WTC Final: Apropos Oval, there are priorities Indian cricket must set for itself

This very team that has travelled to London to play the WTC final was picked without a chief selector on board.

The odds of India escaping a loss in this World Test Championship final will be akin to a jailbreak. But if they do somehow manage a miracle, it won’t be because they went into a game this important with a plan in place.

Unlikely that a miracle will happen but let’s just get the possibility of any such thing happening out of the way for now.

Instead, let’s talk about the more important aspect of India’s Test priorities and what they’ve been like over the last two years.

·       Playing at home on rank turners or worse that simply haven’t allowed them to get into the habit of putting runs on the board.

·       Constant selection dilemmas that haven’t allowed them to settle down with an idea of what exactly are their strengths when playing away from home.

·       Not having a fully functional selection panel to work across formats.

·       Allowing white-ball priorities to influence red-ball prospects.

There’s nothing wrong in playing on strips that turn square, if it helps you win at home. What’s not good for the team is not giving your own batters the opportunity to try their hand at ‘daddy hundreds’ when playing at home. For a couple of decades at least, the opportunity to do so allowed some of India’s greatest batters to stay in the habit of constantly scoring runs.

If Test matches do not allow you that space while playing at home, not playing red-ball domestic at the cost of some white-ball cricket has begun to cost this team.

Where selection dilemmas are concerned, look at R Ashwin as an example. It’s close to a decade now that India has constantly fidgeted in understanding whether Ashwin is their match-winner overseas or not. And yet, without fail, they’ve travelled with the man on every single occasion.

Talking about selection dilemmas, let’s also bear in mind that it’s been four months now that the Indian cricket board hasn’t appointed a chief selector. In fact, this very team that has travelled to London to play the WTC final was picked without a chief selector on board and the Board hasn’t given any answers either.

When was the last time that India’s domestic circuit produced a red-ball star? Who was the last batter who made it to the Test team on the basis of mammoth runs in the Ranji and the Duleep Trophy? Mayank Agarwal?

These are questions that the BCCI, coach, captain and the team management must take the time out and answer. Regardless of what happens in this Test match, and while hoping for a miracle like any Indian cricket follower would, it’s more important right now to make a list of priorities and act on them.