Mike Brearley once told me about his father who had played first class cricket for both Yorkshire and Middlesex. Late in life, damaged by Alzheimer’s, he had no understanding of the state of the game or the players he watched on television. “But,” said Brearley, “he could still be moved by a well-played stroke.” I often think of this.

To be moved by a well-played stroke is a blessing, even when it may be among the last life has to offer. In the shorter formats, where the focus is on a kind of frantic, reckless batsmanship, there is still room for the elegant cover drive or the gentle leg glance.

A shot into the stands in the IPL might provoke a collective scream, but there is too the gasp, the intake of breath that greets the exquisite cover drive. For a fraction of a second, the crowd doesn’t react because beauty requires recognition before appreciation.

Beauty of a cover drive

The cover drive off a fast bowler is particularly special because it is about timing, balance, and the joy of using the bowler’s weapon, pace, against him. It is a civilised response to aggression. Sachin Tendulkar said, “When you middle the cover drive, you don’t feel the ball hit the bat.” The sound of a cover drive is gentle, and comes from somewhere deep. The stroke contains cricket’s essential contradiction: violence disguised as grace.

The great English all rounder Wilfred Rhodes continued to attend matches after he had lost his sight in both eyes. He could recognise a beautifully played cover drive purely from the sound of the bat caressing the ball.

We often make the mistake of assuming that aesthetics is about beauty alone. The IPL reminds us that beauty is only one mode of the aesthetic experience. The sublime, the grotesque, the melancholic, the chaotic, and the uncanny all belong to the aesthetic realm.

There is beauty in a cover drive that is matched by few events on a cricket field. But Urvil Patel in his record-equalling 50 off 13 balls brought to the viewer something chaotic, something desperate as he tried to hit that six or that boundary; perhaps he sacrificed beauty for effectiveness, something his team will be grateful for. Beauty is not something that grows out of cricket; it is in a player’s DNA. It is not about the sport, but about the individual.

It was said of Ranji that he was incapable of an ugly stroke. This has been said of later batters as well.

Every generation has its anointed player of grace. When I was younger, it was Gundappa Viswanath who drove past cover or cut square with elegance and control. He owned the area from extra cover to third man on the off side, often playing late enough to embarrass geometry.

He played the back cut too, a shot that had gone out of cricket. Till now, that is, when batters in the IPL seem to have revived it, admittedly less elegantly and with greater frenzy. Sometimes the ordinary can be made to look extraordinary through sheer will.

Scorecards are indifferent to aesthetics. Cardus wrote that the scoreboard is an ass. The essential difference between red-ball cricket and the formats played in white is in the attitude to the scoreboard. In the former, it is an ass; in the latter, it is everything. A boundary struck with the elegance of a V.V.S. Laxman or a Rohit Sharma fetches the same return as one that takes the edge and trickles past third man.

Long after six-hitting contests blur into one another, the perfect cover drive endures. A bent knee. A high elbow. The whisper of leather meeting willow. The ball threading the outfield while fielders are reduced to statues. We glimpse the very soul of cricket.

It is possible that, as one writer has suggested, today’s batter gets more value for the same effort (in terms of runs) than those from the past, but the spectator gets less value (in terms of beauty). In other words, tell me who your favourite batter is, and I will tell you your age!

Even the journeyman can briefly attain greatness in one stroke before slipping back into ordinariness. The well-played stroke is both possibility and fulfilment.

Mike Brearley once told me about his father who had played first class cricket for both Yorkshire and Middlesex. Late in life, damaged by Alzheimer’s, he had no understanding of the state of the game or the players he watched on television. “But,” said Brearley, “he could still be moved by a well-played stroke.” I often think of this.

To be moved by a well-played stroke is a blessing, even when it may be among the last life has to offer. In the shorter formats, where the focus is on a kind of frantic, reckless batsmanship, there is still room for the elegant cover drive or the gentle leg glance.

A shot into the stands in the IPL might provoke a collective scream, but there is too the gasp, the intake of breath that greets the exquisite cover drive. For a fraction of a second, the crowd doesn’t react because beauty requires recognition before appreciation.

Beauty of a cover drive

The cover drive off a fast bowler is particularly special because it is about timing, balance, and the joy of using the bowler’s weapon, pace, against him. It is a civilised response to aggression. Sachin Tendulkar said, “When you middle the cover drive, you don’t feel the ball hit the bat.” The sound of a cover drive is gentle, and comes from somewhere deep. The stroke contains cricket’s essential contradiction: violence disguised as grace.

The great English all rounder Wilfred Rhodes continued to attend matches after he had lost his sight in both eyes. He could recognise a beautifully played cover drive purely from the sound of the bat caressing the ball.

We often make the mistake of assuming that aesthetics is about beauty alone. The IPL reminds us that beauty is only one mode of the aesthetic experience. The sublime, the grotesque, the melancholic, the chaotic, and the uncanny all belong to the aesthetic realm.

There is beauty in a cover drive that is matched by few events on a cricket field. But Urvil Patel in his record-equalling 50 off 13 balls brought to the viewer something chaotic, something desperate as he tried to hit that six or that boundary; perhaps he sacrificed beauty for effectiveness, something his team will be grateful for. Beauty is not something that grows out of cricket; it is in a player’s DNA. It is not about the sport, but about the individual.

It was said of Ranji that he was incapable of an ugly stroke. This has been said of later batters as well.

Every generation has its anointed player of grace. When I was younger, it was Gundappa Viswanath who drove past cover or cut square with elegance and control. He owned the area from extra cover to third man on the off side, often playing late enough to embarrass geometry.

He played the back cut too, a shot that had gone out of cricket. Till now, that is, when batters in the IPL seem to have revived it, admittedly less elegantly and with greater frenzy. Sometimes the ordinary can be made to look extraordinary through sheer will.

Scorecards are indifferent to aesthetics. Cardus wrote that the scoreboard is an ass. The essential difference between red-ball cricket and the formats played in white is in the attitude to the scoreboard. In the former, it is an ass; in the latter, it is everything. A boundary struck with the elegance of a V.V.S. Laxman or a Rohit Sharma fetches the same return as one that takes the edge and trickles past third man.

Long after six-hitting contests blur into one another, the perfect cover drive endures. A bent knee. A high elbow. The whisper of leather meeting willow. The ball threading the outfield while fielders are reduced to statues. We glimpse the very soul of cricket.

It is possible that, as one writer has suggested, today’s batter gets more value for the same effort (in terms of runs) than those from the past, but the spectator gets less value (in terms of beauty). In other words, tell me who your favourite batter is, and I will tell you your age!

Even the journeyman can briefly attain greatness in one stroke before slipping back into ordinariness. The well-played stroke is both possibility and fulfilment.

The selection of Shubman Gill for the Asia Cup might be debatable. Not because he is not good enough, but because the Test series against the West Indies commences three days after the final there. He will soon be an all-format captain.

T20 has evolved quickly thanks to the domestic franchises, and what, in another field, would be called continuous research. T20 progresses in a different culture altogether. Not surprisingly, the all-format player is becoming a rarity; impactful T20 players are not necessarily automatic selections for Tests, and vice versa.

Hence the obvious question: what is India’s best all-format team? India played (and won) their first-ever T20I in 2006, against South Africa, who like them, fielded a Test team. India’s game-altering World Cup win was a few months away. The IPL was in the future. The data-crunchers hadn’t yet got into their act, and it was all seen as a bit of a hit-and-giggle affair.

Any all-format team would have to be picked from players who actually took part in a T20I, which means the Kapil Devs, and Mohammad Azharuddins who might have been automatic selections won’t make it. Admittedly, this is a fantasy team, and there is an argument for including such players on the basis of what they have accomplished in other formats, but we need to draw a line somewhere. So no Kapil, Salim Durrani or Anil Kumble (although he did play for RCB in the IPL). The inevitable arguments can begin right here!

Great opening pair

Sachin Tendulkar played that inaugural match. He made only 10 runs, but considering he ended up with another 34,347 runs in all formats combined, with a hundred centuries and 201 wickets, it will be difficult to keep him out (not that one needs to).

He opens, therefore, with Rohit Sharma, who has more runs here than anyone else, and a strike rate of 141. Gill walks in at No. 3, secure in the knowledge that everything doesn’t depend on him, and he is free to play his natural game. For following him in the order is Virat Kohli, who at one time, averaged over 50 in each of the formats, and finished with nearly 49 in T20 and a strike rate of 137.

As the format evolves further, it is likely that the top half of the batting is expected to have a strike rate above 170 or so. Often a six-ball 20 might be more valuable in the cause than a 10-ball 18, avoiding dot balls more productive. There are theoreticians and experimenters in every team, the ideologues who decide the culture. Winning is everything, but knowing how to win is crucial.

At No. 5, do we pick Suresh Raina for his left-handedness or K.L. Rahul for his ability to make a difference regardless of format, or Rishabh Pant whose best may yet be ahead of him? Rahul and Pant are established Test men, which except briefly, Raina never was. So Raina misses out.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni to follow them gives the team an important match-winner in the lower half, a wicketkeeper and captain all in one. Dhoni has been one of the finest captains in the format, with the gift of doing the unexpected as he showed in his World Cup decision while handing the ball to Joginder Sharma and changed the face of international cricket.

Providing depth

Dhoni’s CSK teammate Ravindra Jadeja follows, ensuring batting depth and a crucial spinner. At nine would be Bhuvneshwar Kumar (who once had figures of five for four in an international), to be followed by the great Jasprit Bumrah, the figure likely to be in an all-time eleven in all formats taken either separately or collectively.

To clarify, some of the players above might not be in an all-time Test XI or in an all-time ODI XI. One of India’s most successful bowlers in the format, Yuzvendra Chahal completes the line-up.

The fun of choosing all-time XIs lies in the fact that with time, some players drop out as cricket changes and those who adapt better get more successful. It is the nature of sport. Five years on, it will be surprising if half our team above retain their places.