakes whenever we tour. 0-2 down and the third test is looming large.
The selection mistakes (Rahane left out so far, Bhuvi left out in the 2nd test). mistakes in tactics and mistakes from players notwithstanding, we were thoroughly outplayed. To give credit to Kohli, he chose an aggressive 6 batsmen strategy (as against a safer 7 batsmen) in the hope that bowlers would pick up 20 wickets and give us a chance to win. We did pick 20 wickets in each test, but so did the opposition - only they scored more! So, what are the things India should do different in the 3rd Test?
1. 7 batsmen (including the keeper)? This is one scenario in which Rahane and Sharma both get to play. With Dinesh Karthik being the most likely keeper (and batting at 7), India will play 4 bowlers (Ashwin + 2 regular fast bowlers + Hardhik - which will become 8 batsmen and 3.5 bowlers) or maybe drop Hardhik and get another regular fast bowler. This is a 'safe' bet - with this combo, India will most likely not lose, but will definitely not win! This is a combination where chance of losing is 25-30% IMHO.
2. 6 batsman - but without Pujara! This one is scary to even think of, but might be necessary. Pujara is out of form and worse - is getting out in the worst possible ways ( 2 run-outs on the same test). Getting Rahane in for him will not impact runs very badly, yet give Rahane and Sharma another shot at SA. With 5 bowlers, we will have space for Hardhik too. So, that makes it 7 batsmen still with 4.5 bowlers if you might want to call it that (or maybe 6.5 batsmen with 5 bowlers). With this combo, we have a decent chance of winning but an equally good chance of losing : 50% chance of losing, but maybe 30% chance of winning.
So, what will India , rather Virat Kohli do now? Tough call. Whatever decision he takes, we will unfortunately be judging him based on the results of the third test!

The tyranny of away tours!

2 teams embarked on Test tours with the promises of winning (but hopes of managing respectable performances one suspects). Both went from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere diagonally! England to Australia and India to SA.
England were being led by a new captain (one of the best batsmen in the world) , had performed well against teams at home and were generally in good form. It looked like the 5 Test Ashes series in Australia would be closely fought even though eventually England might just lose. But lose they did and how! Australia won 4-0 (instead of 5-0) only because the 4th Test was played on a flat pitch. Several factors contributed to England eventually losing, including the absence of sufficient practice in Australia.
And now lets come to India. India reached SA with the best chance in the past 25 years , of winning a test series. India bowled well, but batted bad (to be fair both teams batted bad), with the net result that SA won by 73 runs. A margin of 73 runs when chasing 209 is like a margin of 140 when chasing 400! So, it was a big defeat no doubt. While there were debates on the batting line up - mainly Rahane being dropped for Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul being dropped for Dhawan, the truth was that India wet to SA without ANY practice games! India still can (and will) learn from the mistakes of the first test, but the momentum is lost.
Playing test matches in alien conditions is always tough , no wonder then that the WI teams of the 80's and the Aussie teams at the start of this century, that could win matches consistently when touring, were considered great! In those days the gap between teams used to be huge, teams like India , Pak and even NewZeland didn't have the kind of matchwinners that most teams today do. So, touring teams could hope to win! These days, it is very very different. As Bangladesh has shown recently (and hopefully Afghanistan and Ireland will in the near future), teams are able to bridge the talent gap through training and coaching. Winning outside one's country is getting more and more difficult.
So, how does one make test matches a lot lot more interesting.
1. Let the touring team always have the toss advantage - so, based on the history of the ground (favoring batting first or fielding) and depending on the relative strength/weakness of their team, they can decide what to do first and deny the home team that advantage.
2. The toss doesn't always offer an advantage - Joe Root found that out during the Ashes this year. So, maybe another way is to use drop pitches that are picked up at random by the ICC. The weather cannot be controlled, but maybe the pitches can be randomised enough!
3. This one is tough - insisting on time for atleast 3 practice matches would be a great idea, but no one will want to 'WASTE' time on these. So, in the tradition of county cricket, cricket boards should keep sending players to play in the leagues of foreign countries - then, English players will get acclimatized to Australia, India to SA, the Aussies to India etc. etc. Imagine Steven Smith playing Ranji cricket for Mumbai! Maybe it can be sweetened with the permission to play that country's T20 league without any strings attached!
4. How about test matches on neutral venues? Imagine the Ashes in India - or an India versus SL test series in Jamaica! (There might hardly be any spectators, but I guess the cricket boards are too busy chasing TV rights to bother about ticket playing spectators). Then, no one will know the weather or the pitch and the results will be that much more sweet!

Wondering what else might work!

Edit (Jan 12, 2018) : A nice write-up on cricinfo echoing my sentiments on practice matches : http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22039162/why-need-tough-first-class-matches-the-ashes