Currently, in Australian cricket, more often than not the batsmen have been unable to score as many runs as needed while the best players around are serving bans. And that makes a bad time to be an Australian in cricket. However, former Australian cricketer, Greg Chappell is one of the few people who still thinks deeply about the game even after the retirement and is not shy of speaking his mind.
Recently, in this freewheeling chat with CricketNext, Chappell shared his thoughts on the challenges in the game and he also talked about the passion of the Indian skipper Virat Kohli and many more things.
Talking about the challenges in the game, he said, “The biggest challenge facing the game, particularly for the smaller countries, and I’ll even include Australia in that list, because we don’t have an unending resource of players, is from a batting point of view, the game is harder now than at any point in history. With three formats, young players growing up watching Twenty20 cricket and seeing what the top players do, and wanting to play all the fancy shots straightaway … it’s an issue.”
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Chappell also feels that the players of the current generation are different because have grown up with the three formats. He has seen a lot of young batsmen who have a lot of talent but they have a totally different mindset and thought process around batting. He is also pleased with the training methods used by the current generation.
Talking about the Australian cricket specifically, former cricketer said, “It’s challenging coaching, programming and pretty much every aspect of the game and I don’t think we have adjusted as well as we could have. I’m not sure it’s anybody’s fault, but it’s just something that’s happened. We’re putting out bush fires rather than planning how we go about it. Our current generation, the first ones to come through this new situation, the game hasn’t adjusted quickly enough to be able to support them in the way that they need.”
When asked about the challenges of developing a Test batsman, Chappell said that these days a cricketer requires around 20 matches to be successful at the Test level. He feels that the youngsters are really struggling to get that continuity of red-ball cricket to be able to develop their game.
Talking about Kohli, Chappell said, “Virat Kohli is one of the best T20 players in the world, he’s also one of the best 50-over players in the world and he is one of the best Test players in the world. He didn’t start with 20-over cricket. AB de Villiers is another, he had an established game that he took into 20-over cricket. Kohli says it well: this is the most testing format and I want to be good at this and recognized at this. His attitude is not only important to him and to Indian cricket, but it’s also important to world cricket.”
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He further added, “He values Test cricket and the effect that this has back into India must be enormous. And I think it’s huge for the game. Because, if we give up on Test cricket, the game will be poorer for it. This is cricket. The others are forms of the game, but Test cricket challenges players in terms of skills, mentally, emotionally, endurance, psychologically, all of those aspects that other formats don’t call upon. The game has to value Test cricket if we want it to survive.”
Chappell concluded by stating that in order to preserve Test cricket, unified approach is needed. He reckons that somehow the ICC has to be given the power to manage the game for the benefit of all, or it will fall over.
