Taking Indian Cricket Forward - Part 5

‘A’ Tours

Jaidev Unadkat, 18 years old, made his first class debut last week against WI ‘A’. He represents India ‘A’ after he was picked to tour England. And he made rapid strides there, picking up 13 wickets! Not a bad return for a debutant! What does this show? Unadkat would not have dreamt in his wildest dreams that he will play his first-class debut in England. What a start! He can now go from strength to strength and hopefully develop into a good fast bowler.

All this is the result of BCCI’s decision to send an ‘A’ team to England. So well done! Make it more frequent so that you can develop players. That will give them more International experience and improve their knowledge towards attaining the peak.

As told in Part 1 of the series, players playing domestic cricket most often tend to develop a false sense of security. Performing in MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai is completely different from Trentbridge, Nottingham or WACA, Perth. A player who scores a double hundred in flat Chennai track will find that he is in Jupiter when he plays in Nottingham where the ball swings always!

All these can be found only when a player tours the country early on in his cricketing career! He should make it into the ‘A’ team and get valuable experience. Then he can shine at any level without any fear.

Virat Kohli averages close to 50 in ODIs which is a magnificent stat. How did he make it to the Indian team? Kohli who made his first-class debut for Delhi when he was 17-18 was a consistent performer for his state. That didn’t take him into limelight. It was the Australian tour where he was outstanding in the EMERGING players’ tournament. He was terrific in Melbourne, Sydney etc. against the ‘A’ teams of Australia, SA and NZ. In India’s tour of SL later that year, Kohli was onboard. This is just one such example. There are many, including India’s captain cool MS Dhoni.

It was a tri-series in Kenya which made MS Dhoni famous. India ‘A’ played against Kenya and Pak ‘A’ and MS Dhoni came up with outstanding knocks against Pak ‘A’. He hasn’t looked back since. From being a modest boy in Ranchi playing Ranji for Bihar,(which later separated), he has become the poster boy of Indian Cricket and he hardly plays for Jharkhand now!

Importance of ‘A’ tours doesn’t stop just there! A player will never say again that he is new to swinging or seaming conditions if he had been part of the touring ‘A’ side. Young Kevin Pietersen dominated when he toured India as a part of the visiting ‘A’ team then. Look where KP is now! He excels in all the situations, regardless of the conditions prevailing in the touring country.

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly all played together ever since they were 16-17 years. For India U-17, U-19, India ‘A’ and later the national team! They formed the best Indian middle order ever. All these were due to the base of playing more ‘A’ tours!

Sadly, of late we don’t see that many ‘A’ tours. Atleast now we have seen Unadkat performing in England even before performing for Saurashtra. This will make him only stronger and Wasim Akram’s words that he will do big shall come true if he carries on!

It’s high time there are more tours of this kind. One thing that came out of the Zim tri series is the debutants’ knowledge gaining. Dinda, Vinay, Umesh and Ashwin would have all learnt a lot by playing against a reasonable SL and an International Zim side. They’ll all have a different mindset when they approach their game. Thanks to the seniors’ decision to rest, it happened. It can also happen if there are more foreign List A tours without the decision of the seniors.

It will be always appreciable if BCCI begs for more such tours with CA, CSA and ECB rather than pleading them to agree to a different schedule. What do you say?