Vijay Hazare Trophy: Elite question on the plate

One-sided contests between North-East sides and Elite teams in the Vijay Hazare Trophy raise a debate if newer teams should play biggies in the league stage

Lop-sided matches

And it’s a six! This short and simple expression delivered in an exhilarating tone by the commentators of yore, be it on TV or on radio, sent audiences on a roller coaster ride of emotion. You felt visceral joy if you supported the batsman who had deposited the ball into the stands, or endured unbearable pain if your favourite bowler happened to be at the receiving end. Or you just marvelled at the shot if you were a neutral supporter.

When Rahul Dravid hit Allan Donald, arguably the finest and fastest bowler of that time, for a six in an ODI during India’s tour of South Africa in 1997, the bowler was furious while the Indian fans were pleasantly shocked. It was such a rare occurrence. When Ajay Jadeja dismantled Waqar Younis, one of the world’s premier fast bowlers at that point, in the 1996 World Cup quarterfinal in Bengaluru by carting the Pakistani pacer for a couple of sixes, it was an electrifying experience once considered improbable. To this day, Javed Miandad’s last-ball six off Chetan Sharma in the final of the Austral-Asia Cup in Sharjah in 1986 hurts the Indian fan. Navjot Singh Sidhu earned himself the moniker “Sixer Sidhu’’ for his propensity to clear the fence, yet he hit only 44 sixes in 136 ODIs! Contrast this with Virat Kohli, who has 125 sixes in 262 ODIs but is considered relatively conservative when it comes to taking the aerial route.

Watching or even listening to a six being hit in a cricket match used to be an event in itself. Not anymore. In the recently concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy, Maharashtra’s Ruturaj Gaikwad clobbered Uttar Pradesh’s left-arm spinner Shiva Singh for seven sixes, including off a no-ball, in an over. But the record-equalling feat didn’t receive as much attention as it would have in an era gone by.

Hitting a six has become so routine that it evokes little excitement unless it is executed from an impossible angle like Suryakumar Yadav does. Flat pitches, shorter boundaries and better-quality bats have greatly contributed to the diminishing impact of a six in the T20 era. It’s not just the fans that have come to terms with it, but even the players have resigned to this reality. This is not too dissimilar to how big individual knocks, including double hundreds, and record-breaking team totals in the Vijay Hazare Trophy met with little enthusiasm. The reason? Those scarcely believable numbers were stacked up against teams that had no business competing against much more accomplished domestic opponents.

A few days before Gaikwad unleashed the 43-run over, Tamil Nadu batsman N Jagadeesan blasted his way to the highest individual List A score of 277. The knock came in just 141 balls, embellished with 25 fours and 15 sixes, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. TN eventually scored 506/2 in 50 overs, again a List A record, and won by 435 runs. Elsewhere on the same day (Nov 21), Kerala chased down a target of 201 in just 24.4 overs for the loss of one wicket; Madhya Pradesh raised 424/3 in 50 overs and won by 321 runs; Rajasthan amassed 390/4 in 50 overs and emerged victors by 296 runs and Maharashtra won by 183 runs after piling a total of 341/4 in 50 overs. Instead of being eulogised, these batting accomplishments were scoffed at for they came against Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram respectively.

Having come into the cricketing mainstream just five years ago, thanks to the Lodha Committee recommendations, the teams from the North-East (save Assam and Tripura) of India are among the weakest. Of course, these teams need a bit of handholding as they aspire to make it big in the most popular sport in the country, but does clubbing them along with established teams, most of which have decades of cricketing culture, serve the intended purpose?

Soon after Jagadeesan’s double hundred, India wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik, while congratulating the batsman, had questioned the logic of making the North-East teams play elite teams.

“Also on another side note... Does it make sense to have the north east teams play the elite teams in the league phase? It just topples the run rates of teams and imagine if a match against one of these teams gets rained off! Can’t they have a separate group and then qualify?” he had tweeted.

Former Bengal and Royal Challengers Bangalore wicketkeeper Shreevats Goswami, too, chimed in in support of Karthik.

“No sense at all. Moreover, teams decide to bat first against Plate teams to boost their batting average. It mentally kills the Plate teams to give away close to 400/500 runs in 50 overs,” wrote Goswami, who now plays for Mizoram, in reply to Karthik. Mercifully, the BCCI has continued with the Elite and Plate format in the Ranji Trophy and there maybe a case for following the same in white-ball cricket as well.

Former Karnataka off-spinner R Anant, who coaches Arunachal Pradesh’s U-25 men’s team, however, doesn’t find anything wrong with the current format. “I would argue that it would help teams from the North-East to understand the gulf between them and traditional powerhouses,” he began. “It will give them an idea as to how much effort they have to put in to be competitive with bigger opponents. It’s been just about five years since these teams have got affiliation and it will obviously take some time to catch up with states that have had 60-70 years of cricketing history. These teams need as much exposure as possible.”

Infrastructure is slowly taking shape in the North-East and in the absence of indoor facilities, training takes a big hit from April to September when it rains incessantly in these parts. “That’s one of the biggest drawbacks with these teams, they can’t train for months. The indoor facilities are coming up but till then, exposure trips and training in other parts of the country would help them a great deal,” offered Anant.

R Muralidhar, who coaches the Nagaland senior men’s side, concurs. “How much do the North-East teams learn playing among themselves?” asked Murali. “I would say whatever happened to these teams was for their good. Yes, I understand the flip side of some teams making huge amounts of runs which are of little use, but everyone started from there only at some point, right?”

What about players’ morale? Don’t they get demoralised after such lopsided contests? “That’s where the support staff comes in,” said Murali. “We step on the field against a big team knowing we are going to lose, which means we have nothing to lose. By playing a big team, we have everything to gain. We played Saurashtra where our players got to interact with the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Jaydev Unadkat, who shared their knowledge and experience. These are the advantages of playing established teams that you don’t have if you are playing only in the Plate division.”

It’s an interesting divergence of opinions among players and coaches, who both have their own valid points. It eventually boils down to striking a balance between providing opportunities for developing teams against established sides and ensuring that the quality of cricket doesn’t take a beating. Easier said than done though.