Why County Cricket is significant
Tigers at home, lambs abroad. A common phrase closely associated with not only India but most teams in world cricket. English county is probably the only cricketing platform that allows players from different parts of the world to get a knack of swinging and seaming conditions.
It is a hot debate topic over the years regarding Indian players' participation in county cricket. Numerous questions have been raised over the Indian batsmen's ingenuity against seam bowling. Historically, India's win overseas have come in tough batting conditions be it 2006 Test at Johannesburg, 2008 Perth Test, 2014 at Lord's or the recent win in Johannesburg which was played on a minefield.
There is no denying that to win a Test match you need to pick 20 wickets. However, over the past 18 months, its' been a case of so near, yet so far, with the batsmen failing to finish off games.
Virat Kohli's team has come a long way and this team currently has the best crop of players India have had over the past five years. The last few trips to England have been painstaking for India and the losses can clearly be attributed to the poor application in swinging conditions.
The biggest loophole as it turns out to be is the lack of adequate match practice and near to none county cricket experience. Before the current tour, Pujara, Ishant and Ashwin had their county stints with various teams and it clearly reflected in the performances as well with Ashwin and Ishant showing no mercy and Pujara willing to spend some time.
Make no mistake, it has been historically hard for touring teams to prove their mettle in England but tides have turned. It is high time that batsmen are moulded well to play in extreme conditions.
Players like Murali Vijay could have easily spent some time in England before the tour. As it turned out, he was picked to play in the IPL only to turn out for just one game and warm the benches for the rest of the tour.
Most of the batsmen in the current team have performed well overseas but only in patches. Rahane clearly seemed the best batsman to play in overseas conditions but his form has tapered off over the past 10 months. Again a case of another batsman not spending enough time at the crease.
Name it lack of match practice, no county experience; the list is endless. With plenty of overseas assignments in the near future, it is high time that county cricket is being given importance and a benchmark future overseas tours.