Has T20 cricket deskilled Indian batting?

Let’s cut to the chase. Has T20 cricket deskilled Test cricket?

Wasim Jaffer: It surely has, and it’s quite exciting too. In our time, we had to play three-day or four-day cricket. We had to score big hundreds and double hundreds to get noticed. But ever since T20 came in, at the start of a season, players’ main focus is T20 cricket. This is very unlike our time where we used to look forward to the Ranji Trophy or even the Duleep Trophy because that was the pathway. Now, IPL (Indian Premier League) provides the platform to get noticed. To be honest, if I was playing in this day and age, I would probably be doing the same. My only concern is that you should fit in all three formats (ODIs, Test cricket, and T20) and today’s youngsters don’t do that. They want to play white-ball cricket. They want to play T20 cricket. But four-day cricket takes a back seat. Those small pretty knocks of 30-40 in quick time look very good in T20 cricket, but they don’t win you games in even one-day cricket, let alone four-day cricket or Test matches. We need to instill the mentality in them that even if they want to play in the T20 way, they will still need to score hundreds to make a statement. Up until players are 32-33, when their body is still fit and strong, they need to fit into all three formats. But prioritising T20 cricket… I’ve got no problem [with it].

Jaydev Unadkat: I agree. You can’t really blame youngsters coming into the game because they look at financial security. T20 cricket has helped a lot of players and families that way. On the field, I won’t say T20 has helped or has made the job easier. When we started playing, it was always red-ball cricket, which was looked up to in terms of starting a season. No one really noticed a lot of performances in white-ball cricket. The IPL has changed the game for youngsters. I was talking to Cheteshwar (Pujara) recently about how we are seeing players who have started their cricket just watching IPL. Even until 2015-16, it was a mix of T20 and red-ball cricket. Red-ball cricket is hard work. For a bowler to bowl 18-20 overs a day, sometimes without reward, is hard work. Even batters have got to grind through phases, play out sessions, play some good spells. Those were the skills that used to be seen in extraordinary players, not just hitting boundaries. It is changing, but I don’t want players to forget that sometimes bowling an eight- or a nine-over spell — despite what your physio or strength and conditioning team has told you for managing workload — is the need of the hour. You have got to do that for your team and for playing at the highest level.

With IPL having become the epicentre of world cricket and not just Indian cricket, is it too much for old-timers to expect good-old batting to be on display in the coming years?

Wasim Jaffer: Yes, it will be non-existent. You probably won’t see a player getting a hundred in 200-250 balls. Or a player leaving a ball outside off stump over after over. You’ll see a counter-attack. Pujara is the last lot of that old batsmanship, but that (old batsmanship) is the need of the hour.

A coach will now encourage a child to attack first and then teach him to defend later. It was the other way around when I was growing up. If you teach a young kid to defend first, he will lose interest because he wants to play all those fancy shots because that’s what he has seen on TV. If you try and stop him from doing it right from the word go, he will stop playing cricket.

Today’s batters give up easily mentally. They have got fantastic shots. Australia’s Sam Konstas, for example. Playing like that in one’s first Test match… we would have not even dreamt of playing like that. But today’s generation is like that. They can go out and play outrageous shots and get 20-30. They just need to understand how to dig deep. Once they understand that, the sky is the limit because they can change a game within a session or two. To make them understand this is a big challenge for the captain, coach, or mentor.

Jaydev Unadkat: The counter-attacking game has produced a lot more results and generated greater crowds, even for Test cricket, which is important. Sometimes, as players, we don’t understand the importance of the game needing crowds because that’s where you generate revenue.

As a captain, if I see the shift from T20 cricket to Ranji Trophy, the first couple of net sessions, the batters just put the bat to everything. They have got to leave some balls outside off stump as well. They have the ability but maybe not the hunger to fight it out.

You touched upon generating support from the fans, but will it last? If Test cricket played merely as an extension to T20 cricket, why will anyone follow it over five days?

Wasim Jaffer: T20 will always be the most viewed format. Obviously older people won’t enjoy it, but for the guys who are growing up now, that will always take a front seat. Test cricket has its own beauty. It’s like a game of chess or a marathon, so people enjoy it. It’s never a straight route in Test cricket. It gives you a different high and the spectators also understand that. We saw that when India won in Gabba (2021).

Jaydev Unadkat: At Gabba, you needed a Pujara and you needed a Rishabh Pant. It’s the balance and it starts from the top. If you have the mindset of rewarding those who can grind it out and those who can play those shots, that’s where we can find the balance. I can give you an example about bowlers. We (Saurashtra) have a couple of young fast bowlers who have come in, but all they think about when they want to take a wicket is whether to bowl a bouncer or a slower ball or a yorker. When I ask them about their wicket-taking plan, they never say sticking to the off-stump line or playing with a batter’s patience.

One of the challenges young batters face is managing an array of scoring strokes. How do you make them understand to manage the shots?

Wasim Jaffer: You need to make them understand that they don’t need 12 shots in every match. Probably three-four shots and they can easily get a hundred. They need to understand that they have got all the armoury but they don’t need to use all of it. On a flat wicket, they don’t need to play a sweep shot because they can score runs by just playing straight. After they hit a boundary or a six, the best way is to take a single and go to the other end and let the other guy play the next ball. That’s the challenge for the coaches — how to get them to play 100 balls? Stopping them from playing shots is not the right way. In Test cricket, you don’t need to score at a strike rate of 150; a 60-70 strike rate is good enough.

Jaydev Unadkat: Everything comes down to balancing it out. They have to figure out the strongest four on a particular day and stick to it. The captain’s and coaches’ role has also changed in that way.

Wasim Jaffer: Today’s batters are not scared to get out. I find that very strange. If they see a ball which is above their eyeline and even if the fielders are at long off, long on, deep cover, and deep midwicket, they will still play the high-risk shot. It is difficult for them to realise that if they play such a high-risk game, they could lose the wicket and if they keep doing that for two-three innings, they are playing for their spot. They need to play that ‘low risk, high reward’ game to be successful.

What’s the way forward?

Jaydev Unadkat: There is no comparison in terms of the incentives that you get in IPL and a domestic tournament. That is not going to match. Individually, if you look at domestic cricket, they could keep incentivising how much a player gets in Ranji Trophy. But that is just the financial part; it is not the solution. I feel some players just don’t want to go through the grind. You can give them financial incentives, but you have to find ways of keeping that hunger going, of providing that motivation. [They should know] how much it means for a State to win the Ranji Trophy or to win a four-day contest.

Wasim Jaffer: I am against under-19 boys getting huge (IPL) contracts. The BCCI needs to put a cap of probably ₹50 lakh or something. A youngster getting crores of rupees if he doesn’t have a good mentor… it’s going to do more harm than good for him. And players getting selected for their potential rather than performance nowadays… [That needs to change too].

Listen to the conversation in The Hindu Parley podcast