If you ask a 15 year old that what’s the biggest horror in
his academic life, in all likelihood he will say it’s the board examinations
that scare him the most. Of course it’s one of the toughest challenges a
student faces in his life. The question papers are set by some unknown
examiner, the answer sheets are evaluated by someone unfamiliar and most of the
times, examination center is also new. During non-board exams, we have the
luxury that our own teacher will set the paper, he will ask only those
questions which are from the chapters covered in the class, infact sometimes he
will tell us about the important questions too . But the case of board
examinations is very different. Rightly so, one’s success is measured in terms
of how well he/she faired in board examinations. Let’s try to relate it to
cricket. A cricket team’s success is defined by its performance on foreign
tours because on foreign tours, question paper (cricket pitch) is prepared by
some unknown person, the evaluators (international media) are not so kind to
you and the examination center (the stadium) is also away from your home. Here,
we cannot ask the curator (examiner) to prepare the pitch (paper) of our liking.
This explains why a foreign tour is always a tough assignment for Indian
cricketers. And as expected, due to lack of preparation, we falter big time!
Now the concept of pre-board exams becomes so important. As in school, during
pre-board exams, the question paper is set in exactly the same format which we
will be getting in the board exams. However in cricket, during pre-boards too,
we continue to practice the patters which we will be missing in the final
exams. Here the role of our institute or I should say the role of BCCI becomes
so important. As administrators, they are supposed to provide us with right
kind of practice pitches, to provide us with a suitable time frame to make
adjustments. Well, unfortunately, we continue to play on flat and bald surfaces
in India. Here, we should look at the other cricket board. ECB had sent English
team to Australia almost 2 weeks before the Ashes began. Hence they got right
kind of practice that was required before the series began. But just look at
BCCI, they had sent Indian team to the rainbow nation just 3 days before the
ODI series began. Hence no time for practice, hence dismal show by Indian team!
It’s so easy for us to blame it on Indian players that they lack adaptability;
but in my opinion, the scheduling of tours also hold the key. I am wondering
what was the need of ODI series against the Windies team. They could have scheduled just the test
series and straightaway after that they could have sent Indian team for South African
safari. To complete the formality, they scheduled one 2 days practice match
before test series and that too got washed out. As a result, Indian team will
be playing the ODI and the test series without any practice match. I will be
surprised to see if Indian team can manage to win or draw a few matches. If
that happens, that should purely be credited to our cricketers because the
board had made it sure for players to be nailed mercilessly. It’s high thethat
BCCI takes the results and the reputation of Indian team more seriously. It is time when they understand that no matter how well we do in our domestic examinations, its the foreign exams that will count the most! Wake
up , BCCI !
