When cricket is reduced to a mere street fight

After a decade of excruciating efforts, India’s golden generation -now in their twilight are helplessly watching this team to spiral downwards to the place where it all started.

Indian cricket is on the course of surreptitiously getting back to the place where many couldn’t even imagine. The Indian team, after getting drubbed in the last two away series has threatened us to take back by a decade. In conditions that have been ordeal, India has unraveled like threads on a wore-out pyjama. Ironically, after putting in excruciating efforts for over a decade, India’s golden generation, now undoubtedly in their twilight, are helplessly watching this team to spiral downwards to the place from where they began the battle.

What is more concerning is the attitude of the youngsters towards the loss.

“We need to realize that when we go overseas every country prepares wickets to their own strengths. I think we should be playing to our strengths, and if we can prepare rank turners, that’s where their technique and their temperament will be tested,” Gambhir said recently. It is an immature, embarrassing and reactive remark in an age that is increasingly trying to sell the idea of ‘pro activeness’.

It only makes it worse to think that this might have been a debate in the dressing room and somebody might have proposed this as a band-aid for all that is happening. It is almost like a student who is in weak in mathematics trying to cover it up with a good score in science and thereby racking up a decent total.

Before the start of the series there were avid talks about the prospects of winning a series and creating history in Australia. But, I’m afraid, India tried to play too much on Australia’s weakness than to their own strengths. There was a lot of pondering over Australia’s fragile batting order than how to go about their own cricket. Now that Gambhir has urged the curators to make life difficult for the visitors by calling for “rank turners”, it only further exemplifies this cliche -“Come to my backyard, mate, I’ll show you who I am”.

Australia, during their hegemony at the top, were considered invincible simply because they had this insatiable greed: There were times when they won 16 tests in a row and turned up for the 17^th with the same enthusiasm. There were times when they turned up for the fifth game like they did for the first after leading the series 4-0.

However, even as they dominated elsewhere, their records in the subcontinent weren’t very pleasing. They lost to India in 1998 and 2001 but never did we hear an Aussie to complain about the unfavorable weather, the turning tracks. They came back in 2004 and won the test series 2-1 but left the shores unhappy of having not stood up in Mumbai, on a wicket that turned square. This, precisely, is this greed that India’s men of tomorrow need to infect their systems with.

At the BCCI awards function late last year, there wasn’t a squeak about India’s torturous tour of England even as there were proud mentions about India’s World cup win and the subsequent wins home series against the West Indies. It was as though the months of July, August and September had been ripped out of the calendar.

While a lot has been said and written about BCCI’s priorities, it is the players’ attitude towards the loss that has sparked annoyance and amusement in the recent times.

While a home team preparing a track to their advantage is perfectly fair, the grounds should only act a catalyst and not decide the results – the better side should always win.

No one doubts the ability of this team in the subcontinent. That is why they were fittingly tagged as favorites to win the World Cup last year. So, by preparing turning wickets, India are only getting better at what they are already good at and not at what they aren’t. Even in this case, Gambhir, by saying that the real test of a team was “to win overseas”, he is persuading India to play on the opponents’ weakness, when they visit India.

Already Kohli has visited the match referee more no. of times than a Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman ever had. The more the captain starts to worry about a player’s etiquette, the more the chances of him not making the right moves.

This generation seems to confuse fearlessness and aggression with being brash. It is actually done by playing intense, focused cricket. That’s what the likes of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, the architects of India’s success overseas, did.

Over the last decade, India displayed both individual and collective hunger, skill, fortitude and played consistent cricket overseas as much as they did at home to build strong reputation as visitors and as they got rid ‘incompetent tourists’ tag.

The youngsters must remember that India’s ascent to the top will depend on their ability to dream beyond geographies. It is not done by ripping out December from the calender but by following ‘the law of harvest’.

India should conquer the world by being very good, intense and consistent at what they do. If they don’t, and they only keep doing what they are doing now – reducing cricket to a street fight.