Partnerships

A couple of mornings ago, I woke up to the social media platforms abuzz with the trends #264, #RoHIT etc. 264 runs in an ODI? Let's take no credit away from Rohit Sharma, who played some really good strokes, but (1) Robin Uthappa was only too willing to let him hog all the strike, and (2) You can't score so many runs without the bowling attack being downright pathetic.

Nowadays, an India-Srilanka match has become more of a tennis ball match in the backyard, when a match can be played at 5 minutes' notice. In fact that is exactly what happened, when the West Indies team pulled out of their series, and the Indian players, left with free time and no IPL, just called Srilanka for a series. 

 

Now, when you play one team this often, a 50-over innings becomes more like an extended nets session. Combined with luminaries such as Nuwan Kulasekara and Eranga in the SL team, juicy full tosses, dropped catches, a flat pitch and a lightning quick outfield, well....264 doesn't seem as unfathomable.

In the midst of all the batting carnage, I was suddenly struck by this question: How many 300+ partnerships have been put together in ODI cricket? Last I remembered, the count was 2, both in 1999, involving batsmen named Rahul, Sachin and Saurav. Cue - Check on cricinfo, and, lo and behold, the count still remains at 2.

This is amazing. Despite 350+ scores piled up with ease over the years, the bowlers being battered into submission, the introduction of powerplays, free hits and the like (and placid pitches), the only two 300+ partnerships put together in ODI cricket were at the end of the previous century.

This brings us to the focal point of this discussion: Partnerships. Somehow, with the overdose of T20 cricket, fast runs and flat tracks, the importance of building partnerships has been somewhat forgotten (?) / ignored.

Empirically, the importance of partnerships is inversely proportional to the placidity of the pitches. Its easier to score more runs at a quicker pace on placid pitches. This encourages the batsmen to play riskier shots, and deal more in boundaries. A loss of a wicket doesn't matter, as long as 300+ runs can be scored. However, in the longer format of the game, and on true sporting pitches, where bowlers have a greater say, runs have to be earned. This is where building partnerships can, and does win matches.

Now, I am a sucker for nostalgia, someone who still prefers test match cricket to T20s. I grew up watching the great Indian batting line-up (Sachin, Rahul, Saurav, VVS and Sehwag) come together to notch memorable wins for India, both home and abroad. Often, I would bunk school on the pretext of completing JEE class homework, only to wake up early in the morning to watch the India-Australia test series. :-)

 The great Indian batting line-up: Too many runs, too much awesomeness

Indian cricket was blessed to have a magical batting lineup through the late 90s and most of the noughties. Sachin had stepped into international cricket way before the Wall, VVS and Dada. While he was prolific from the onset, the team as such did not see much success in the early 90s, and were slaughtered like lambs outside the subcontinent. Only when the famed four came together (with VVS at his favored position in the middle order) did the team manage to see success in a sustained manner, aided, no doubt, by some aggressive captaincy by Saurav Ganguly. Some of the most amazing wins (Calcutta 2001, Adelaide 2003 for starters) were made possible by the partnerships they were able to string together. 

The records back up the assertions made above. In tests, Sachin and Rahul hold the record for overall partnership runs by a pair and number of century partnerships. Ditto for Sachin and Saurav in ODIs. Not only this, various permutations and combinations of these players are pretty high up in the partnership record stakes. Notable mention must be made of Virender Sehwag too, though, in his case, it was more about decimating the bowling attack than needing to pace and build an innings / partnership. His partnerships with Gambhir / Tendulkar feature prominently in both the tests and ODI partnership records. 

The performance of Team India in the past few test series outside the subcontinent has been pathetic. There is no doubt that the likes of Kohli, Pujara, Rahane, Rohit Sharma are high on talent. What is needed from these guys is the ability to build partnerships and forge a total, which the bowlers can defend. That is precisely how their predecessors shed the tag of "Lambs Overseas". However, the overdose of "hit-or-miss" cricket in the limited overs format does not help this cause.

At a broader level, the partnerships forged by the legends serve as a reminder how sustained success can be achieved only by working together and forging partnerships, especially in this era of individual egoism, where competition has ceased to be healthy, where individual achievement is often prized over teamwork. A reminder that monumental achievements are accomplished in a sustained manner only by working together. Something that Shahrukh Khan reminded us in Swades:

Cheers!!!