Cricket, Queen Of Hearts, Social Media & The Big Rohit-Virat Question

Off with his head’, orders the Queen of Hearts and off goes a head. The subjects in her queendom are at the mercy of her whims. The character from Lewis Carroll’s absurdist work Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland resembles our social media trolls baying for the blood of Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli at the moment. As usual, it’s driven by quick emotions rather than reasoned thinking.

Their anger is justified but the solution is not. In the series against New Zealand both performed miserably. A batting average in the 15 zone is certainly bad from experienced campaigners like them. And some of Rohit’s calls as captain were atrocious. Reading the pitch at the toss in Bengaluru was incorrect. Then asking for turning tracks in Pune and Mumbai was one more injudicious call. Of course, in the last Test R Ashwin should have been the night watchman instead of Mohd. Siraj.

But then all decisions of the skipper are a bit of a gamble. After the loss in Bengaluru head coach Gautam Gambhir said nobody could predict how a pitch is going to behave by just looking at it. The call can go wrong. The team treats Ashwin as a regular batsman. So the captain would have decided to preserve him for the next morning. What if Siraj had managed to hang on a few overs more? It’s great to be wise in hindsight but the truth is there’s risk involved in every decision. They can go wrong.

A good captain is also a lucky captain. Critical decisions go right for them sometimes by the stroke of luck. MS Dhoni’s many calls, including the one to hand over the all important last over in the 2007 T20 World Cup to Yoginder Sharma or coming ahead of in-form Yuvraj Singh in the 2011 World Cup final could have gone wrong. But they didn’t, and Dhoni is considered a great captain for gambles that worked in his favour. Rohit Sharma was on the wrong side of luck in this series.

However, one or a couple of bad calls should not be the end of it. The test for the team is to keep these behind and shoulder on. The real problem in the series was poor batting. It’s not about individual players but the entire batting unit. Rohit and Kohli should have led from the front, but couldn’t. What about others? India surely have a long batting order. Earlier, a batter in good touch used to carry his form through the series, scoring consistently. We find none of the players maintaining consistency these days. The collective failure somehow indicates that all the new generation of players have similar deficiency of technique. Once it’s exposed, the whole batting order collapses.

Rohit and Virat have been proven performers, delivering success to the team across formats. Rohit has led from the front with certain selflessness. He has put his neck on the line several times to put the team in a position of advantage. Yes, his overly aggressive approach to batting, which has got more pronounced in recent years, on difficult wickets attention. Virat’s role in the team’s victories earlier needs no overstating. The lovers of Indian cricket can show gratitude to both by being a bit patient.

Of course, patience is not a virtue with the social media crowd. So ‘off with his head’ it has to be. Rohit and Virat have to get the chop. The Queen of Hearts, wherever she is, would be proud. Vilified for being illogical and whimsical for ages, she would find validation of self watching them. Social media is the new Wonderland.

(By arrangements with Perspective Bytes)