The T20 series between India and South Africa just concluded today. It was a series that came quick on the heels of a two-month long IPL, and a busy cricket season for Team India right before that. Needless to say, Workload management is the key factor in ensuring that our best XI takes the field for all our important matches. All good with that.
But having said that, we must also understand that workload management is just one part of the story.
The other half of ensuring continued success and dominance in any condition, against any opposition, with any XI, will come from our in-house depth. How much depth we have, how much exposure can we give to our cricketers, and how many players can we identify to do justice to the India jersey?
Thanks to the IPL, we can now say that India can field two teams of its own at any given point of time, for any tournament, on any ground in the world. And by team, I don't just mean a team that can be fielded to simply make up the numbers. I mean, a team that is almost of the same level as the original team in quality and depth, almost equally competent and competitive in skills and temperament.
And with choc-a-bloc cricket in the New Normal, it is only to be expected that the all-format cricketer is now an endangered species. We might not find too many of them and even when available, we will have to ensure that the all-format cricketer is well-rested, with enough workload management in place (in other words, they must get enough rest and recuperation time between inconsequential battles to be available to win the bigger wars).
Our bench strength is easily among the best in the world. We can field two teams of near-same quality across any format, be it T20s, ODIs, or Test matches.
We have almost like-for-like replacements for all our cricketers. Come the T20 World Cup later this year, for example, we should be able to have enough players to match the skill sets of our First XI.
In another welcome development, we are fielding two Indian teams at the same time now. One in Ireland for the two T20s, and the other one will be touring England for the sole carry-forward Test match, and the T20 series with the Englishmen.
As the series with South Africa showed, even our second XI can still be a handful and match any team shot for shot, ball for ball. Even after a slow start, we managed to keep ourselves afloat from 0-2 to 2-2, heading into the decider.
As spectators and fans of cricket and Team India, it's now time to encourage them as much as we enjoy their achievements. Do well, both teams - Jai Ho!
