When India won their first World Cup — in the longer white ball format — in 1983, their heroes were the so-called “bits-and-pieces” cricketers. That was an almost-derisive term for players who could bat a bit and bowl a bit but may not have found a place in the (Test) team for their batting or bowling alone. Only skipper Kapil Dev was considered a genuine all-rounder.
This was because it wasn’t understood that the definition of ‘all-rounder’ depended on the format being played.
It was only in hindsight that experts realised players like Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Kirti Azad, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal deserved to be called all-rounders because each was capable of bowling their full quota of overs and all of them could threaten as batters in any slot. One-Day Internationals were just over decade old then and hadn’t yet attained the sophistication it would later in terms of strategy and tactics.
Thus, if a player can bowl his full quota of four overs consistently and strike a significant number of sixes, he is an all-rounder in T20 regardless of how he is classified in the other two formats.
No grooming of all-rounders
Shivam Dube is a T20 all-rounder, as is Washington Sunder. Neither got to bowl much in the IPL because of the Impact Substitute rule which is a good way to destroy all-rounders. There will be no such rule at the World Cup which means that India may have cut themselves off at the knees before the tournament. No attempt was made to groom all-rounders ahead of the World Cup.
IPL teams don’t see the need to develop all-rounders because they can substitute a batter for a bowler or vice versa. The essential difference between an IPL match and an India international — obvious, but still needs stating — is that an IPL franchise aims to win for the greater glory of the private owners while an Indian team, the responsibility of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, needs to focus on development of players both to win matches and to prepare for the future.
Even skipper Rohit Sharma has criticised the Impact Player rule, a tribute to the rule-makers’ (and television’s) belief that a match is only about hitting sixes and that’s all the spectators (and viewers) want.
But inadvertently the administrators may have stumbled upon what distinguishes T20 from the 50-over game. Perhaps T20 is currently a game of specialists while the 50-over game can accommodate the so-called bits-and-pieces players to give the captain more choices.
Specific role
There is no hiding place in T20. Each player has specific duties; responsibilities do not overlap. The format is moving closer to football where the responsibilities (and skills, obviously) of the defender are different from those of the midfielder who has a different role to play compared to the striker.
In the days before ‘Total football’, where players swapped roles mid-stream, the jersey numbers of the players told us what role they played. No. 1 was the goalkeeper, and 11 the outside left, to use ancient nomenclature.
In T20 each batting slot comes with a specific role. It is possible you might confuse a No.3 batter if you ask him to bat at No.7. He might not be prepared for that role. So ‘Total cricket’, the possible next step in the evolution of the format is some way off. It was tried to some extent by Greg Chappell with India’s 50-over team, but copped much criticism.
India’s greatest challenge at the World Cup will be fitting the right player into the right slot. Hardik Pandya is crucial to the balance if he bowls his quota in every match. Particularly since none of the first four batters (unless Dube bats at four) is expected to bowl. This has been a weakness of the Indian team in recent years.
Both in 1983 and in 2007 (inaugural T20 World Cup), India were surprise winners, having gone into these tournaments without much hope or much planning. Since then, the IPL has provided the platform for new ideas and regular innovation. But 17 years is a long time to wait for a repeat in T20, especially for a team which is often (as now) the top ranked in the format.
