In July, India were forced to simultaneously field a Test team in England and a white-ball side in Sri Lanka. Both squads more than met expectations. The World Test Championship final was lost to New Zealand but India ended the curtailed England tour leading 2-1. In Colombo, India won the ODIs but lost the T20I series that had to be extended due to a Covid-19 scare within the bio-bubble. Long enabled by its domestic structure and a robust feeder system
In July, India were forced to simultaneously field a Test team in England and a white-ball side in Sri Lanka. Both squads more than met expectations. The World Test Championship final was lost to New Zealand but India ended the curtailed England tour leading 2-1. In Colombo, India won the ODIs but lost the T20I series that had to be extended due to a Covid-19 scare within the bio-bubble. Long enabled by its domestic structure and a robust feeder system supervised by National Cricket Academy (NCA) head and former India captain Rahul Dravid, BCCI never tried to shape format-specific teams because that could ultimately lead to choosing different captains— a quandary no one wanted to be part of. But Virat Kohli has finally relented. His desire to stay ODI captain (probably till the 2023 World Cup in India) may not make the transition smooth but with Dravid taking over as head coach, India are finally in a position to take this leap of faith.
Why is it necessary? Broadly because it’s time to institutionalise the practice of giving players who bounce from one bubble to another for six months a sizable break to ensure they don’t wear out quickly. India’s workload management has improved by leaps and bounds, so much so that this year Jasprit Bumrah played his first Test at home (against England in Chennai) after making his debut in 2018. But there is always a risk of burnout, even among younger all-format players like Bumrah. With an ICC event set to take place almost every year— in addition to the IPL— there is already an escalating need to give cricketers enough recovery time, not just physically but mentally. And since bio-bubbles are here to stay for at least two more years, more and more cricketers are speaking up on the need to take a break.
“Absolutely, you need a break,” said Bumrah when asked about bio-bubble fatigue after India’s loss to New Zealand in the T20 World Cup. At a media interaction, Ravichandran Ashwin had pointed out how many had still not grasped the concept of living in bio-bubbles for months. “Many times when the team loses, they put pictures of family going out and all that, people go after us saying, what are you doing? You’re on holiday with your family and all that. We’re hardly on a holiday,” he said. “We don’t get to see other people at all. In fact, we live amongst ourselves. We live within rooms just trying to create some environment where we are communicating with each other and trying to play a few team building games here and there, and that is all we’ve been doing for the last eight months or ten months.”
India are behind most nations when it comes to dividing workload. Right now, if fit, seven cricketers play for India in every format—Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja or Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami. That slips to six for Australia—Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, David Warner, Steve Smith and Matthew Wade—and may shrink further once their pacers hit their thresholds. Jason Holder is the only West Indies cricketer to have an all-format contract for this season. The West Indies team that played their last T20 World Cup match against Australia had two Test regulars in Holder and Roston Chase. Two-time World T20 champions, West Indies have made no bones about their format-specific approach. But England, with just five cricketers—Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Chris Woakes (still not a Test regular), Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow—making the cut in every format for some time now, are setting the template here.
It makes sense when you see England winning the World Cup or make the last-four of this T20 World Cup so convincingly. The transition wasn’t easy though. Only five players from the World Cup squad of 2015—when England were eliminated in the group stage after losing four out of six games, including to Bangladesh—made it to the 2019 edition: captain Eoin Morgan, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler, Joe Root and Woakes. More contentious was a Test squad rotation policy that saw key players like Buttler leaving India after England wrested a 1-0 lead in Chennai and Bairstow being rested for the first two Tests. For a long time now, James Anderson and Stuart Broad—England’s most successful fast-bowling pair ever—aren’t bowling in tandem anymore. “We’re resting in the best interests of the players and to get the best out of them long-term,” England head coach Chris Silverwood had explained then. “We’ve decided to rest and rotate; we’ve decided we need to look after the players. I do believe we have to be proactive in looking after them, rather than wait until there’s a problem.”
Stokes going on an indefinite leave for mental recovery earlier this year was just one example of a top-flight cricketer prioritising his overall wellbeing. Fear of competition and losing the place in the team keeps most mum. But England’s rotation policy still came under heavy criticism, especially from former players who said not fielding the best available team was criminal. Amid allegations that Test cricket was being surreptitiously undermined, England nurtured white-ball cricketers who slowly turned the tide. England’s Test record isn't bad but Alastair Cook did set the bar rather high as captain in 2012, drawing in Sri Lanka and winning in India. The conundrum back then is opposite to what is happening now as England kept underperforming in white-ball cricket under Cook. This is why the leadership was finally split and Morgan was given the England white-ball captaincy barely two months before the 2015 World Cup. England did gain from the move in four years but, like all teams, they are still striving for all-round efficiency.
New Zealand have probably come closest without having to find format specific cores since their overall players’ pool is smaller than most nations. They have reached the 2019 World Cup final, beaten England and India in Test series away and at home since 2020 and made the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup with a largely familiar core of Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Devon Conway. But several players are a must in at least two formats. If Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner are equally critical to T20Is and Tests in the subcontinent, Kyle Jamieson has quickly become indispensable at home and Martin Guptill is an absolute legend in ODIs and T20Is. Still, the Kiwis haven’t found success in white-ball cricket like England so they aren’t exactly the template. India are at a similar functional level, making it to the last-four of an ICC event (this T20 World Cup ouster can be treated as an aberration) while winning Tests in Australia and England. Now they need the final push. And it can only come in the form of well-defined format specific teams with two captains: Kohli and Sharma.
Where India have already scored is in finding T20I specific players that give their white-ball squads flexibility according to the conditions they play in. Varun Chakaravarthy is a perfect example of a mystery bowler who works best in four-over quotas. So do spinners like Rahul Chahar and Washington Sundar who would have probably made the T20 World Cup squad had it not been for a finger injury. On quicker pitches, Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur fill the medium-pacer slots meaning India’s white-ball teams more or less choose themselves.
Till MS Dhoni, the idea was to let the captain tinker with the line-up after choosing an all-format core but with time, several players were quietly nudged towards persevering only in one format. So in Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Ajinkya Rahane and Mayank Agarwal as opening backup, India have Test specialists who can probably extend their careers by a good year or two if their returns are more than wholesome. Shami should soon join the list given his chronic knee problems that make it a harder for him to bowl in the subcontinent and less-than desirable returns in T20Is. Kohli, Sharma, Rahul, Pant and Bumrah can be the all-format specialists while Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yuzvendra Chahal could make up the white-ball core. They are already heavily in the mix but India need to make the transition official to allow for better management and leadership. The sooner they do this, the quicker they can get back on track to lifting a World Cup while winning Test series in England and Australia.
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