Why India has never been a really top test team?

A constant debate we see Indian cricket fans have is who was a greater test match winning batsman - Sachin or Dravid? Or maybe Laxman? The arguments are sometimes statistical, sometimes anecdotal. For e.g., Sachin scored six hundreds in Aus, but not one led to a win. Dravid scored one, the monumental 233/72* in Adelaide and that led to a win. Sachin scored a 241* and we couldn't close the series. So on and so forth. Fans of each player find enough examples (statistical or otherwise) to prove that their favourite was the greater test match winner.

But you know what else happened in Adelaide in December of 2003? Ajit Balachandra Agarkar took the only 5-wicket haul of his 26 match test career. And you know what happened a few weeks later in Sydney? Kumble and the fielding unit could not bowl Australia out.

The point I am essentially making is that such debates are moot. Test matches are won by bowlers. Batsmen can at best set up a test match win for their bowlers or save a test.

And as fans of the Indian cricket team, we have enough examples of the same. Go check any test match win, and you will find a good bowling performance in every win, though not necessarily a great century in each. This is also why Kumble is actually India's greatest test match winner, though sadly not in the category of corresponding greats from other test playing countries.

Ofcourse you might say that a perfect batting line up can chase 500 every time but the number of times even 300+ chases have happened in the history of the game should tell you how difficult such a task has been for even the greatest of batting lineups.

In fact, India's very own and recent golden age of batting did not have a great record it in terms of really big fourth innings chases. But the reverse can happen. You can be a very good test team on the back of a brilliant bowling attack and an average batting line up. Naturally, to dominate the game for a longer time and remain at the top, you would need both the departments to be firing but even then, you would need definitely need a world class bowling unit as a starting foundation.

Let us look at the great WI teams of 1980-1995. Starting from after the away defeat to NZ in 1980 and ending just before the home loss to Aus in 1995, WI played 29 series with a record of 20-0-9. Of these, in the first 20 series, their record was 15-0-5. Of these 5 drawn series, 3 were against Pakistan - 2 in Pakistan and one in the WI. The other two were away in India and NZ.

So in those ten years, only one team managed to stop the mighty WI winning a test series at home, and that was Pakistan. In fact, during a 3 year spell, Imran's Pakistan held the WI of Richards and Marshall to three 1-1 draws. If you have the time and the inclination, do check the series scorecards of these three series. You will see that there are bigger names in the WI top six than in Pakistan's, but that is nullified when Wasim, Waqar, Qadir and Imran hold Marsall, Walsh, Ambrose and friends to a draw.

Look at it another way. In the last 25 years, the strongest test teams have been Aus, SA, Pakistan, England, India and SriLanka, ordered by win percentage.
(http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=percentage_won;spanmin1=15+Feb+1989;spanval1=span;template=results;type=team)

Now think of all the great players in that period. The general consensus in the batting list is Sachin, Lara, Ponting, Dravid, Kallis, Waugh and of-late maybe Sangakkara and Chanderpaul, in no particular order. The bowling list similarly would include Wasim, Waqar, McGrath, Warne, Murali, Donald, Pollock, Steyn, Ambrose, Walsh, Kumble and so on. Do see where the Indian bowlers rank in terms of averages.
(http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=bowling_average;qualmin1=150;qualval1=wickets;spanmax1=14+feb+2014;spanmin1=15+feb+1989;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling)

There is no explanation for this apart from the historically inferior quality of Indian bowling. Pitches cannot be an excuse since Pakistan and SriLanka don't have pitches which are much different. Look at SriLanka's test record for the last 25 years. It is fairly impressive for a country with only 32 years of test history. But during those 32 years, for close to about 20 years, they had one of the greatest test bowlers and look how much that helped them.

India's neighbours to the west have not had a single batsman in the caliber of Sachin or Dravid in the last 25 years. But during this period, which includes India's golden period of 2006-11, and the corresponding disaster for Pakistan, India still have an inferior win percentage. India's win-loss is better but the number of draws India have are also far higher - the result of regularly observed inability to close matches which they have dominated.
(http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=win_loss_ratio;spanmax3=14+jul+2011;spanmin3=1+jun+2006;spanval3=span;template=results;type=team)

The weakness has got so worse recently that when India prepared turning pitches against England, it backfired and led to a home series loss. This was the nadir as it took away the single solace an Indian fan had - a turning pitch with Kumble from one end and Bhajji from the other. But retirement in one case, and a proclivity to bowl flat yorkers in the other, led to this advantage also vanishing. While the optimist might take some comfort in the two recent home series wins against Australia and WI, one suspects those wounds were more self inflicted by the opposition than of our doing. I believe that if Aus were to tour India in Feb of 2014 rather than 2013, the series might have been far more competitive.

Also, really good bowlers can reduce the impact of the pitch to a great extent. During England's recent series win in India, James Anderson was cited a huge factor by both captains and the series had no matches at Trent Bridge, Headingly or Lords. Dale Steyn, Marshall and McGrath managed to influence series' in India whenever they played, and India did not roll out Barbados or Centurion for them. As we have seen recently, the pitch doesnt seem to matter to Mitchell Johnson whose best performance this summer has been at the sub-continental Adelaide.

In fact, the biggest worry for Indian fans was how they would replace the retired batting greats, and after just 4 tests away the batting already looks in fairly safe hands for the next 8-10 years. There was never a fear of replacing bowling greats, because in the true sense, India never had them - outside of Kumble at home.

The bottom line is that India could field a batting line up of Gavaskar-Sehwag-Dravid-Sachin-Pujara-Kohli and the results wouldn't look much different that they historically have, if they played against top class bowling attacks. After all, a bowler has the entire day to dismiss the batsman, whereas the batsman needs to play error free for an average of 270 balls to last an entire day. Even basic probability will tell you who has a greater chance of impacting the results.

So till such time that India can field a world class test match bowling attack, regardless of how good the batsmen are, India will remain at best an above-average, competitive test side and at worst, an absolute disaster. The likes of Kohli, Pujara and Rahane will score truck loads of runs the world over, and earn a lot of respect, but not correspondingly high test wins until India has a bowling attack which can consistently take 20 wickets.

Just like in basketball, where scoring /attacking is more fun to watch (and earns more endorsements and awards), it is on the bedrock of a strong defense balanced with good offense that wins titles and leads to true and sustained greatness - so in cricket, batting draws more crowds, popularity and endorsements, but the foundation of a truly great test match side is a strong bowling attack.

Buildings without strong foundations may look more attractive for a while, but often don't last very long.

Role of Fitness in the evolution of sport

In 2001, Ivanisevic and Rafter played in one of the great tennis matches of all time, a thrilling 5-set Wimbledon final which Goran won 9-7 in the fifth. 13 years later, the thing I find most remarkable is that it took only 3 hours from start to finish.

Almost 11 years later, Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in an Australian Open final, which also went the distance, ending 7-5 in the fifth. This match lasted nearly double the time of the 2001 Wimbledon final, setting an all time record for a tennis match at just under six hours.

Many things were different of course, from the slower surfaces of recent years, to the baseline/defense dominated games of both Nadal and Djokovic, when compared to the big-serve-and-volley games of both Rafter and Ivanisevic.

But the biggest factor for me is the overall improvement in the endurance and persistence of the tennis player over the past decade. It is not that tennis did not have counter punchers / base liners earlier or that earlier players were physically unfit, but definitely the fitness levels of the current crop of top players is like nothing ever seen before.

After all, for a match to last nearly 6 hours, both players need to be fit enough to contest the match for that long. I think the root of this trend was the search for a solution of Federer's absolute dominance over the game during 2003-07.

Rafael Nadal was the first player to solve this, by learning to defend everything that Fed threw at him, and forcing him to hit extra winners to win the same number of points. Of course, this is not to say that Nadal's tennis acumen, shotmaking ability and his mental strength count for nothing. But he first needed to be fit enough physically to be hit a winner after 4 hours of mostly defensive tennis.

Djokovic followed Nadal, and soon we saw Andy Murray too employ this method successfully. The blueprint was the same. Defend, run, defend, run, defend and then counter-attack. They turned what used to be a battle of shot making skills into a battle of attrition first and shot making then.

Similarly, in football, we have seen many teams achieve success using the tactic of pressing. Pressing is basically an aspect of the game where the player doesnt need any special footballing talent (relatively speaking). Just a willingness to work hard, stay organised and fitness. Ofcourse the teams which achieve most success with this are those who have very good players, committed to pressing but also skilled enough to make use of the ball when they have it and thus doing very well. It is different from sitting back and playing on the counter because I think pressing a more active form of defense as against sitting back, which is more passive.

In fact, even in the current season, we have seen Southampton and Roma both being successful by pressing relentlessly. Teams with better players and bigger squads manage to make it last for more than a season. Teams like Southampton struggle to make it last beyond half a season.

But the other thing you hear with pressing is, can they keep it up for an entire season? Or you hear that players get tired. Sacchi's great Milan side were tired by their third season, and they meant physically tired. Barcelona were able to sustain it for a while longer because once they won the ball back, their ability to retain it for great periods tired their opponents out, allowing them to dominate the game. But by their fourth year under Pep, they were also beginning to look tired.

Similar arguments have been around for Nadal in terms of his body's ability to cope with such demands for an extended period of time. Yes, the knees have suffered and he has been injured seriously a couple of times. But only two men in history now have more slams than him, and when he finishes, there might be no one ahead of him.

Moving on to the NBA, it is called hustle. The current Chicago Bulls' coach is known for his '100% effort every possession' theory, which some analysts critique for burning out players before the postseason. But it has also allowed the Bulls to stay afloat in the extended absences of Derrick Rose, just by the sheer ferocity of their defense, which stems from their hustle on every possession.

In fact, there are often 6-8 teams in the NBA whose starting units are fairly matched. But because the average NBA player plays around 30-35 mins per game of a 48 minute game, the quality of the substitutes becomes the difference. What if starters could play 45 mins a game? Mind you, the constraint on minutes per game is the physical limitation of the players, and not strategic alterations. It is fine to have substitutes for strategic flexibility, but that is a secondary concern at this point.

This weakness of the bench is held up as the prime reason why the surprising Portland Trailblazers are not considered championship candidates this season, despite being 3rd in the west, not the inexperience of their players in high pressure playoff situations or the heavy reliance on three point shooting which often hurts teams in the postseason, or the below average defense, again a death knell in the playoffs.

Similarly, in cricket, teams need to have a bowling attack of 4-5 good bowlers as against 3 good bowlers because typically an average fast bowler cannot bowl a spell of more than 6-8 overs. This also impacts the game from a strategic perspective, as A batting side can try to see of Steyn and Philander in the hope of attacking the fourth bowler. The batsman knows that Steyn will only be at him for 6-7 overs at best.

My contention is: what if athletes become such physical specimens that they can press for 90 minutes as a matter of routine, play 48 minutes every night for entire seasons or bowl unchanged from one end for an entire day?

I am not implying that current athletes are in any way unfit or inferior from a physical standpoint. On the contrary, I find them very impressive in their current form too but what if a generation or two from now this kind of fitness became the norm?

Djoker has become a right handed Nadal in the last 3 years. And not having the congenital problems that Nadal's foot has, he has remained largely injury free too. What these men have also done is taking tennis fitness to a new level. To compete against a fit and firing Nadal or Djokovic, you not only need the highest level of tennis skill but also the physical ability to keep at such a high level for 4-5 hours.

Look at Stan Wawrinka's recent grand slam matches against Djokovic. He not only needed to play brilliant tennis, but needed to summon it for 5 hours. It did not make for bad viewing or mechanical tennis, but on the contrary, raised the quality of play to unbelievable levels.

Such an evolution in the fitness levels can lead to strategic changes in sports. Teams will still need backups to guard against any injuries or to have alternatives in terms of playing style, but not forced to have them to essentially have fit players to complete the game. Captains in cricket will be able to plot test victories with 2 or 3 good bowlers, as long as they remained fit. NBA teams will be able to ride their starting fives to titles, or maybe have 6-7 deep rotation for an entire season.

I think it is important to point out here that we are talking of players who are already amongst the top few in the world and competing for being the best in their respective fields. A marathon runner might have the stamina to bowl 45 overs unchanged from one end, but that is useless unless he has the skill set to make it matter. The clearest example of this is David Ferrer, who is often spoken of as the fittest player on the men's tour but his obvious shortcomings (relatively speaking, again) in terms of what are traditional tennis skills (serve, shotmaking) have put a ceiling on his achievement potential.

I think tennis shows that a lot of these sports could move to a different level by advancing the physical fitness levels. Sport specific skills will always be important and decisive but the ability to display them for longer periods of time will not just elevate the spectacle, but also be the difference between success and failure at the top.