In the middle of the pandemic, with most of the sporting action behind closed doors, it has become pretty important to look after the mental aspect of the players, officials and others. Some of the top players have spoken about this problem. Eoin Morgan, Jofra Archer and Mark Nicholas had written a beautiful piece about how threatening life in a bubble will eventually prove to be. Now, the Indian captain, Virat Kohli, has commented that the length of any tour must be limited within the bubble. Elsewhere, Ganguly has opined that India will not be having any problem in trying to negotiate the Kookkabura ball during the Adelaide day and night test. Let’s talk about Kohli’s concern about bubble and Ganguly’s confidence.
Responsibility on the players
A lot of players in the ongoing IPL have spent more than 60 days in the bio-secure bubble. That is 60 days of absolutely no contact outside of the bubble. This is absolutely mindboggling number. These are the situations that leads to depression. Except for Pujara and Vihari, every one of the Indian team who will be touring Australia are playing the IPL. It means that all of them have been in the bubble for more than 60 days. The players will fly directly to Australia from UAE for a full length tour that extends for another 2.5 months. This is an exceptionally long period to be in a bio-bubble. Some of the Australians too like Steve Smith & Pat Cummins will also be in such an extended period of bubble assuming that they will be playing in all the tests.
In such situations, it is absolutely important the entire squad, be it IPL squads of the national squads, gels well with each other. They will have to ensure that there isn’t any hard feeling or animosity amongst themselves. Ofcourse, there are bound to be differences amongst the players over the course of such a long period but they will have to clear their differences immediately and get back to being friends. It is only the players who will have to support themselves in such trying circumstance.
Kohli’s concern about the bubble
Kohli has voiced his opinion about the bubble. He wants a limited on the length of a series and tournaments..
“These things will have to be considered,” he said. “Like what length of the tournament or series one is going to play and what impact it will have on players mentally to stay in a similar environment for 80 days and not do anything different.
“Or have space to just go and see family or small things like that. These things have to be thought about seriously. At the end of the day, you want the players to be in the best state mentally, based on how they’re feeling. Those conversations should take place regularly.”
What Kohli says absolutely makes sense. It is impossible to be in the bubble for way too long. With the Australian tour, that is an enormous time. This also raises the question of why have a full blown IPL instead of a short one? BCCI must answer this. Do they feel that the welfare of the players is less important than making a few millions? There should be provision to visit family and friends. Maybe a pre-defined date and time can be provisioned. Everything must be done by the boards to ensure that the players are free to concentrate on their game and entertain the public. It is afterall the players who the public pay to watch and because of whom some of the boards are raking in millions of dollars.
Now Sam Curran feels the that the bubble is taking a toll of the players. That is a growing list of cricketers who are voicing their opinion about the bubble. I am certain that the boards, probably with the exception of BCCI, will listen to the players grievances and will do something about it.
Ganguly’s confidence
India will play their first day and night against a better side in the first test at Adelaide. The Australians are boasting of a formidable pace attack aided by the more than decent Nathan Lyon. India too have a decent pace attack though with in the likely event of Ishant Sharma not playing, will miss out on experience. The difference here is that Australia are playing at home and they have already played lot of day and night tests at Adelaide and they know what to expect. India played only one and that too against Bangladesh in India. So India is somewhat handicapped come the first test.
“They played with it in India. They will be fine, don’t worry. Players got used to the white ball and, ultimately, they will be fine with the pink ball, too,” he said.
“There will be a tough phase in the day [the second session] but they will get used to it”
Whether Ganguly is complacent or over confident only he can tell, we will come to know in another 6 weeks but it is a fact that the BCCI failed to arrange for a day and night first class game in Australia which would have given the team the much needed exposure. Hopefully, Ganguly is proven right and the Indian team will be able to adjust to the conditions pretty quickly.
Conclusion
There are lot of expectations from this tour. Australia will be at their imperious best. It remains to be seen whether the Indians will be able to match upto them. The lack of meaningful practise scheduled before the all important test series will prove to be a problem. One good thing is that by the time the test series starts, the players will be well acclimatised to Australia. Indians have a box to tick. Winning a test series in Australia against the best Australian side that they can showcase. Only then, there will be some sort of legitimacy to their claim to be the absolute number one ranked team in the world as and when we achieve that ranking.
Other topics related to the Australian tour
Indian squad for Australia – an analysis