Jan 17, 2003 12:05 PM
2446 Views
(Updated May 19, 2003 11:49 AM)
The Indian cricket team invokes reactions of the extreme. One victory and we are euphoric; one disastrous tour and we need a shrink to extricate us out of melancholy.
It was on 13th July 2002, when Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif had rescued India and pulled off an improbable victory over England in the Finals of the Nat West Trophy. Everyone from the fans to the media had started touting India as potential World Cup winners. Sourav Ganguly and John Wright seemed to have learnt a trick or two from the Lagaan team. In fact, the similarity was uncanny. Like Bhuvan and Elizabeth, Sourav and Wright had rejuvenated a tired looking side into “world-beaters”. Suddenly, our team was the talk of the town, or should I say, world? Sourav’s boys then managed to reach the Finals of the ICC Championship, which was unfortunately washed out by excessive rains. Magazines, irrespective of their genres, put mug shots of Sourav on their cover, and the bad boy of Indian cricket was soon being touted as its messiah. He had made all the right moves – backed youngsters like Yuvraj, Sehwag, Zaheer and Kaif, demoted Sachin in the batting order to provide batting stability, and converted Dravid into a man of all occasions.
However, one tour of New Zealand, just six months later, and we have forgotten everything. The death knell can be heard far and wide and mourners are already arranging for their black outfits. There are cries of putting Sourav’s head on the chopping block; India’s trip to the World Cup is considered just that, a trip that would end as soon as it began; our team is not a team but a bunch of individual players; Sachin is no more the God he used to be; Dravid’s twin role of wicket-keeper batsman is now under fire; so on and so forth.
Hey guys! Are we as squeamish as that? Don’t we have any control over our emotions? I admit cricket has a cult following in our country, but isn’t it irrational for us to get swayed like heads in a tennis match?
The crux of the matter is that our team is not a world-beater. And neither is it as hopeless as it is made out to be from time to time. We do not have heroes or zeroes in our team but mere mortals, people in flesh in blood who are selected to represent their country. This Indian team does have its highs and lows like all of us. I am not defending Sourav’s boys but am trying to put things together in a realistic perspective.
Come to think of it, was India ever a world-beater? No! True, we have won the World Cup in 1983 and the Mini World Cup just 2 years later. But in the intermittent period, weren’t we thrashed by the West Indies in India itself. And didn’t Pakistan humble us 5-1 in the one-day series and 1-0 just before the 1987 Reliance World Cup? And what about India’s famous tour of Sri Lanka, where the then minnows of Test Cricket made us eat humble pie, despite the presence of stalwarts like Kapil, Gavaskar, Shastri, Vengsarkar, Azharuddin, Amarnath, to name just a few.
Our problems today were more or less the same even then. Apart from Kapil Dev we never had a match winner in the fast bowling department; our spinners were effective even then, but on responsive tracks alone; our wicketkeepers rarely produced one or two innings with the bat that are worth mentioning; panic would set in after the fall of a couple of wickets … the list can be unending.
In the 1980s the West Indies ruled supreme but they never won a World Cup in that decade. The 90s and the early part of this century has seen Australia dominate proceedings. Australia won the World Cup first in 1987, when they were not even considered as dark horses. 1999 saw them end this century with a resounding win over Pakistan. But that does not mean they would conquer the world again. India have begun the New Year badly; again this is no indication of their chances in South Africa. Who had thought that Kapil would hold aloft the World Cup at Lord’s? One good tournament and we would be World Champions once again.
But, my dear friends, that in no way would propel us towards being world-beaters. Our problems would continue. We will continue to lose pathetically at times, and win resoundingly on other occasions. A victory in the World Cup would just be one series played well. And that is how a sport should be seen. Nothing more. Nothing less.
