Cricket continues to prove, as it has for a while now, that teams need multi-skilled players. That can sometimes be interpreted to mean bits and pieces players. It can be a fatal misinterpretation. Those players have rarely made a contribution to one-day cricket. Instead, what I am suggesting are players who have substantial skills in one area of the game, good enough to earn them a place for that alone, but who then contribute significantly in another area. Ricky Ponting with his fielding is an example, so is Sehwag with his off-breaks.

Very often such potentially valuable second skills tend to get ignored, or under-worked. With the kind of schedules players have these days, it is tempting to train your primary skill and if fielding is the second skill, then do a bit more work there. The time to do develop another skill is, I suspect, when a particular player has a break or while the others might be playing another version. Clearly you need a dedicated facility for this and luckily, India now has a very nice one in Bangalore with a fine coach and support staff. The National Cricket Academy under Dave Whatmore could, additionally, develop a specialised skills programme; a custom made programme for specific cricketers.

Let me give you an example. India are playing Yusuf Pathan at No 7 and really, the only reason they can play him is they are a fairly complete side with ten players. And Pathan is no more than a three or four overs bowler at this level since he doesn’t really rip his off-breaks. However if he could become a better off-spinner, then he would provide greater variety to his captain and make a stronger case for his inclusion in the side. Now, when the rest of the team is playing a test match, which he is currently not required to play, he could spend a week at the academy with a coach who will work on his off-breaks, show him newer skills and he could practice them for as long as he wanted. Then, armed with this knowledge he could bowl better in the nets and thereafter, in crunch situations for his team.

... contd.