Posted by “This is as neutral a venue for us as it is for any other team,” argued Gautam Gambhir after India qualified for the Champions Trophy final and in so doing moved it to Dubai. This claim was a little out of date because Dubai’s neutrality only really lasted until the moment the removals van arrived and India unpacked all their stuff.
“We have not played here,” Gambhir continued. “I don’t remember when last we played here.”
Well it was Tuesday, wasn’t it, Gautam? You also played here on Sunday and a couple of times the week before.
Because while the venue may have been neutral when India first touched down at Dubai International Airport, neutrality is hard to maintain. By the time the final comes around, they’ll have been based in this one place for three weeks.
When does a modern professional cricketer ever get that kind of luxury? A multi-format India player will rarely, if ever, get three consecutive weeks in one place – not even at home.
Is this situation the Indian team’s fault? No, it isn’t. Nevertheless, if there is a debate here about India having an ‘undue advantage’ (and we’re not entirely sure there is) then it’s surely only the first part that’s even worth talking about.
Asked whether there was a benefit to playing all matches at the same venue, Mohammed Shami said: “Definitely. Because you get to know the conditions, the behaviour of the pitch. A lot of things.”
That’s something the opposition doesn’t have. So it’s an advantage.
Is the advantage ‘undue’ – well regardless of the impact, it seems an entirely proportional solution given the political constraints on the team, so no, probably not.
In an ideal world, the situation would be addressed somehow. However, judge for yourselves whether we live in such a place… [gestures at the wider world with a look of weary, disgusted despair on his face].
“There’s a lot of debate about the undue advantage and all that,” continued Gambhir, irascibly. “What undue advantage? We haven’t practised here even for one day. We’re practising at the ICC academy. And the conditions there and here are 180 degrees different. Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man. They’ve got to grow up. I feel that there was nothing like we had any undue advantage.”
For context, Sidharth Monga reports that Gambhir said all of this after being asked if India knew about the conditions in Dubai when they picked five spinners in their squad. Gambhir was always quick to take umbrage and, rather like Sunil Gavaskar, his skin hasn’t shown much sign of thickening over the years. Perhaps he’s the one who needs to grow up. (Is it a particular characteristic of opening batters that they’re so quick to take offence?)
If you think back a few years to a previous final against New Zealand, India were on the other end of the fallacy of fairness. As such, you’d think Gambhir might understand the situation a little better. As we said at the very start of that piece, where did we get this idea that every trophy has to be a lab experiment, measuring and weighing every facet of excellence?
Cricket isn’t like that. Someone always has some sort of advantage. Unless it’s ‘undue’, best just to crack on and play the game. It’s not that big a deal anyway: while everyone of course wants to win the Champions Trophy, the truth is nobody’s too bothered if they don’t.
Did he really say ‘Some people are just perpetual cribbers, man’?
A good day for cringeworthy lingo from ageing cricket coaches, as Jason Gillespie calls Aaqib Javed a ‘clown’.
I do feel there is an advantage but not for the reasons of the pitch or where they are training. Its simply they haven’t had to travel. its one less bit of stress that for one of the best short format teams in the world makes their life just that little bit easier. is there a way around this given the politics? no. but its disingenuous to say that a team that is so refined on the little advantages that are what separate elite sports teams. being able to hole up with their staff in one place is going to have helped.
I pretty much agree with all of the above, without really caring all that much about the issue, for the reasons others have stated. Yes, it is a point of difference arranged for one team but not the others, yes, it is a pragmatic solution to allow the cricket tournament to progress and yes it is to some extent advantageous for the team that is being granted the exception.
At the risk of setting hares racing on a Friday, may I now raise the two REAL bugbears I have with BCCI/Republic of India’s approach to its political differences with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Firstly, there have been no bilateral series between those two great cricketing nations for decades. This is a great shame. When Daisy and I were in India about 20 years ago, the whole country seemed to be enthralled by a bilateral test series. We needed to time our strolls to shops in Calcutta around the match timings, as, during the hours of play, the shop staff were almost universally glued to their transistor radios.
If locating Champions Trophy matches in neutral places such as Dubai is a possible compromise for an ODI tournament, the ICC should push hard to implement such a solution for bilateral series and get those started again. It has been far too long.
My second bugbear, perhaps harder to address but in some ways even more of a bugbear, is the blanket refusal of IPL franchises to have Pakistan nationals in their squads. Initially this was communicated as a political/visa issue for players travelling to India, but I sense that it goes beyond that given the absence of such players in franchises outside India owned by Indian franchises. THis, it seems to me, is a form of discrimination that should be called out by the international cricket authorities and openly addressed. At the moment it feels like a dirty little secret that no-one would notice were it not for busy-bodies like Ged mentioning it periodically.
Well said Ged.
Busy-bodies like Ged noticing such things and bringing them into the light for all the world to see is very, very much needed, and that goes for cricket stuff too.