The Test test

Meet Captain-Lt. Sergei Ladanov, a Russian naval officer on a nearly identical Oscar-II class submarine to the Kursk which sank in the Northern Barents Sea on August 12 after a powerful explosion on board. He makes less than $ 250 a month, lives in a one-room tenement in the remote Russian submarine station town Zpadnaya Litsa, doesn't get to see the sun for months on end during the winter months and was just divorced by his wife because she can't live the life he lives.

Why does he do what he does? In his words, "for the country."

Is there something our cricketers can learn from him? Not a chance! Not he, not anyone with his qualities or for that matter the qualities that drive him is of any relevance to us. Why? Because Sergei has not played Test cricket.

Fine, let's meet Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, number of individual Grand Slam titles: 0. Individual ranking of the ATP circuit: inconsequential. Number of times they've done India and her millions proud: I've lost count.

How do they do it? What makes them tick? How do they deal with pressure? What is it about Mahesh that brings out the best in Leander? What is it about vice-versa? What is it about team sport that enables them to up the level of the level of their respective play by several notches? What kind of homework do they do for specific opponents? Do our 'Test-cricketer' coaches care? But then, how many Test matches have they played? Huh!

Ok, let's go Down Under and meet John Buchannan, the coach of the Australian cricket team. Ask him what his job is about and he'll tell you it's not about how many Test matches you ought to have played to coach a cricket team. It's about making the best use of the available resources and man management. The perfect cricket coach doesn't exist and anyway the game is no longer played on the field. It's more played in that little space between the ears.

And incendiary as that may sound; it does lend a certain lucidity to the coaching equation. And brings into play a quality sorely lacking in our cricket. Thought. Something, unfortunately, few of our cricketer-cum- coaches have managed to instill in our cricketers. But then, why blame them? The people who pick the team pick for so many of the wrong reasons and…err, never mind. Like anyone cares to listen. Yes, where were we? With the Australian cricket coach John Buchannan. A man his team has a great deal of respect for. And a man who respects his team just as much for what they bring to the table. And how many Test matches has John played? That's right.

So, why then do we still cling to the belief that the man who coaches the India Blues has to be an ex-cricketer? Beats me. What are the people in charge thinking? Or more accurately, why are the people in charge still not thinking?

The one thing they do seem to be doing plenty of though, is prevarication. Like when greed doesn't allow them to be decisive enough on whether they should go ahead with the 'notorious' Toronto matches or whether they should ponder just a bit more on the state that Indian cricket has been reduced to. I mean, what can be more spineless and 'look-at-us-sitting-our-big-fat-ugly-prosperous-money-grabbing-butts-on-the-fence' than waiting for the government to decide whether we should play the Toronto jamboree or not.

Maybe the buck passing that's going on when it comes to the issue of who should be picked/considered for the team from now on? Including the coach.

Is there a majority that believes the players who have been accused (including the coach) should not 'honourably' state, in the interest of the team and a game that has given them so much - presuming they still care about such things - that they'd like to not be considered for selection until the cloud over the match-fixing saga has cleared? I seriously doubt it. Of course it's probably asking for too much. Especially when you consider that the people in charge of picking the team should be actively encouraging this kind of thing. But…what honour can one expected to find among thieves. (And I won't even talk about outdated things like a conscience.)

Why are we like this? The more on sees, the more depressed one gets about the state of Indian cricket. The code of conduct has been drafted for school children. The players are gagged. The captain's powers' curtailed. The selection policies continue to be as muddled as ever. The pace of the CBI enquiry is getting painfully soporific. The IT raids monotonous and threatening to turn into yet another pointless exercise. The players' feelings' probably span from boredom, inevitability and cynicism to, maybe even, disgust. The young hopefuls thoroughly discouraged. Like we've been saying all through through, these are not good times for Indian cricket. But can we do a thing about it? Are we making sense? Naaah! How many Test matches have we played.

Avinash Subramanium