The Australian test series saw
Virat scoring four hundreds, Rahane getting to his century, leading many to
believe India will do better, but they only got worse. Exactly one and a half
months and a series ago, India showed itself as just another team in the
Carlton mid tri-series, playing against Australia and England, where they lost
every other match they played against these two teams. Indians were a shoddy
bowling unit, projected a frail top-order, a less than mediocre middle order, and
ended up as a disappointed team with no hopes of a turn-around anytime soon.
It all happened right here, on
the Australian pitches, when the assemblies of blue in the stands were forced
to let out noisy grunts, of anger and disenchantment. They did not expect this from
the 2011 World Cup champions and definitely this was not the cricket they had
seen India play. M S Dhoni was let down by his team and so were the millions of
fans trying to cheer the flailing performers.
But why did this happen? And how did
this happen. There is a very simple and easy analogy to it. The players were on
the Australian pitches way too long, away from their homes. They performed well
in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but failed miserably when it came to the ODI
format where they struggled to get themselves out there. They were fatigued and
out of good rest, little home support and had the big World Cup on its way.
There were paragraphs of
criticism from the pundits and angry cricket fanatics; there were
heart-breaking memes over the internet, thrashing the team for their inability
to ‘deliver’, quite literally. News websites became unabashedly reproachful and
the conventional next-door-uncle glanced at the sports section in the
newspaper, eating popcorn in a moving train, casually exclaiming that the team
was never going to get anywhere. He was wrong.
The Men in Blue have easily
erased the bad memories, by not just defeating every other team in the group
stages and the quarter finals, but by ‘bowling ‘em all out’! What went right
with the team is what nobody is talking about. The fact that the bowlers have
stepped up their game is quite evident. But the batsmen have done their bit, so
have the fielders and our very own ‘captain cool’, M S Dhoni who has been the
core of this victory albeit the individual performances have turned heads. India
has pushed itself to face the winner of five World Cups, Australia in the semi-finals
and is a class-apart.
Suddenly everyone has forgotten
the days of seething anger and searing pain these players went through, the
bashing media thrusting their pens in the players’ noses and cameras flashing
at their faces, as if to pronounce the committing of a crime. Everyone is
bathing themselves and the team in the glory of the ‘70 wicket in 7 games’
scenario, with seven straight wins and seventy wickets to their credit.
Right now, all that matters is
India finishing this game against Australia in the best possible manner. I saw
tense faces all around when I walked to work, most of them in blue and some
sitting by the side-walks, patiently listening to the commentary on their phones
and transistors. This part of India has not changed. It never will and it never
can.
I should mention the anticipation
of the billions looking for a path-breaking record of ’90 wickets in 9 games’
and of course, to retain the Cup.
But to get there, we need to bid farewell to the
Australians, boys.
