The West Indians are in India but there has been absolutely no build-up to this series, such has been the glut of cricket since the IPL
Sidharth Monga07-Oct-2014A little over a month ago, England beat India in the final ODI of a series they had already lost. At the press conference, Alastair Cook thanked and said goodbye to the journalists, never mind they had been calling for his head all summer. He was not going to play the Twenty20 international two days later. There was time for humour when a journalist told him, “See you in the West Indies [England’s next Test assignment, in 2015].” Cook replied, “Oh, you are not covering Sri Lanka [England’s next ODI assignment, in December]?” Cook’s season was over and hostilities had been dropped momentarily.Around the same time India’s captain MS Dhoni was reading on his Blackberry an email briefing him about travel plans for the Champions League T20. There were to be five days between the end of the two-and-a-half-month tour of England and the start of the Champions League T20. Dhoni didn’t say goodbyes to anyone when the England tour ended. His season wasn’t over. When he won the Champions League T20, it is unlikely he would have said goodbyes. He will be back playing West Indies three days later. Nobody has had a chance to miss Dhoni or his other India cricketers.Indian cricket has no season or off-season anymore. It is like entertainment wrestling – two big shows, a reality show and two other smaller shows every week, and a big pay-per-view every month, all year round. England tour merges into Champions League merges into home season merges into Australia tour merges into World Cup merges into IPL. The consequence is that you will struggle to think of an international season in India that has begun amid such indifference. We are on the eve of possibly the least anticipated, looked forward to, and advertised season in India.Hardly anyone is talking about the series. It doesn’t help that the visiting team is West Indies, here for the third time in four seasons. Not many Indian fans are glancing at scorecards of their tour games to see which player could be a threat.It is difficult to get excited about a team that lost two Tests in just over five days on their last trip to India. A team whose batsmen keep swinging with high back-lifts even when the ball is reverse-swinging on pitches that generally keep low. A team whose best players until now were more interested in T20 leagues than international cricket. Only those with little heart will grudge a surprise from this West Indies unit, but their track record won’t make you hold your breath.This season could be a watershed in the consumption of cricket: the T20 leagues might not have become as popular as they are perceived to be, but this indifference to an international season in India is a signal that cricket all year round, combined with lack of quality opposition, could be difficult to sustain.Earlier this year, when the Big Three ushered in changes in the ICC, its new chairman N Srinivasan spoke of the importance of a well-defined home season for India. Right now, the BCCI AGM, an envelope and court cases, and the T20 leagues seem to have taken priority. Perhaps the BCCI takes for granted that the Indian public has no other form of entertainment and will flock to grounds and TV sets even if no attempt is made to build up to a season.The next contest most Indian fans are looking forward to is the tour of Australia, after yet another debacle in away Tests in England. It won’t be such a bad idea to take this West Indies series for granted from the team composition point of view too, in order to give India a chance to put up a better fight in Australia. In England, India’s key players were defeated by the conditions and the relentlessness of a five-Test series. India’s build-up to Australia will be thinner: a pair of two-day games and no other practice matches in between the Tests.A lacklustre opposition gives India room to prioritise the Tests in Australia. They should identify a few players who will be key in those conditions, and send them there for the whole of November. The BCCI could request CA to let them play in their domestic tournaments. If that isn’t possible, even club cricket would do. It is about getting attuned to how the ball behaves in Australia. And once again, it will be a side with little experience of the conditions that will enter the Gabbatoir in the first week of December. Acclimatisation has always been a big problem for India, one that has often been neglected. There is an opportunity this year to correct that.It will be a blow to the home Tests if key players are missing, but the home season doesn’t seem to be anybody’s priority this year anyway.