The last week of 2007 and the first fortnight of 2008 were eminently forgettable for the Indian cricket team and the Indian cricket fan as first the underdone Indian touring team lost the Boxing day test badly and was hit by atrocious umpiring at Sydney and an Australian team that reneged on its pre-tour catching agreement, a racism controversy and a slur, a threat to pull out of the tour midway, calls for the Australian captain’s head…Thankfully the focus shifted back to Perth which in the seventies and eighties certainly was the bounciest track in the world. And when a beleaguered and harassed Indian team went to Perth it was greeted with media reports of a track that was reminiscent of its earlier fire, Australia was on the verge of a record 17 consecutive test match wins and had announced a four man pace attack …but what happened? A resurgent Indian team under an amazing captain stopped Australia in its tracks and won at Perth today gladdening the hearts of a billion Indians and millions of people from other nations too I am sure who must have been sick and tired of the one sided nature of world cricket. A victory as unexpected and as sweet as our victory in Calcutta when we stopped Steve Waugh’s team on number sixteen as well.
What a game of cricket!
India’s winning of the T20 world cup might have made us enormously proud, got record television audiences and been a marketing triumph and yet die hard cricket followers like me believe that it can never replace the intensity, the tension and the twists and turns that a five day (or a four day) test match like the Perth game provided. I crave your indulgence as I am fifty five years old and have been watching and earlier, listening to test cricket for over 4 decades now. Let us savour the Perth triumph a little more. The last time Australia lost a match here was in 1997 and the last time Australia lost a test match in their own country was in 2004 and then too we were the country which architected that defeat. Australia may have been test and one day champions of the world for the past decade, but India has perhaps been the only team that has run them close on occasion. None of the other teams including South Africa, who have enjoyed a better reputation and a better ICC ranking, have run the champion team as close as we have. At Perth we out-batted, out-bowled and out-thought the fancied Australian team (who were on surprisingly good behaviour) and went on to win the match convincingly if not easily. Ricky Ponting accepted that his team had been outplayed and that he was all at sea against Ishant Sharma. And believe you me, the feeling of joy that I for one felt was complete. Snaring the kangaroo at its own den, let’s drink to that!
Rising to the occasion
While the entire Indian team combined brilliantly and fought like tigers to record a famous win we must mention a few individually brilliant achievements. The Australians continue to be amazed at how we Indians (or is it our selectors) constantly question Lakshman’s place in the test XI! Lakshman played superbly in the second innings and in my opinion we could not have won without his fluency and elegance. Sachin and Dravid too in the first innings demonstrated why we and the rest of the world view them so highly. Yet being the churlish Indian who always expects too much from his heroes, I did feel a twinge of regret that the “big three” failed in the second innings. But thankfully today India has others. The two comeback artists Pathan and Sehwag came to the party. Sehwag demonstrated his value at the top of the order as only he can. But watching Sehwag bat can be injurious to one’s health as he either drives exquisitely or swishes airily. Even as Australia was on the defensive we had our hearts in our mouths. And it looks like we have more excitement in our midst for the month of February as Sehwag has made it to the one day team. Sadly Saurav, Dravid and Lakshman have been left out just three days before the all important Adelaide test but I am not going to let even the absolute idiocy of the BCCI spoil my moment of happiness and promise to write about that again but let us stay with Perth.
Two captains with a difference
The series has seen two captains with widely contrasting styles and backgrounds being pitted against each other in the setting of a very competitive test series and against the backdrop of some over the top media reporting, not the least of all from Peter Roebuck, but more of that later. Kumble has come across as a mature individual looking for a solution to a tricky problem while Ponting has come across as the problem. Yet somehow I feel that we expect too much from our sportsmen. We want them to take catches, score centuries, bowl the opposition out, be part of racism hearings and also handle the media with the aplomb of a Richard Branson. Kumble perhaps because of his education and upbringing has come out smelling the roses while Ponting has struggled with the bat and in front of the microphone as well. We immediately classify Ricky Ponting as a poor ambassador for the game. Mind you I am a great admirer of Ponting’s ability as a cricketer and yet am aware of his failings as a possible role model but feel that he and the Australian team have got the short end of the stick for poorly disguised intensity. But back to Kumble, what a leader! And the crisis has brought out the best in him and the BCCI has ensured that he has one more crisis on his plate by leaving out senior players for the one dayers, just a few days before the all important Adelaide test. But he will be equal to the task and India will prevail.
But for now lets celebrate our success and also admire the Australian team for having won 16 matches in a row against all kinds of opposition on all sorts of wickets and also tell them “tough luck mate this is all you will ever get as long as we play cricket” !
What a game of cricket!
India’s winning of the T20 world cup might have made us enormously proud, got record television audiences and been a marketing triumph and yet die hard cricket followers like me believe that it can never replace the intensity, the tension and the twists and turns that a five day (or a four day) test match like the Perth game provided. I crave your indulgence as I am fifty five years old and have been watching and earlier, listening to test cricket for over 4 decades now. Let us savour the Perth triumph a little more. The last time Australia lost a match here was in 1997 and the last time Australia lost a test match in their own country was in 2004 and then too we were the country which architected that defeat. Australia may have been test and one day champions of the world for the past decade, but India has perhaps been the only team that has run them close on occasion. None of the other teams including South Africa, who have enjoyed a better reputation and a better ICC ranking, have run the champion team as close as we have. At Perth we out-batted, out-bowled and out-thought the fancied Australian team (who were on surprisingly good behaviour) and went on to win the match convincingly if not easily. Ricky Ponting accepted that his team had been outplayed and that he was all at sea against Ishant Sharma. And believe you me, the feeling of joy that I for one felt was complete. Snaring the kangaroo at its own den, let’s drink to that!
Rising to the occasion
While the entire Indian team combined brilliantly and fought like tigers to record a famous win we must mention a few individually brilliant achievements. The Australians continue to be amazed at how we Indians (or is it our selectors) constantly question Lakshman’s place in the test XI! Lakshman played superbly in the second innings and in my opinion we could not have won without his fluency and elegance. Sachin and Dravid too in the first innings demonstrated why we and the rest of the world view them so highly. Yet being the churlish Indian who always expects too much from his heroes, I did feel a twinge of regret that the “big three” failed in the second innings. But thankfully today India has others. The two comeback artists Pathan and Sehwag came to the party. Sehwag demonstrated his value at the top of the order as only he can. But watching Sehwag bat can be injurious to one’s health as he either drives exquisitely or swishes airily. Even as Australia was on the defensive we had our hearts in our mouths. And it looks like we have more excitement in our midst for the month of February as Sehwag has made it to the one day team. Sadly Saurav, Dravid and Lakshman have been left out just three days before the all important Adelaide test but I am not going to let even the absolute idiocy of the BCCI spoil my moment of happiness and promise to write about that again but let us stay with Perth.
Two captains with a difference
The series has seen two captains with widely contrasting styles and backgrounds being pitted against each other in the setting of a very competitive test series and against the backdrop of some over the top media reporting, not the least of all from Peter Roebuck, but more of that later. Kumble has come across as a mature individual looking for a solution to a tricky problem while Ponting has come across as the problem. Yet somehow I feel that we expect too much from our sportsmen. We want them to take catches, score centuries, bowl the opposition out, be part of racism hearings and also handle the media with the aplomb of a Richard Branson. Kumble perhaps because of his education and upbringing has come out smelling the roses while Ponting has struggled with the bat and in front of the microphone as well. We immediately classify Ricky Ponting as a poor ambassador for the game. Mind you I am a great admirer of Ponting’s ability as a cricketer and yet am aware of his failings as a possible role model but feel that he and the Australian team have got the short end of the stick for poorly disguised intensity. But back to Kumble, what a leader! And the crisis has brought out the best in him and the BCCI has ensured that he has one more crisis on his plate by leaving out senior players for the one dayers, just a few days before the all important Adelaide test. But he will be equal to the task and India will prevail.
But for now lets celebrate our success and also admire the Australian team for having won 16 matches in a row against all kinds of opposition on all sorts of wickets and also tell them “tough luck mate this is all you will ever get as long as we play cricket” !
(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).
1 comment:
Yes it was a great win. But it would not certainly rank as the greatest indian test win in the last 40 years as was mentioned by gavaskar. Reason one being this win cant lead to a series win for India. The border gavskar trophy is already gone. This win would be of greater significance if India go on to square the series. Which in my opinion is extremely unlikely. In all probability it would be 3-1. I think the aussies are still the number one team and we are a distant second. I feel they lost the perth test to a large extent because of the pressures of going for a world record 17th win. Also the controversy over the Sydney test with the aussie media going too hard at the aussie team. The aussies don’t loose very often and are likely to come very hard on India at Adelaide. This in the context of a clear divide developing in the Indian team thanks to the weird selection policies of bcci could lead to India losing heavily at Adelaide. But right at this moment one would have to congragulate the Indian team for the way they played at perth with some meaningful team changes and brilliant captaincy. At last we had a indian captian who won the toss and elected to bat first at perth. One word on the one day team selection. If bcci is planning for the next world cup then how come sachin is still in the team. The irony of the whole thing is all those players who performed well in Australia are on the plane back and all those who already failed and those who are likely to fail are going to take the field. It sure is going to be Australia vs lanka in the final.
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