Time to focus on victories outside subcontinent for Indian cricket

Doesn’t it feel great to see your country winning a cricket match by demolishing a mighty opponent? Especially when the feat is achieved against the ‘cricketing demons’! It sure does. The enthusiasm that prevails throughout the nation after an emphatic win is ecstatic. The novel by Chetan Bhagat titled ‘3 mistakes of my life’ gives quite an insight into this ‘saga’ that has been going on for decades, every time India has won a cricket match. Be it the famous victory at the Lord’s in 2002 against the Brits or an easy win against Zimbabwe at Guwahati, the ecstasy remains unchanged. 150 crore Indians start celebrating, many take to the streets, enjoying a win by the Indian cricket team. Cricket is actually the biggest crowd puller in this nation, much bigger than any of the religious festivals even!

People, by celebrating a victory, forget their own griefs (for a while at least). They draw inspiration from their heroes (read cricketers) when they rise from ashes and start shining in the cricket skies by scoring a century or better still, a double! The cricketers then turn into dummy Gods and are worshipped across this great land. The brave fighters of yesteryears, those who laid their lives for the country probably never got such ovation.

As the 4th day of the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar series draws to a close and the Aussies save an innings defeat by the skin of their teeth, Dhoni and his men are once again the topic of many a discussion. This time, they are ‘heroes’ of course! It is now just a matter of time before the entire nation starts celebrating a Test victory against the mighty Aussies. With only one wicket remaining and just 40 runs ahead, the Aussies don’t have much of a chance to save this Test match. A splendid double hundred by the skipper himself ensured that India emerge the favourites by the end of the penultimate day of the match. Coupled with this wonderful batting display was a brilliant bowling performance by the Indian spinners, particularly Ravichandran Ashwin who at one point of time, it seemed, would equal Anil Kumble’s record of taking 10 wickets in one innings! Merely calling it a brilliant performance would be bit of an understatement.

Once India actually wins, which should be before lunch tomorrow, millions of cricket enthusiasts will once again start worshipping Dhoni and co. for their wonderful display of cricketing talents! Those who had turned into critics of the Indian team due to the lean patch that the team was going through for almost 2 years, will now become the most vocal supporters of the team. In a way, that is good. It is always nice to support your team; no matter what the situation is, one should always back his/her team with enthusiasm. But unfortunately, what most of us fail to understand (and we have been failing to understand over the years again and again) is that we should take into account the conditions in which the team won.

The Chennai wicket was as dry as straw with cracks clearly visible on the very first morning of the match. Apart from a few deliveries by the Aussie fast bowlers, the ball hardly carried to the wicket-keeper when standing back. The ball was consistently keeping low and the amount of dust flying around on the second and third days was a clear indication of the poor quality of the pitch. It was indeed a gritty knock by the Indian captain, but the point to remember is that hardly any ball bounced up to his waist during the whole innings. On a faster track with some bounce, it’s highly doubtful whether Dhoni would have played with such comfort.

The BCCI has always ignored reality, the reality that this team may be good at home (though these days you can’t guarantee that always, especially after the way England thrashed India at home), on pitches that lack bounce, where puffs of dust fly as soon as the ball hits the pitch from the second day itself. But when these Indian ‘superstars’ visit Australia, South Africa or England, all that they can do is cut a sorry face, get white washed in the series and come back. For an overall revamp of Indian cricket, the mentality of the board and the cricketers has to change. Winning in conditions such as Chennai is good for the record books but it is causing permanent damage to Indian cricket. There is no bravado in such victories. Hope that the board realises the bitter truth sooner rather than later and takes curative measures (they are well past the time when ‘preventive’ measures could have been taken) to improve the overall standard of Indian cricket.