2 November, 2000

Good day all, and welcome to another Wednesday.

A day which, like the curate's egg, has its mixture of good bits, and bad.

The good bit is obviously the CBI report, especially those parts relating to those Indian players who are now being officially deemed suspect (not guilty yet, mind you, because 'guilt' can be established only by a court verdict -- and it seems unlikely that this case will ever get to court).

Another good bit is that the CBI has come up with a scathing indictment of the BCCI and its mode of functioning. And quite squarely blamed the official body controlling Indian cricket for the mess the game is in today.

The bad bits, though, are the areas the CBI does not touch on, or if it does, only briefly. For instance, while Kapil Dev has been given a clean chit -- in the sense that the CBI says there s no evidence of his involvement -- it does not mention whether any follow-up was done on the properties that the former Indian captain has undervalued, as per the IT authorities, to the tune of over one crore rupees. Where did that money come from? We would like to know -- if only because we don't, having started the process of cleaning out our cupboards, want to leave any skeletons behind to rattle later.

Having just finished the process of helping to key in the whole report, for upload, I'll leave a detailed analysis for a later date. And focus, today, on something that has been bothering me a good bit of late.

Recently, a reader from Pune Pune took me to task, in blistering language, for failing to give credit where it is due. You have, he says, been quick to criticise various players for various failings. And yet, you have never, in the last two years, had a good word to say for the one player in this team who has always given his one hundred per cent, who has played his heart out in game after game, and who continues to set an example to the younger ones with his commitment.....

And so on -- the above is a precis, shorn of some of the more objectionable language.

The reference is to Robin Singh. And the reader is at least partly correct. I have, in the past, written panegyrics to Robin, but not in the last couple of years. And that is perhaps because there is, mixed in with the emotionalism that people say is my main character trait, a strong, even perverse, streak of the practical.

Yes, I know the official party line -- in fact, it has been expressed, with supreme eloquence, by both Harsha Bhogle and Avinash Subramaniam, my fellow columnists, in the Rediff cricket section.

From reading Harsha and Avi, I know that Robin Singh has a heart larger than that of a hippopotamus. That he is the only one who consistently gives his 100 per cent. That he is the ultimate team man. That he is such an unparalleled asset to the side, that it might even be an idea to bring him into the Test team.

And yet, even as I read all those words of praise, something didn't sit right. Somehow, I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing, through long days and nights of ball by ball commentary, with what I have been hearing from the analysts.

While I will agree that Robin is all heart, what I couldn't quite digest is the unquestioning acceptance of the corollary, that he is of immense utility value to the side.

Let me see, now -- what do we want from a number six?

Ideally, he should be an all rounder. Capable of bowling five good overs minimum, and more often than not pitching in with the full ten overs. Since I just got done watching Pakistan play England (make that outplay) just now, the names that readily spring to mind are those of Abdur Razzag, Azhar Mahmood, and possibly even Shahid Afridi, as players who fit that bill.

Further, I would require batting ability of a very versatile sort. If wickets fall early, the number six has to be capable of consolidating, of batting out the remaining overs with the lower middle order, and the tail, for company. If on the other hand, the team gets off to a good start and number six comes in anytime after 38 overs have gone by, he needs to be capable of instant acceleration, at over a run a ball, to provide the late surge.

And yes, he needs to be a very good fielder -- but then, does that last not apply to all 11 members of the side? I have never yet heard of a player who didn't need to be a good fielder, have you?

With this basic premise, I went looking through the records. This is what I found:

Robin Singh's career stats: 135 matches, 2321 runs at 26.08 and 69 wickets at 42.72.

Straight up, you feel a wistful longing -- if those averages were the other way around, he would have been a fantastic all rounder, perhaps one of the greatest ever. But never mind that.

I then checked his statistics for a two year period from October 1998 to October 2000. The result: 75 matches, 1322 runs at 25.42 runs and 28 wickets at 48.71.

In other words, in the two year period under review, he has played more than half his total matches. His batting average has deteriorated by one point, his bowling average by six points.

I did some more digging, to find the stats for the last 12 months (October 1999 to the just completed Sharjah outing). The stats: 36 matches, 644 runs, 23.85 and 7 wickets at 78.86. (An immediate reaction would be to say that Robin hasn't bowled much lately -- which, however, is not quite true, since in the period in question, he has bowled over 100 overs, 706 balls being the actual figure).

Check those three sets of statistics in sequence. Does it present a picture of steadily diminishing returns with both bat and ball?

Ah, but! Robin Singh, proponents of the party line will go, comes in late in the order, and therefore is likely to lose his wicket cheaply in the quest for big hits. On the fact of it, that goes against the norm. Take Michael Bevan, for instance, in the period before his promotion to number four -- his average threatened to go through the roof, simply because he, by virtue of coming in the end overs and playing that phase of the game to perfection, was very rarely out.

But never mind that -- Robin Singh is not Michael Bevan (I am tempted, here, to add an alas!). So let's examine Robin slog over virtues in isolation, not in comparison. If not a hefty average, what else do you expect from an end overs performers? A healthy strike rate, right?

Right! For the period 1-11-1998 to 31-10-2000, Robin Singh's strike rate is 68.82. In that time, he has played 39 games.

In the same number of games -- 39 -- another batsman has scored 1524 runs, with 5 100s and 8 50s. At a strike rate of 73.73.

He is Rahul Sharad Dravid -- the player we say is unfit for one dayers because he scores his runs so slowly.

Huh? The slowest scorer in the Indian team has a strike rate better than our best finisher?

Now then, you tell me this -- what justification is there for the national selectors, time and again, to pen down Robin Singh's name as the first player picked, any time they sit down to pick a one day squad? Does he deserve a permanent place at the expense of so many young lads who are wearing out their knuckles knocking on the doors of Indian cricket?

There was a time when Laxmi Ratan Shukla was being looked at as the brightest talent on the horizon. Today, he languishes for want of a berth. Reetinder Sodhi is, according to all the pundits, one of the young men on whom the future of Indian cricket will depend. But he will have to wait, won't he, while we continue to sacrifice reason on the altar of emotion?

We talk of the hype that surrounds cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble.

How about this?

Is it time, do you think, to get ruthlessly practical?

Meanwhile, have a good day, folks... be back with you tomorrow...

Prem

Mail Cricket Editor