Is Team India’s bench strength actually a weakness in ICC tournaments?

Kolkata: Just like millions of others, I too sincerely wish for an Indian triumph in the 2022 T20 World Cup, it’s really been too long. While secretly lamenting the obnoxious overflow of talent, which truly makes selection a challenge for the finest AI software, forget mere humans.

To present my case, I must suitably rewind to 1983, 2007 and 2011 and no prizes for guessing the triumphant connection. The fellows representing the nation were clearly the best in class, with insignificant others destined to Ranji, Duleep and Deodhar Trophy existences. Positions in the outfit were difficult to acquire and those who made the cut, hung on to it for dear life, as if Nehruvian sustenance.

In 2022 and indeed the precursors in 2021 and 2012, the situation is grossly different, abundant being the delirious codeword. Culprit Number One is indeed the IPL, which has spawned a set of prolific performers who excel in muscle memory and of course, in enviable acumen. They are like ebullient gladiators in a Roman coliseum, blessed with individual virtues that make them worthy of a Filmfare magazine cover photo, if it still exists.

But teamwork is ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ and not just any other piece of Pisces and that is where the debate resides. Indian Cricket is currently like a Cecil Rhodes fiefdom, with diamonds adorning even the washbasins of the headquarters. However, quite like De Beers or the Armenian jewelers of Calcutta, they need leadership, the celestial ability to distinguish faux from genuine, and that is where we possibly fail.

The instance of Vijay Shankar in the 2019 ODI World Cup is rather ripe, projected flamboyantly by selector Prasad as a 3D player, rated above the minority skills of Ambati Rayudu. Interestingly, Dinesh Karthik found a place or two in critical knockout games, failing with humble sincerity. The Mafiosi definition of finisher sounds rather romantic but the reference to context with MS Dhoni is suitably flawed, as the latter was also the middle over genius. In this altar of prescriptive analysis,  Sanju Samson is exiled to the backwaters, while Rishabh Pant can enjoy the entertainment upside of Down Under.

The biggest point I wish to make is that an excess of options may not always be a great thing, in the selection of restaurants or cricket teams. It puts abnormal pressure on a bunch of marginally educated emotional cookies, who mostly endure enormous unclaimed baggage from their own playing days. I have long believed that selectors need enormous counselling, to delink their personal frustrations from the current mandate, and Chetan Sharma is a valid case in point.

In 2022, as well, a whole host of potential gladiators were excluded from the outfit, in deference to traditional thinking, which was quite remarkably demolished in the 2007 World Cup triumph. Goaded by somebody significant, I forget who, the troika of Sachin, Saurav and Rahul skipped the tourney, possibly learning from the terrors of the West India ODI World Cup. As a result we had a spiffy team, filled with attitude and skill, who were perfectly equipped to replicate Kapil’s Devils.

The evidence is staggering as we look back to India’s large-stage victories, and I do not mean the petty bilateral triumphs. In the 1983 edition, Sunil Valson did not get a single game but he was uncapped both before and after, and in the 1985 WCC triumph in Australia, the underwhelming Ashok Malhotra did not get a bat while Manoj Prabhakar was still work-in-progress. The contrarian logic to limited choice is actually abundant focus, and in an era of limited sporting conflicts, that was clearly the secret sauce.

In 2022, however, we are a de facto First World nation and blessed with the multiplicity of evolved abilities, and thus a theoretical first-grade talent pool of almost fifty candidates, and I exaggerate just mildly. But the skill to truncate this demographic abundance to a functional set of performers, who can operate in gestalt mode, requires skills of the finest caliber. That is where selectors of earlier era sensibilities like Sharma and his team are certainly under-equipped, operating from defunct zonal loyalties.

As mentioned upfront I dearly wish India to win but I fear that we may come out marginally short, largely due to manpower identification and not much else. The problem of plenty can often be way more challenging than the perils of penury and there is sufficient evidence in the annals of time, sporting or military. Else Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army of 50,000 would not have been defeated by Robert Clive’s paltry ensemble of 3000, or the undefeatable French forces not be vanquished by the German blitzkrieg.

Make no mistake, the fertility of our cricketing crop is a major blessing and we must help it thrive. While applying the finest infusion of technology, Artificial Intelligence may be a shallow term, to decipher our most prolific combinations for the multiple challenges. A combination of skills, results, mental health, fitness and indeed gestalt (1 + 1 =3) must be invited to the party, and this is a challenge that a patriotic tech geek must accept.

In an armchair cricketing career spanning over 40 years, the most perplexing thing I have ever seen is the elevation of Axar Patel in the Pakistan encounter, with no viable precedent. Certainly, a good reason as any to sincerely consider a few of the thoughts I have suggested emotionally, unblessed by even a preliminary sporting ability.