The ‘A’ matches conundrum: to play or not is the question Today Sports News

These are extremely busy times in Indian cricket. Just a couple of days back, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led women’s side rewrote history with their maiden 50-over World Cup triumph. The men’s team, under the stewardship of Suryakumar Yadav, is engaged in a pitched battle for honours against Australia in a five-match Twenty20 International series that’s coming on the back of a three-game One-Day International showdown.

A Rising Stars outfit will leave next week for Qatar to play in the T20 Asia Cup for emerging players while domestically, the Ranji Trophy is in full swing. The men’s Under-19 Challenger Trophy, which assumes significance owing to the World Cup next year, kicked off in Hyderabad on Wednesday, while the senior women as well as the men’s and women’s outfits in different age-groups are also simultaneously in action.

Big faceoff

The big faceoff is a little over a week away. For the first time since they were crowned World Test Champions, South Africa will challenge India in two Tests, in Kolkata from November 14 and in Guwahati, which will host its first ever Test, from November 22. The promise of a stirring contest lingers; for a decade and a half from 1996, South Africa were the most competitive overseas group on Indian soil before going off the boil, but armed with their first solid piece of global silverware, Temba Bavuma’s men will be confident of reprising New Zealand’s heroics of last year.

While a weakened South African side is currently in Pakistan playing white-ball cricket, some of the Test stars, including Bavuma himself (returning from injury), are in Bengaluru with the ‘A’ team. In the first of two unofficial ‘Tests’ that ended on Sunday, India ‘A’ pulled off a three-wicket heist in Rishabh Pant’s comeback to competitive action.

The ebullient wicketkeeper-batter showed no signs of rust while slamming a fluent 90 in the second innings, reiterating that he has recovered completely from the fracture sustained when he inside-edged a Chris Woakes reverse sweep on to his right foot in Manchester in July.

The second and final ‘Test’ will begin at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence ground, on the outskirts of Bengaluru, on Thursday (November 6). While it will allow Bavuma to ease into gameplay and get used to Indian conditions to the extent that Bengaluru can reprise Kolkata and Guwahati, it will also facilitate several of the Indian Test regulars refamiliarising themselves with red-ball action ahead of the vitally crucial Test series.

Predictably, there were no surprises when Ajit Agarkar’s panel named the Test squad on Wednesday evening. Except N. Jagadeesan and Prasidh Krishna, everyone who was part of the 2-0 sweep of West Indies last month has been picked again.

In the three weeks since the Delhi Test ended on October 14, some of those who were part of the West Indies series have played for their respective states in the Ranji Trophy – Ravindra Jadeja for Saurashtra, Yashasvi Jaiswal for Mumbai (on his return from Australia, where he was in the ODI squad without getting a game), Devdutt Padikkal for Karnataka. Others, like opener K.L. Rahul, took a break. Some others travelled to Australia as part of either the ODI or the T20I squads or both.

Those who haven’t had any taste of the longer format in the last three weeks and who are not currently in Australia will form a majority of the Pant-helmed squad for the second ‘Test’. That makes sense; for all the familiarity with home conditions, it is imperative to get into red-ball mode before the actual Tests, which therefore explains the inclusion in the side for this game of Rahul, Dhruv Jurel (who kept wickets in the West Indies Tests when Pant was unavailable) and the pace duo of Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh, who played in the ODIs Down Under.

A late inclusion is Kuldeep Yadav, the left-arm wrist-spinner who was one of the bowling heroes in the rout of the Caribbeans. In his first Test match in 50 weeks, Kuldeep took four wickets in the innings victory in Ahmedabad, then brought all his guile and craft to bear against a more resilient batting unit in the next outing at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. On a singularly unresponsive surface that went to sleep on the first morning, never to wake up for the next 100 hours, Kuldeep found ways and means to outwit the batters, snaffling five wickets in the first innings and adding three more in the second to win the Player of the Match award.

Kuldeep was released from the T20I squad after India’s comfortable, series-levelling victory in the third game in Hobart, an outing for which he was benched. In the previous fixture in Melbourne, he had been taken for 45 runs in 3.2 overs. With Varun Chakaravarthy, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel available for selection, the Indian team management decided Kuldeep would be better off getting several red-ball overs under his belt, given the pre-eminent role they expect him to play over the next three weeks.

All of this makes so much sense. These ‘shadow’ tours are invariably seen as preparatory exercises for the visiting team but in this instance, the hosts will benefit equally, at the very least.

The squad for the first ‘Test’ in Bengaluru wore a different look, with young Mumbai opener Ayush Mhatre, the Under-19 captain, featuring alongside Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper Jagadeesan, Madhya Pradesh’s Rajat Patidar, Ayush Badoni of Delhi, the pace duo of Anshul Kamboj (Haryana) and Yash Thakur (Vidarbha), and Madhya Pradesh off-spinner Saransh Jain. Realistically, and with no disrespect, none of them can aspire to make it to the Indian side for the South Africa Tests. Patidar (against England at home last year) and Kamboj (disappointing on debut in Manchester) already boast Test caps and Jagadeesan flew out to London as the reserve stumper to Dhruv Jurel for the decider at the Oval in July. But they, and many of the rest who were part of the squad for the first encounter against South Africa ‘A’, would have known that even a double-hundred or a seven-wicket haul wouldn’t have counted for much when it came to Test selection.

Which begs the question: Would it have made more practical sense for them to have represented their respective states in the Ranji Trophy, where potentially, the stakes are higher and the race for qualification to the next phase is gradually beginning to hot up?

This isn’t a one-answer-satisfies-all query. One is not even sure what the protagonists concerned themselves feel about this.

To play/be picked for India ‘A’ is generally considered the ultimate evidence that one isn’t far away from making the next step up, to the national team per se. Before the ‘A’ structure was concretised, that privilege lay with the Duleep Trophy and the Irani Cup, both of which now sadly are struggling for relevance.

The Duleep Trophy, in particular, has undergone so many revamps that it is hard to keep track of what format is being used which year. The timing of the Irani Cup would indicate that it is often viewed as a formality that must be gone through and not the one-time marquee event that pitted the Ranji Trophy champions against the best of the rest in the country.

To break into the ‘A’ team isn’t just an acknowledgement of one’s performances domestically but also a message to stay fit and relevant because… But that because isn’t going to come in a hurry, owing to the fact that after the South Africa Tests, India’s next assignment in the current WTC cycle isn’t until August in Sri Lanka. Admittedly, there is talk of a one-off Test against Afghanistan at home sometime next summer, possibly after the IPL, but even that is unlikely to see a profusion of new faces, given again the pressing need to put white-ball instincts in cold storage with a first visit in nine years to Sri Lanka looming.

How does playing (or being in the extended squad but not playing) for India ‘A’ weigh against certainly playing for their states in the Ranji Trophy? Again, it’s the players themselves who will be able to give the best answer, and again, it is unlikely that everyone will have the same answer. The states themselves would have loved having their superstars back – Tamil Nadu are struggling to stay afloat in Group A, with just four points from three outings, though Madhya Pradesh and Delhi are slightly better off in Groups B and D respectively with nine and seven apiece.

The unavailability at crucial stages of key players affects state outfits in more ways than just the obvious. It not only deprives them of class, quality and pedigree, it throws their balance off kilter and forces personnel changes that wouldn’t have emanated otherwise. Some teams that don’t have depth are affected more badly than the others and while states generally don’t grudge their players playing at a higher level even if it hurts their own prospects, it’s not hard to see why they might occasionally feel hard done by.

There’s been a raging debate about the purpose of these ‘A’ games. One group is of the firm belief that it shouldn’t just be an opportunity for the internationals to turn up and use it as a means of preparation, because that will undermine, if not belittle, the achievements in domestic cricket over a sustained period of those knocking on the doors of national selection. What is the incentive, this group asks with justification, of putting in the hard yards at the domestic level where, beyond the immediate stakeholders and the well-wishers of the players themselves, no one is around to watch them plug away uncompromisingly? To be picked for India ‘A’ is an endorsement of their accomplishments, a recognition of their successes for their states.

This isn’t a state versus country debate and maybe this conundrum will not be commonplace going forward, but it has nevertheless thrown up an interesting talking point. To be allowed to play for one’s state with high collective stakes, or to be picked to represent India ‘A’ to further their individual cause? What say you?