India in England: A Tale of Misplaced Bets

As India stand on the brink of a whitewash in England, arguably test cricket's greatest exponent stands helpless, fighting his own demons

A year back when I was in the UK, one of my colleagues, a die hard cricket fan (a rarity, really, amidst the British who think there is just one sport worth following – football) and I had made a series of bets. He had said: The English team will beat India 3-0, one of the four matches would be a tense draw, India will always score less than 350 with Tendulkar scoring two hundreds in lost causes, Steve Finn will be the leading wicket taker closely followed by Zaheer Khan, and Andrew Strauss will be the man of the series. Well, as it has turned out, he has been wrong on all counts. India is going to lose 4-0, India has scored less than 300 in all the innings, Tendulkar has made no centuries, Zaheer Khan has taken more wickets than Steve Finn who has ‘closely’ followed him despite not playing at all (just a difference of 2 wickets between them), and the man of the series could be any of the Englishmen. I am actually embarrassed to write what I had bet with him. The fact is, we both have lost our bets.

I remember the tour of 1999 in Australia. India had a youngish team then, with the forgotten and forgettable men like Devang Gandhi and S Ramesh opening the innings, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly still in the category of ‘young and good’, and Sachin Tendulkar saddled with the dual role of being the lone true great and the captain. They were facing a set of bowlers (McGrath, Warne, Fleming, Lee) capable of skittling an all time great batting lineup, let alone a nervy bunch of young Indian batsmen. The Indians failed miserably, regularly failing to cross even 200. Although their bowling led by Kumble and Srinath more often than not put the Australian top order under pressure, but quickly resorted to defensive lines once a partnership started building because they had so meager runs to bowl with.

The current England tour is worse than that tour. This is not a team of ‘young and upcoming’. The batsmen, barring the unfortunate Abhinav Mukund, are veterans and know English conditions very well. And with due respect to James Anderson, he is no Glenn McGrath and neither is Stuart Broad close to what Brett Lee was even a young tearaway. Then why do we have the disgrace of a whitewash? And is it a disgrace to the people who are running the show? I am not talking about Dhoni and Fletcher here. They are like the ragged puppets in the greedy and greasy fingers of the unseen puppeteers. They would be made to dance ceaselessly and when they crumble, they would be thrown away. There would be many like them, the puppeteers must be saying to themselves.

Perhaps, for the first time, I am a bit disappointed with Sachin Tendulkar. I know he has surprised us with several comebacks, and more likely than not he would surprise us again, but I am not really bothered about his performance in the series. There was a bit of inevitability to it. Quite simply because, Sachin, regarded the greatest Test batsman after Don Bradman (in my opinion he is the greatest, but that’s another matter), placed Test cricket secondary to the jamboree called IPL. For the first time he decided that he needed rest and missed three tests. Time and tide really wait for none and three tests are as valuable as they can be at his age. With his ability and greatness, I am sure he would play at least five more IPL seasons, but he would never get to tour West Indies again. What does he do? IPL over Test cricket. And in that one instant, nobody, not even perhaps he, realized what kind of tempting the fate act he had set in motion. Sachin didn’t miss three Windies tests. He has missed four more, just that they were in England. And what he has in return is a series of confusing memories: a triumphant victory at the World Cup, an endlessly vacuous nightmare called the IPL, and a forever scarring of being humiliated in Test cricket.

Test cricket deserved better than what it’s greatest exponent decided to do. It’s a message he is sending to the youngsters, who revere him that it is okay to let go of a few tests in places like West Indies, maybe New Zealand and even Sri Lanka if IPL precedes them. What he might not have considered is that you don’t really succeed at the topmost level, a level that enables you to beat England, if you decide to not care for the lesser challenges from the likes of West Indies. He has taken a side, while Test Cricket looks on forlornly.