Sep 27, 2007 07:03 PM
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A World-cup win since 1983. Every player is now earning in crores. The entire nation is on cloud nine. I have this joy screeching the walls of my heart but am not able to help myself from thinking if all this was what Coelho called - beginners luck!
A new captain+ a very young side with average age less than 25 played fearless cricket, defeating big teams on the way. Have we seen Indian cricketers play the way they played? Where did all this appear out of a blue moon? Again, cannot think beyond beginners luck!
I do not want to take anything away from the Indian team, led by Dhoni. They played terrific cricket. They gave their best on the field, played fearless cricket. Aggressive intents, tactical moves(like bowling on off stumps for leg-side hitters like Morkel, for instance), good field placing and talent was all there for us to see. It was refreshing, really refreshing even if it is the shortest form of the game.
Success like this has happened before, not world cup wins but fantastic progress as a team. When Ganguly became the captain, he showed similar instincts. India played very aggressively. Ganguly himself started hitting over the field against bowlers like Allan Donald. India had great success, to start with. Then they slumped. They have been regular only in beinginconsistent. Then came Dravid, we won few series, then we lost, then we became tired of cricket again.
Now it is this win in T20 world cup. Wait, did we discuss if T20 will be interesting?! Now the entire topic has become irrelevant! India has won a world cup. We will watch cricket no matter what form it is played. I am pinching myself to see if it is a reality that India won a world cup! Soon all this excitement can go off, or it may not! That is what I am interested in finding out.
Will this win take India beyond to next level? Will this win make our boys mould into a professional unit that plays consistently good cricket. While we gloat on our success in T20, it does make sense to think about this as well. Take the case of master blaster Yuvraj Singh. He hit 6 sixers(can you still believe it?) and followed it up with a terrific 70 against Australia. He became a hero. But, you could see his struggle in the finals. Accepted that it was good tactics by Pakistan to bowl spin against him and that a cricketer cannot score every match. But, it was the attitude that we need to measure. He was trying to hit hard; he was pressure of the finals and his image as a hero was weighing him down; he was getting desperate.
Dhoni himself came in as a master blaster himself. He could hit any ball out of the park, even the Yorkers! Nowadays, he is a bit cautious when he swings his bat. A word you cannot associate with Dhoni – cautious. Take any budding Indian cricketer, they have all done well to start with, but a very few have gone on to make it big – Vijay Bharadhwaj, Parthiv Patel, Irfan pathan(he did come back, but before that), Ajith Agarkar(showed promise and been inconsistent for way too long), the list of half succeeded cricketers is very long. The point is, most of them have been heroes in one or two matches. How they perform when there is this pressure of expectation, has been poor so far.
Now getting back to the T20, it was all a young side. The side were underdogs in the tournament. No expectation … NO EXPECTATION. That was the biggest plus point for the team India. It is not new that India comes back from behind(In T20 if they had lost one match after the defeat against Newzeland). Even in the 1999 world cup India came back from behind till the semis. They were underdogs even then. I can somehow sense a pattern. India comes as a strong force from nowhere and then slumps. In this T20 every new player could have brought along his beginner’s luck, which to me is nothing but all these – no expectation, talent, and fearlessness, and all the luck pooled together for India to win the cup. How they perform going forward will be very interesting to watch. Tough test straight away with ODI’s coming up against the Australians. Can they break this pattern of slumping to low from a high? Can they keep it going?
Did I sound like the media guy who attributes any of the Indian success to someone else failure? I am just a hardcode Indian Cricket fan who wants to see the Indian team to be a professional outfit than as one-off tournament winners. Hope it is not the beginners luck that did the trick for the team. I wish I was wrong! I will be happy if I was wrong! Wishing the team in future endeavours.
Whatever, that was a thought for tomorrow; today it is just celebration time!
Smiles,
Vinayak
