In November 2014, after Phil Hughes tragically passed away, all cricket in Australia was suspended. The Indian team was on tour then, and received word that the Test series had been postponed by a week. The change in schedule – and unavailability of any local team for practice matches – meant that the visitors had to cope with this extraordinary situation on their own.
On the outskirts of Adelaide then, at a local ground in Glenelg, the Indian team held centre-wicket practice under the watchful eyes of then coach Duncan Fletcher. It was something they had done a year earlier in South Africa as well, when the two-day practice match at Benoni (during the 2013 tour) couldn’t start at all due to wet outfield. On that occasion, the centre-wicket area was dry enough; so two nets were arranged on adjacent wickets as the team simulated match-day conditions.
These incidents readily came to mind as news broke about the cancellation of India’s two-day game in Paarl on their upcoming tour of South Africa. It is understood that the team instead will simulate playing conditions with match-wicket training sessions during those two days (and perhaps later in the build-up to the first Test as well). A source within the team management stressed that the method of ‘preparing via net sessions on centre-wickets will prove more beneficial (than the two-day tour game)’.
What is match-wicket simulation?
During a simulated match-wicket net session, the team is divided into pairings. There may be one or two nets depending upon the size of ground, and pairs will take up positions as per batting order. For example, Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan will pair up together, while KL Rahul will pair with Cheteshwar Pujara. Virat Kohli with Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha with R Ashwin, so on and so forth. It is unlike a net session where individual batsmen take up practice slots as per batting order in the upcoming match.
Also, regular nets are rectangular, just enveloping the practice wicket. In this scenario, there is lot more open space. It is almost a 20-yard net, even more, so the batsmen can hit and run, simulating rotation of strike. Every 3-4 balls, they will either take a single, or they will change ends at the end of every over, or both.
The practice session progresses as per match timings. There will be atleast two sessions a day, starting at scheduled match time with a lunch break thrown in. It gets as close as possible to what would have been a tour game.
Furthermore, it isn’t just batsmen simulating match play. Bowlers pair up as well. Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar would take the new ball, while Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav would bowl with slightly older balls as they could be called to bowl first-change.
Spinners meanwhile wait before they get to bowl. Keeping the format and conditions in mind, they will only be called up late in the first session. After lunch, they will take up one of the two nets. At times, in keeping with a lone spinner strategy, they might pair up with a pacer as well, say Ashwin with Shami and Jadeja with Yadav.
“In match-wicket practice, you almost get a real feel of match conditions. Unlike in nets, where sometimes you don’t know where you have hit the ball, here you know precisely how and where you have played your shots. Additionally, bowlers also come out with similar intensity,” said Wasim Jaffer, who was part of the Indian team that won a first-ever Test on South African soil in 2006.
“For example, in a regular net session, there isn’t really any watch on whether bowlers are bowling no-balls. In a match-wicket simulation, they cannot bowl no balls and will thus bowl properly. It is almost like a match scenario, even though there isn’t as much seriousness in proceedings. But is a tour game against a low-grade opposition any serious in comparison?” he added.
This assertion isn’t beyond reasoning. A two-day game, such as the one that now stands cancelled, isn’t given First-Class status. It is done in keeping with requirements of the visiting team – they can field 15 players instead of the customary 11 if it were an official match. 11 of those 15 players can bat, and any 11 can field or bowl – the rules are simple. You have 180 overs to get the best out of this game. Clearly, the Indian team management feels that this isn’t good enough ahead of an all-important series and thus took matters into their own hands.
“Some times when we go abroad and play practice games, the bowling attack is not of good quality. Also, the wickets that we get for practice are quite different from what we will get for the Test series,” said Indian vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, before departing for South Africa.
“It is an important element of our preparation. So rather than playing a two-day game, where we don’t get to play high quality opposition that too on a flat wicket, we prefer facing our own pace attack on match wickets. The challenge in Test cricket is totally different and it helps us prepare better,” he added. (*Can insert BCCI tweet here about extra pacers going to South Africa to help the team)
The Scheduling Question
Any, and every, cricketer on this planet prefers game time to a net session. The mentality of a match situation, the urgency of protecting your wicket or the need to score runs, can never be reflected whilst batting in the nets. However, in a situation when the visiting side is pressed for time and needs to get all touring members up to speed, they will forego this demand seeing what suits their situation best.
Virat Kohli clearly highlighted the need for more practice time on overseas tours. Ravi Shastri has underlined the importance of adapting to conditions on umpteen occasions as well. On the one hand, you had the likes of Pujara and Ashwin go play County cricket, whilst on the other, India played Tests against Sri Lanka before the limited-overs’ schedule. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if those three Tests – even considering the flat belters at Nagpur and Delhi – had led into the South Africa tour?
“The seriousness of Test cricket can never be replicated in practice, whether a tour game or in net sessions. Essentially, it is about the feel good factor playing on match wicket. It doesn’t matter where it is a tour game or in centre-wicket practice. Also, a lot of our players have been to South Africa before. So conditions won’t be completely alien. Yet there is a desire to have better scheduling in place so they could have two 3-day games, or atleast one, ahead of the Test series,” said Jaffer.
He isn’t the first to highlight shortcomings of India’s rigorous schedule, nor will he be the last. Yet, at present, international cricket is all about adaptation. Hopefully, Kohli and company will have done so by January 5.