Heroes at IPL, Zeroes at WTC!!

As a billion people spent a sleepless night fantasizing about (King) Kohli and Jinks (Rahane) doing a Laxman and Dravid encore at the Eden on a humid March day back in 2001, I too was fidgeting on the bed, like the rest of the cricket crazy Indians, but for an entirely different reason. Not that I was not dreaming of a resurrection by the Kohli-Rahane duo. But I was worried about something entirely different. I had two functions to attend in the evening; the first at a hotel near the Khandagiri caves and the other far away at Buxibazar in Cuttack. My concern was; if Kohli and Rahane do defy the well-entrenched pattern of Indian cricket and do the unthinkable, how will I watch the match? Both the functions involved people who are among the dearest to me in the world and there was no way I could miss either of them, forget both of them. Of course, there was the option of watching the action unfold on the miniature mobile phone screen. But that is not quite the same thing as watching it undisturbed on a 55-inch smart TV in the comfort of your living room, is it? In any case, watching the match on the smartphone screen at a function of a dear one in the presence of scores of people would not have looked nice.

Maybe the Virat-Ajinkya duo, followed by the rest of the Indian batters, took note of my concern and decided to spare me the agony of not being able to watch them thrash Cummins, Boland, Lyon, Starc, and Green to all parts of the ground on the ultimate day of the ‘ultimate’ Test, as they had done the previous evening and decided to get all out just in time for me to reach the venue of the first function of the evening well in time – in fact, well before anyone else had arrived!

In his post-match briefing, Captain Rohit cooked up all possible excuses to ‘rationalise’ the no-show by our team. “We needed at least 20-25 days of preparation.” “Why can’t the WTC final be held in March, before the IPL?” “The WTC Final should be a best-of-three affair.” But he didn’t say what he should have. “We were simply not good enough to beat Australia in a final.” Indian captains in the past lost more matches, most of them by huge margins, than they won, especially on foreign soil. But they were at least gracious in defeat. They gave the Opposition due credit and admitted their shortcomings; they didn’t hide behind flimsy, laughable excuses as modern Indian captains do. If he was honest, Rohit would have admitted that he played a horrendous shot in the very first over he faced from that wily, old customer called Lyon. He would have accepted that it was this irresponsible and totally unnecessary sweep shot to an innocuous delivery from the off spinner which started the slide - and not argued that ‘there was no lapse in concentration,” as he did. 

His passionate advocacy, smashed to the smithereens by his Aussie counterpart, of a best-of-three finals, should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. He certainly knew for at least a year now that the WTC Final will be a one-off match; that it would be played at The Oval in June; that it would be played soon after the IPL, giving the team no time to acclimatise with the conditions in England. If he had any issues with any of these, he should have taken it up with his BCCI and found a solution then - and not after losing the final by a staggering 209 runs. And that after winning the toss. (Thank God he won the toss! If he hadn't, he would have added one more excuse to his list!!). 

And what can one say about the King? Is this the man who pursued victory with a single-minded determination in the fourth innings even as wickets kept falling around him in his very first Test as captain at Adelaide in 2014? Didn't he know that the hopes of a billion people rested on his shoulders? That he just had to be there in the middle for India to break the jinx in ICC tournaments and win the Test? Did he have any business slashing at a ball so wide off the off-stump that a man could have walked right through it? 

Head coach Rahul Dravid, who played a stellar role in that famous, come-from-behind win in Kolkata circa 2001, didn't exactly cover himself with glory by seeking to put the blame on the bowlers. Sorry, Dravid! India didn't lose the final because of the bowlers. They lost because their much-vaunted batting lineup came a cropper when it mattered the most, as it has done unfailingly in knockout matches of every ICC event since 2011.

The attempt to skirt blame by pointing to the fact that "We entered the final for the second successive time" is shameless to say the least. Someone should point out to the Indian thinktank that the road to the final was paved on the dust bowls in India tailor-made for the Indian spinners. New Zealand lost 3-0, Australia 2-1 and that sealed the final berth for India. But when faced with even a mediocre South African side on their soil, they lost 2-1.

The fact of the matter is the Indian team has lost the appetite for the tough grind that is Test cricket. All that matters for our players is performance - and needless to say earnings - in IPL. Test cricket, for them, is a needless distraction that has to be somehow endured till the marquee event. And the tragedy is: the players and the BCCI are on the same page on this. I was astounded to read the comment by Sourav Ganguly, a former head of the Board and the man who was the captain of the team when India registered that memorable win in Kolkata, who said winning the IPL is 'tougher' than winning the WTC!! That being the considered view of a former captain and former head of the BCCI, is it any wonder that we keep losing the 'easier' ICC tournaments?

The fans must also take part of the blame for lionising their cricketers who turn pussies when pitted against tough rivals in ICC tournaments. Their memory is short. In a month's time, they would forget all about the humiliation at The Oval when our team beats the hapless West Indies on their home soil. No questions will be asked of our cricketers. They would continue to peddle tyres that they can 'bet on' or promote a particular life insurance company. It would be business as usual for the vast majority of Indian fans.

Only a few incorrigible votaries of Test cricket, like yours truly, would keep cribbing. But who cares?

(DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are the author’s own and have nothing to do with OTV’s charter or views. OTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)