By Dr Muralidaran Ramesh Somasunderam.  254, Willetton Vahland Avenue 6155, Australia.

India plays far too many twenty over cricket matches and does not focus on Test Match cricket as Australia for example does. I realize that twenty over cricket is more popular in India at present than Test Match cricket but the people to blame for this is the Board of Control for cricket in India.

Test Match cricket is yet the pinnacle or the litmus test for cricket when it comes to technique, application, concentration and physical fitness or stamina in regard to the game of cricket. Limited over and especially twenty over cricket is not a true test of the game but just like Bollywood or Hollywood movies, which does not depict real life on the ground so to speak. It is based just on showmanship and who could hit the ball out the ground most times with sixes or hit the boundary line most with fours. Singles, two and three runs are considered boring.  This plus poor wicket preparations by grounds men in India have produced batsmen who are great with their hands rather than correct precise footwork or correct side on batting to the moving and bouncing deliveries. India therefore are good on turning wickets where their hands come into play a great deal and their onside play especially turning to leg or the flick off their legs are their strength as batsmen. Standing up and playing pace bowling from a side on position is certainly not the strength of Indian batsmen. They cannot even defend good deliveries just outside their off stump or even on their stumps correctly and adequately to keep the deliveries at bay. Kohli who is considered their premier batsman hangs his bat away from his body when a pace bowler delivers deliveries on a fourth stump line and is basically a sitting duck to nick off deliveries bowled on just short of a full length on a fourth stump line by a pace or medium pace bowler. Other Indian batsmen go with very hard hands or are front on rather than being side on when playing defensively or even aggressively both on the front and back foot.

In regard to bowling the pace bowlers of India get caught to the bounce of the wickets in Australia and South Africa where the wickets are true bounce wise and consistently bang the ball short, which makes a batsman who is good at the horizontal and vertical strokes to excel and score many runs without too much danger. Bumrah is a quality pace bowler and stands tall as the only performing Indian pace bowler in this current series of Test Matches against Australia played on Australian soil, but what India lacks is a quality swing bowler to back up to Bumrah. It is very unfortunate Sami is not plying as he is coming back from injury and maybe not match fit to play at Test Match cricket just yet. And in regard to the spinners please leave Ashwin alone with his experience to play in the reaming Test without playing him for just One Test and dropping him thereafter. This does not make any sense as Ashwin is head and shoulders ahead of Sundar and Jadeja in regard to his art of off spin bowling.        

So in conclusion, true bouncy wickets that has some movement for the bowler off the deck and good fundamental MCC cricket coaching bating wise and pace bowlers bowing on true wickets in India including focusing on playing Test Match cricket and playing it mostly overseas rather than in India will make India a quality team in the future.  The other aspect is to establish a living cricket academy like the one at Adelaide so that a cricketer can be moulded in a quality first class player after three years of graduation from the living cricket academy.