Quality over quantity: India’s excuse that there’s no time to prepare for Test tours is wearing thin

There was no time. And now, two Tests down the line, we are running out of something we didn’t have anyway. But as Lao Tzu, the founder of philosophical Taoism, once wrote, “To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.”

It’s hard to fathom… why is preparing well for a series so difficult for the BCCI and the Indian cricket team? They might still lose, but at least they wouldn’t be acting like deer caught in the headlights of a particularly fearsome car.

We have now seen it happen for two traditionally difficult tours and more than anything the repeat of such a travesty (it is nothing less than that) indicates that the Tour, Programme and Fixtures Committee of the BCCI simply don’t know how to do their job.

But then maybe they think their job is to schedule as many matches as humanly possible in a season; maybe they think their job is to help the BCCI make even more money; maybe they think that without a match every week, international cricket will die. Yes, the outlook is that grim. It must be. It surely must be.

Talk of tour matches and the argument often thrown our way by cricketers and the BCCI is that we had no time. India usually play a lot of cricket… so much that one might even call it senseless in the larger scheme of things. But shouldn’t getting ready for a big tour be different?

India knew that South Africa would be tough. So the Tours and Fixtures Committee decided to give the team no time to panic. The Sri Lanka series ended on December 24, 2017 and India played their first Test against South Africa on January 5.

Just before the team left for South Africa Kohli was not a happy man.

“As usual cramped for time, which I think we needed to assess in future as well because we very easily assess the team when go abroad but we don’t look at how many days we have got to prepare before we go to a particular place to play. Everyone starts judging players when results come after Test matches. It should be a fair game where we get to prepare the way we want to and then we are entitled to be criticised,” he said.

By the time, the third Test came along — India found their game and Kohli’s words seemed even more valid. The feeling at the end of the third Test was that if they had been allowed to prepare better, they would have played better and maybe even won a series in South Africa.

In the third Test they showed that they are not flat track bullies and for an Indian team that usually struggles away from home, it was a huge compliment. It also raised the hope that they had a different mettle. A defeated India walked out of South Africa with their heads held high. Beaten but unbowed and perhaps a lesson for future tours had been learned as well.

Well, scratch that.

Come England, we see an improvement… if you can call a rain-curtailed tour match that. Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar was critical of the glorified practice session which saw almost everyone in the team get a run. It wasn’t played like a competitive game.

“They deluded themselves that they are in England for one month. They played white ball cricket where the bat speed is different from red ball cricket. So there was no preparation at all,” Gavaskar reasoned.

And then the second Test happened. India lost by an innings and 159 runs. More credence to Gavaskar’s theory and lesser respect for how the BCCI and the Indian team go about preparing for a big tour. But they had no time. They never do — at least that is the constant retort.

Build-up to England Tests

May 27 — IPL ended
Jun 14-18 — Test against Afghanistan, Yo-Yo Tests
Jun 23 — Leave for England
Jun 27 — First T20I against Ireland
Jul 3 — First T20I against England
Jul 12 — First ODI against England
Jul 17 — Third ODI against England
Jul 25-27 — Only tour game against Essex
Aug 1 — First Test

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble — all our greats would go out of their way to prepare for a Test tour against Australia or any other big team. Remember all the tales of batting on cement pitches with wet ball? But they still didn’t have an easy time and did this generation think they could just waltz in and win?

A stitch in time

Now, if the BCCI has no time then it has to find a way to make some if it truly wants the team to win in Australia, England or South Africa. We talk about Test cricket being the ultimate test but how do we prepare any differently for it? Do we set aside time? Do we have long camps? Do we sit still and reflect on the game?

In the past, the BCCI’s argument for playing an obscene number of ODIs was simple: they needed the money. ODIs were the cash cow. Tests, not so much. But that argument doesn’t quite hold true anymore.

The IPL contributes approximately 60% of the BCCI’s surplus of a little over 670 crore. The T20 extravaganza earned a surplus of Rs 2017 crore while the rest of the cricket (international and domestic) will contribute around Rs 125 crore.

The changed revenue pattern begs the question: Can we schedule our international tours better? Do we really need to play as many ODIs as we do? Why continue to play glorified friendlies that have little context?

The Indian cricket team is set to play 203 matches between 2018 and 2023. In this period, they are expected to play 51 Test matches, 83 ODIs and a record 69 T20 Internationals.

The 83 ODIs are way more than any other country. England and Australia will play 66 and 68 respectively. If India just bring the number of ODIs they play to the same number as England, Australia and South Africa — they will free up almost two months in their calendar. Two months that can be used to prepare. Two months that can be used to get better. Two months that can help India win.

England will play 59 Tests during the period — the only team to play more Tests than India. But they have lessened the load on their players by cutting down on the ODIs and the T20Is. It only seems logical. Give the players time to rest; time to get better; time to work on their game. Is it too much to ask that the BCCI see the sense of it all?

“The conditions will be testing but these one-and-a-half years will define Indian cricket,” Ravi Shastri had said just before the South Africa tour.

But so far — around one and a half tours after that statement — the only definition that has emerged is one of a Board that likes making money and of cricketers who have constantly sold themselves short.

And if Kohli is truly the power everyone claims he is, he could start by changing this and not his playing XI in every game.