How to improve standard of domestic cricket in India?

[jairamesh]

Every opening game has turned into a run fest, every one of them.

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Fix domestic calendar and first-class game : Aakash Chopra More... Domestic calendar needs revamp - Aakash Chopra Sharda Ugra November 15, 2011 Aakash Chopra: "Even if a player makes a name for himself in the IPL, I would still advise him to get a season of first-class cricket under his belt" Aakash Chopra, the former India opener, has called for changes to the domestic game, including a remodelling of the Ranji Trophy points system and a more reasonable and thought-through calendar for first-class cricket. Chopra was releasing his second book on Indian first-class cricket in New Delhi and his statements on the game - he also said the Duleep Trophy had made itself redundant by turning into a knock-out format - came in the presence of BCCI official and IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla. Chopra, who made his first class debut in 1997-98 and currently plays for Rajasthan after a decade with Delhi, was speaking at the release of Out of the Blue: Rajasthan's Road to the Ranji Trophy. The event was attended by a large number of first-class cricketers from four teams - Rajasthan, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Railways - all gathered in Delhi two days before the start of the third round of Ranji Trophy matches. In a discussion with Amrit Mathur, CEO of the Delhi Daredevils franchise, Chopra talked about the crowded domestic calendar that left teams to deal with preparing for a four-day event through the staging of a Twenty20 tournament. "All first-class players would be happy to play eight months a year but it needs to be more sensibly organised. You have two four-day events, two T20 events and two one-day tournaments. This year we played the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament before the Ranji Trophy kicked in. We prepared for the four-day game by playing with the white ball." The Duleep Trophy's knock-out format, he said, had robbed the tournament of its stature. "I used to love the Duleep Trophy, performing in it meant performing against the best in the country. But with a knock-out format it is meaningless because your chance has gone if your team loses." The logic behind using the Kookaburra ball in the Duleep Trophy, he said, was also undermined by the format. "If you play just one match with the Kookaburra, you don't get enough muscle memory on how to play with it. Once a year with the Kookaburra is not enough." The Ranji Trophy points format awarding three points for a first innings lead and five for an outright win served no purpose, as the difference between a victory and a draw was a mere two points. "We need to reward and encourage teams to win matches, bigger incentives say 10 points for winning a game, and bowling and batting points so that the losing team goes away with something. We need to find a better solution." The IPL, Chopra felt, was a proven platform for many youngsters but it was unreasonable to expect success in the T20 format to be a launch pad for an India place - and the exceptions who had made the breakthrough had influenced the ambitions of their peers. "There are many players, like Deepak Chahar and Ashok Menaria, who have the ambition for not just the Duleep Trophy but a chance in the India team... The fire is still there for them, but not for everyone. Some players are short-sighted and think that you can can actually bypass the rigours of first class cricket, through the IPL become the next Rahul Sharma... Even if a player makes a name for himself in the IPL, catches the eye, I would still advise him to get a season of first-class cricket under his belt." Chopra is one of the most prolific contemporary chroniclers of the first-class game, writing columns in newspapers, speaking on television and, with Out of the Blue, producing his second book on the Ranji Trophy. His first, Beyond the Blues: A First-Class Season Like No Other, was about Delhi's victory in the 2007-08 Ranji Trophy season. At Tuesday's book launch event, Rajasthan's players were welcomed into the hall and seated at the front, where they watched a short video produced by Rajasthan's data analyst Manish Goyal with footage from their Ranji-winning season, set to Right Said Fred's "Stand Up (For the Champions)". For everyone involved in it, the story of Rajasthan's achievement will always remain, on film and on paper, recorded by one of their own. Not even Mumbai's 39-time Ranji winners have that.

[saneindian]

Have to admire the guts Chopra has. He is still active in the domestic circuit yet never sugarcoats annything that he says about BCCI. If only some of the bigger names could lend him the supprt and make the changes happen.

[Magneto]

If you read his 'Beyond the Blues' (which I am reading right now), you'll see how he objectively he analyses the way BCCI and DDCA function. He has a lot to point out, and though I don't agree to quite a few of his points, his logic and intentions need to be appreciated. Here is one guy who's trying to improve the system in whatever way he can.

[rajmarie]

Have to admire the guts Chopra has. He is still active in the domestic circuit yet never sugarcoats annything that he says about BCCI. If only some of the bigger names could lend him the supprt and make the changes happen.

Bigger names are on BCCI paybook....meaning those who have sold their soul to the devil. The other day..I think was on the 1st of this Kolkata Test against WI...that Ravi Shastri was commentating & was telling that BCCI has to do something abt the empty crowds even in big & know Test centers like Eden....because they are schedule the game from Mon-Fri. I found that comment by Ravi so hippocratic...because this is not somethign that BCCI has done this year or this series. If my momory serves right...BCCI has been regularly schedule more Test days on weekdays then weekends for the last decade. Heck...now BCCI is scheduling more ODI;s on weekdays also. Why dont Ravi tells us the truth on what goes on in those scheduling meeting...even if he is not part of those...he can tell us easily why BCCI is not scheduling correctly. WI-Aus next Apr...series in WI dates...venues etc..everything is finalized & published today....good 6 months in advance. The only thing BCCI do so much in advance is look after IPL....& IPL schedule.

[MCcricket]

Akash seems to be one person who has a lot of experience, played for India, very experienced as far as domestic cricket,always has very good observations,seems to be a good thinker and writer,I hope BCCI at some level considers as a technical advisor for domestic cricket in India and he also has a good eye for talent, his observations could be very constructive if applied for the good of Indian cricket.

[vvvslaxman]

India produced cricketers like Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Tendulkar, Dravid with system like Ranji Trophy, Irani Trophy. Then we made a shift to under-19 in the early 2000s where we discovered Yuvraj, Irfan etc. Subsequently we picked players from ODI side. Gradually first class lost its value. No real competitiveness in the first class cricket

[Cricket Tragic]

More... The IPL, Chopra felt, was a proven platform for many youngsters but it was unreasonable to expect success in the T20 format to be a launch pad for an India place - and the exceptions who had made the breakthrough had influenced the ambitions of their peers. "There are many players, like Deepak Chahar and Ashok Menaria, who have the ambition for not just the Duleep Trophy but a chance in the India team... The fire is still there for them, but not for everyone. Some players are short-sighted and think that you can can actually bypass the rigours of first class cricket, through the IPL become the next Rahul Sharma... Even if a player makes a name for himself in the IPL, catches the eye, I would still advise him to get a season of first-class cricket under his belt."

That is not going to go down well on ICF. How can Chopra take a dig at one of the big 3 in Indian cricket? :omg:

[Chandan]

That is not going to go down well on ICF. How can Chopra take a dig at one of the big 3 in Indian cricket? :omg:

One of the big three?

[bulbul]

from cricinfo match report

Ramesh Powar took the usual few steps to deliver his, and the innings', eighth no-ball. Embarrassed he walked back to the bowling mark. Rubbing the sweat from his forehead and temples, first with his left shoulder followed by the right, Powar prepared to bowl again. For a moment he gathered his breath, stared at the batsman before moving in with his quick-step bowling action to deliver. This time the ball slipped out of his sweaty palm and Powar fumbled to collect it from the ground. Finally he managed to deliver successfully what turned out be a flighted ball. Abhimanyu Mithun, Karnataka's No. 9 batsman, skipped out of the crease immediately, confidently, to loft Powar over the straight boundary for a six

:hysterical:

[Mariyam]

I was going through Ranji Trophy page on wiki: The entire structure of the competition seems shambolic, to say the least. 1) There are only 4 days. In a 4 day match between two teams of average bowling and batting capacity, the team batting second has to always play out of its skin if it wants to win the game. 2) Couple that with the points structure. Its 5 for a win and 3 for a 1st innings lead. Teams would just play for an innings lead and an eventual draw instead of going for the jugular. For those good with cricket star and other cricket stats sites: could you guys do a quick search. Take a few fixed grounds- eg Kotla, Wankhede, Eden etc and compute the following: - From a given year ( eg 1970) see the number of international tests played at the venue and find the % of games where the team which batted first won. Compute the same for Ranji results at the same ground for the same time period. I've a hunch that % in a 5 day would be much more. - For the same ground, era also calculate the % of times the side which won toss chose to bat for both Intl and Ranji trophies. Here too, I'm guessing Ranji will be miles ahead. My suggestions: Re-do the points system. Reward for a win should be much higher than that for a 1st innings lead. Make the tests a 5 day affair. What difference dos it make. Its not as if people are going to stadiums to watch them anyways.

[Chandan]

Make the tests a 5 day affair. What difference dos it make. Its not as if people are going to stadiums to watch them anyways.

Tests are already of 5 days. As far as First Class matches are concerned, it can't be increased to 5 days affair as we don't have time finish all our domestic tournaments. Just go through this thread and you will get a lot of points. If you have any comments on them, do share with us!

[express bowling]

We should increase the number of ZONAL MATCHES. These matches have much better players and mainly the performance in Zonal matches should be taken into consideration while choosing players based on domestic matches. Ranji trophy and other state level competitions should be used mostly to pick players. Also,more zonal matches would make the players better and tougher than they get by playing a lot of state level matches and very few zonal matches.

[Karan114]

On Test morning, some home truths On Test morning, some home truths In Indian cricket, the difference between good and world-class is no longer apparent even to the trained eye Kunal Pradhan Posted On Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 02:20:04 AM Not so long ago, if you thought of Indian cricket as a large family, Test cricket was the equivalent of the grown-ups, or earning members, and Ranji Trophy represented the future: a school where you acquired skills for when youÃÅ be thrown into the big, bad world. Not everybody made the jump. But there was a system that tried to ensure you would have what it took if the opportunity came along. Ranji cricket was serious stuff, watched by thousands in semi-packed stadiums. How you were shaping up was monitored, performances were weighed and measured to mean something more than aggregates and averages. There are several players who never got a chance to play for India, but were respected as much as their international counterparts, first as hopefuls, and then as people who provided perspective to another future starÃÔ performance. Rajinder Goel, Padmakar Shivalkar, K P Bhaskar, Surendra Bhave, Ashish Winston Zaidi, and many others like them, were doyens of the domestic game. Scoring runs against them meant something, and taking their wicket was the yardstick of a young playerÃÔ potential. But now that the Ranji Trophy has been first diluted and then completely dissolved in a haze of meaningless runs on flat tracks, Indian cricket has reached a stage where such pointers have ceased to exist. In 2008, the Fab Four of IndiaÃÔ batting line-up was broken with the retirement of Sourav Ganguly. Perhaps the weakest of the four as a pure batsman, it was thought at the time that Yuvraj Singh, or Suresh Raina, or Virat Kohli, or Rohit Sharma, or someone else, would easily slip into the slot he had vacated. Today, three years later, India still havenÃÕ found a replacement. Last week, Yuvraj was dropped after the first two Tests against West Indies. In England two months ago, RainaÃÔ hopping and skipping against pace and movement ensured that he was immediately moved to the bottom of the list. You can blame the selectors for not persisting with players, for not giving them a long enough rope, and you can lament that players of GangulyÃÔ calibre donÃÕ come along easily. But the real problem is a deeper systemic failure wherein the difference between good and world-class is no longer apparent even to the trained eye. Here are some numbers from the ongoing 2011-12 Ranji season that might make things a little more clear: After only three rounds of matches, 38 players have scored 44 hundreds, including ten doubles and one triple ton. In contrast, only 19 bowlers have taken five wickets in an innings, of which seven have given away hundred or more runs, and 17 have gone for more than fifty. Just one bowler, left-arm spinner K P Appanna, has taken 10 wickets in a match: 11 for 107 against Railways on a turning track in Delhi. In such a scenario, where every domestic performance is rendered meaningless because runs are being scored by the kilo, and wickets are falling out of boredom and fatigue, where do you find players from? On a day when selectors are celebrating that one of their Test hopefuls, Rohit Sharma, scores 175, what does it mean when three others hit double centuries, and an all-rounder not in the reckoning for a Test slot, Ravindra Jadeja, hammers 314? How strange is it when the most encouraging news of the domestic season so far is that Cheteshwar Pujara, whoÃÔ been out for six months, will be returning from injury soon? Preparing domestic wickets where batsmen are not challenged and bowlers have no chance serves nobodyÃÔ purpose. What makes the situation alarming is that IndiaÃÔ remaining Test batsmen, the non-alliterative Fab Three, are now 38, 37 and 37 years old. Today, when Test cricket returns to Wankhede after five years, feel free to obsess about TendulkarÃÔ imminent hundredth international hundred. But also be mindful of whatÃÔ to follow when he, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are not around, and how the problem that lies ahead is of the Indian boardÃÔ own making. http://www.mumbaimirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=43&contentid=2011112220111122022011187dc03e60&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Sachin=GOD]

People (the administrators, the spectators, the premier international players etc) just don't care about Domestic cricket anymore and don't give it the importance it deserves and Indian cricket will suffer because of this.

[Sooda]

I think if anything it was worse in the past right? It was rare I think to see pacemen doing well with regularity, as they do now. Im sure in like the 90's there were far more draws. The article makes it out like somehow the standard of cricketer produced in the past was much higher than it is now, when that is not the case. Our younger players are better than they ever have been -and if they may not be as 'ready' as we would like it is because they do not play abroad as much as they could prior to a senior cap. The names he mentions were fine domestic players, I know he is giving examples but that is like 6 or 7 names going back since the 60’s- there have been a few but not been too many of these stalwarts who made the domestic game of a high standard and unlike the past the best test players play very little Ranji cricket. His point holds true of course-too many flat tracks and easy runs scored. Which is why along with better tracks A tours to sort the men from boys are a must. That is what England do really well- a very active Lions programme.

[rkt.india]

I think if anything it was worse in the past right? It was rare I think to see pacemen doing well with regularity, as they do now. Im sure in like the 90's there were far more draws. The article makes it out like somehow the standard of cricketer produced in the past was much higher than it is now, when that is not the case. Our younger players are better than they ever have been -and if they may not be as 'ready' as we would like it is because they do not play abroad as much as they could prior to a senior cap. The names he mentions were fine domestic players, I know he is giving examples but that is like 6 or 7 names going back since the 60ÃÔ- there have been a few but not been too many of these stalwarts who made the domestic game of a high standard and unlike the past the best test players play very little Ranji cricket. His point holds true of course-too many flat tracks and easy runs scored. Which is why along with better tracks A tours to sort the men from boys are a must. That is what England do really well- a very active Lions programme.

good post. If players from past were so good, we would have been dominating teams.

[Karan114]

Fair point about him over romanticizing the past, Sooda.

His point holds true of course-too many flat tracks and easy runs scored. Which is why along with better tracks A tours to sort the men from boys are a must. That is what England do really well- a very active Lions programme.

Absolutely. I remember even way back in early 2006, Alastair Cook was flown from the West Indies where he was playing in an England Lions series, and they've only stepped it up with regular, intense cricket around the world since then. Iirc the likes of Trott were also scoring prolifically at that level before being taken into the Test side.

[Malcolm Merlyn]

ASHISH WINSTON ZAIDI what a waste of talent.......Watched him 1st in 1997 when Espn showed a domestic match and he was bowling.Nice side on action and had pace.Was reversing the ball a long way.Was said to be the fastest bowler in India during mid 90s.Never got a chance as he played for a minnow team then. I remember in 2000,when Yuvi scored that 80 odd versus AUS in Kenya,he was asked about how he felt facing Lee.He said i had faced Zaidi in ranji and there was not a lot of difference.

[saneindian]

ASHISH WINSTON ZAIDI what a waste of talent.......Watched him 1st in 1997 when Espn showed a domestic match and he was bowling.Nice side on action and had pace.Was reversing the ball a long way.Was said to be the fastest bowler in India during mid 90s.Never got a chance as he played for a minnow team then. I remember in 2000,when Yuvi scored that 80 odd versus AUS in Kenya,he was asked about how he felt facing Lee.He said i had faced Zaidi in ranji and there was not a lot of difference.

In fact there were two of them AW Zaidi and Obaid Kamal, both played for UP. Used to pick truckloads of wickets but never got their due. On Zaidi, remember reading about him in the late 80s when he picked 9 wickets in an innings in a u-19 test vs Pakistan. Was spoken of very highly. IIRC Waqar Younis also played in that series and was called for Pak national side immediately after that ,whereas Zaidi never got that call from the selectors. First it was Ankola, Wassan and Razdan and later Prasad, Kuruvilla, Jhonson and Ganesh who kept him out of the team.