Modi's performance like that of a T20 batsman who fails in Test matches

By the time India finished the first day’s play in the final Test match against Australia in Sydney, they had scored over 300 runs — the first time either team did that this series and indeed a significant achievement since it scored just 69 in the first session. It yet again underscored the merits of a traditional approach to batting in Tests — respect the bowlers in the first session and make runs in the next two. The hero, yet again, was Cheteshwar Pujara, who scored his third patient ton of the series, and now outscores his far more flamboyant captain (and closest rival in the series), Virat Kohli, by a considerable margin. Indeed, the moment of the day came at the fag end when a weary Nathan Lyon asked Pujara: “Aren’t you bored yet?”

Regardless of the result in this Test match, India will retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This is no mean achievement considering that India has been at the receiving end of Test cricket of late. Its loss in South Africa was no match to the humiliation in England. Many believe that it is the Indian bowlers — especially the pacers — who are the reason for this latest turnaround. Indeed, Tests are mostly won by bowlers. But it can be argued that the more likely reason for the change in India’s fortune is the stability provided by its batting in this series. In England, for example, with roughly the same set of bowlers and far more bowler-friendly conditions, India’s inability to score runs and bat for long hours were the reasons for a 1-4 loss. Indeed, a newbie fast-bowler, Sam Curran, looked more sorted while batting than most of the Indian top order. 

The point being that Test cricket has its own unwritten rules. Of course, once in a generation or two, there might be a player who makes us rethink how things can be done — for instance, the way Virender Sehwag opened the innings for India — yet, most of the cliches about Test cricket survive for a reason. For Test batting, it is absolutely essential to have the right temperament — in other words, to be patient and have the ability to adapt one’s game according to the circumstances. This temperament is the key reason behind Pujara’s success. Or perhaps, to take a most extraordinary example, behind the Test success of Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

Most readers who have followed the game would nod in agreement to Cricinfo’s description of Chanderpaul: “The possessor of the crabbiest technique in world cricket…” Most of us can only recall that rather inelegant, albeit terribly effective, swipe over the mid-wicket as his only offer while batting. And yet, with 11,867 runs, Chanderpaul is the eighth highest scorer in Tests. For a better perspective, and a better understanding of how important the right temperament is, he needs to be compared to the only other West Indian who scored more than 10,000 Test runs — Brian Lara, possibly the most talented batsmen across several generations. Would it surprise readers to know that Lara scored just 86 runs more than Chanderpaul in Tests or that his average of 52.88 is just a run more than Chanderpaul’s? Or, indeed, that Chanderpaul has more 50-plus scores (96) than Lara (82) in Test cricket. If one wades through Test batting statistics, one finds another revealing statistic about Chanderpaul — in 280 innings, he managed to stay undefeated on a whopping 49 occasions — roughly every fifth innings. That’s not only better than two of the most dogged batsmen known to world cricket —Alan Border (44 not outs) and Steve Waugh (46 not outs) — but also far more than anyone else who has scored over 5,000 Test runs, all the way back to the last man on that list, the super-talented Zaheer Abbas. Rahul “The Wall” Dravid had 32 not outs in 286 innings.

Chanderpaul’s had a fabulous career in limited overs cricket as well but it is his Test performance that stands out. It underscores how there is no substitute for correct temperament in Test cricket. Talent, audacity, skills can only go so far without temperament. So while the likes of Mayank Agarwal and Pujara were grinding the Australian bowlers to dust, the otherwise brilliant K L Rahul was busy practising in the nets in the hope of saving his Test career.

What’s any of this got to do with Narendra Modi? Last month, The Economist newspaper compared Mr Modi’s stint as India’s prime minister to that of Graeme Hick’s English Test career. Hick was a prolific run-scorer in First-class cricket — ended his career with over 41,000 runs, at an average of over 52, the highest score of 405 not out, 136 hundreds and 158 fifties. But when elevated to the highest form of the sport, Hick faltered. In 65 Tests, he scored just over 3,000 runs at an average of 31, with just 6 hundreds. Mr Modi’s shift from being a chief minister of Gujarat to the PM of India was characterised to be equally underwhelming. 

I disagree. No, not about Mr Modi’s rule being underwhelming. Oh, that it has been for sure. But I think a better analogy is to compare his shift from CM to PM to that of a shift from a shorter — T20 — format to the Test arena. There is no dearth of cricketers who are superstars in T20 but are unable to survive in Tests. Bowlers still have a chance to adapt — Jasprit Bumrah is a great example of such a transition — but batsmen almost always fail as their inadequacies get exposed within no time; and from that point on, they are sitting ducks to bowlers across the world. In Tests, there are too many variables at play — from the vagaries of the weather to the treacheries of the pitch. For instance, in Tests, no middle-order batsman can afford not to know how to tackle the new ball because there is such a thing as the second new ball. Basically, there is no place to hide, no neat tricks you can repeat endlessly. 

In Test match parlance, Mr Modi has committed several cardinal sins. Such as not waiting to assess the true bounce of the pitch (under-estimating the bad loans problem), chasing low return shots (focusing on building toilets), taking unwarranted risks (announcing demonetisation), playing against the spin (timing and manner of GST implementation), not rotating the strike (being the sole decision-maker), etc. It was bad enough that he came in to bat after raising expectations sky-high because it essentially meant that he had to play big shots all the time (Make In India, Start-Up and Stand-Up, JAM trinity, doubling of farmers’ income, housing for all, Ayushman Bharat, the list is endless). But dancing down the wicket looks rather embarrassing if you fail to connect. In Tests, you cannot do that because the costs of failure are too high. Today, he is getting sledged by all and sundry even as he has been responsible for running out his own fellow batters (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan). The trouble is his temperament: Running a continentally big and diverse country such as India requires a genuine belief in the rules and conventions of a liberal democratic order. 

Can Mr Modi learn from his missteps and change? How about starting off with a real press conference?