BCCI Forgets That There Is More To Indian Cricket Than Just IPL

You can help me make a decision since I am caught between two emotions. Should I laugh or cry?

Before you ask me why, let me tell you that a couple of questions have been dominating the mind from the time the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made changes to the Indian team's coaching staff and sparked the laugh-or-cry debate in my mind.

In the first place, installing former India allrounder Ravi Shastri as Director of the Indian team and sidelining the bowling and fielding coaches, Joe Dawes and Trevor Penny respectively, ahead of the limited-over series against England is an attempt to pull wool over our eyes rather than balm to hearts and souls wounded by dismal showing in three successive Tests.

It is no secret that the Indian limited-overs team is more competitive than the Test team has been for a while now, especially in overseas series. Surely, no one needs reminding that Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team has won six and lost 14 of 28 overseas Tests. Even more surely, it is the Test side that is in greater need of guidance than the squad that plays white-ball cricket.

Since batsmen M Vijay, Gautam Gambhir and Cheteshwar Pujara, pace bowlers Ishant Sharma, Pankaj Singh and Varun Aaron as well as reserve wicketkeepers Wriddhiman Saha and Naman Ojha have returned home ahead of the ODIs, and a fresh crew has flown in, it will be unfair to compare the work of the coaches who have been given a break with that of the new staff.

Besides this clumsy attempt to pull wool over the eyes of fans of Test cricket, the appointment of Indian Premier League Governing Council member Shastri as Director of the Indian team and let him pick coaching staff for the ODI team in England comes across as a classic case of not looking beyond the BCCI's favourite child, IPL and an erstwhile favourite, the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Assistant coach Sanjay Bangar and fielding coach R Sridhar both earned their place in the spotlight thanks to the run of Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2014 while B Arun, ostensibly the bowling coach now, has been with the NCA for many years now. Of course, Sridhar has also been in the NCA and, like Arun, worked with junior India teams.

If critics of the IPL have blamed the inadequate technique of the Indian batsmen against the swinging and seaming cricket ball on IPL, its proponents have cited improved fielding - not slip catching, for sure - standards as a result of the IPL. It does look like everyone, critic and defendant alike, have come to regard the IPL as the be all and end all of Indian cricket.

Shastri's interview with ESPNcricinfo's Nagraj Gollapudi – "I had no reservations about the job. I insisted on the coaching staff I wanted. I went (for domestic Indian coaches) because I felt they can contribute," he said – is a confirmation that the BCCI and its contracted commentators do not pay attention to first-class cricket in the country.

Karnataka coach J Arun Kumar would surely have done something right for the team to win not only the Ranji Trophy after 15 years but also the Irani Cup and Vijay Hazare Trophy titles in 2013-14, a rare hat-trick of titles in a season. Does his missing out on being with an IPL team have anything to do with his not landing an assignment with any Indian team?

The IPL can run on its own steam and does not need any molly-coddling from the BCCI, except to ensure that it is run in a transparent manner and stays clean. These attempts to prop up the IPL as only a harbinger of good cricket because it lets domestic players rub shoulders with international stars are little more than dramatic.

Perhaps the real solution lies in ensuring that the Test players do not show up in domestic cricket only sporadically. As a Ranji Trophy star pointed out, those who are making so much noise about the quality of pitches in domestic cricket have not been looking at the tracks in Ranji Trophy where seam and swing bowlers pose severe challenges to batsmen. Is there no cricket beyond the IPL? Are there no coaches beyond NCA?