After a 3-0 defeat vs England India dropped to 5th place from 3rd. That’s a sign every other world cup winning team other than Australia has shown since 1980′s after winning the world cup. In fact those teams are India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
In my opinion, that’s not a surprise; neither it was expected. But there are various reasons for such a fall after winning a World Cup and remaining at #1 in tests for 2 years. Experts are there to find and discuss those reasons. Let’s not get into that business.
Key takeaways for this England tour of 2011 are -
1. India needs a strong second line bowling and batting attack. I am saying attack, because the way it works normally is second line is always considered as replacement. Only if someone from top line gets injured. That’s not how it should be. Second eleven can’t be obviously as good as first one, but it must be competent enough to face international sides.
2. India needs to provide fast wickets in domestic seasons. Of course you can’t create weather conditions like England or Australia, but one thing you can do is to leave Pata wickets aside, focus on developing good fast or either spin tracks. Gist is not to lay batsman friendly 22 yards all the time. It’s a ball game too.
3. Should we have 3 separate selection processes and teams for Test, ODI and 20-20? That can allow budding talents to groom themselves in one particular direction early at the start of careers. So we may opt for a real fast bowler who can bowl small spells in 20-20 and win a match for us or a real WALL who can defend any attack batting in test cricket. You can’t ask for everything from the same 11 people over a long period of time.
4. Should there be regulations on players to play x amount of y class matches per year.