The Indian cricket team is now back from Australia after a long, four-month break, in which they swam, sunbathed, made new friends, got back with old friends whose hospitality they had enjoyed in the past. Some of the players had further duties to perform. With captain M S Dhoni away for most of the time, players like Rohit Sharma had to function as spokespersons of the team and address the media.
Rohit, perhaps, has some special qualifications for this job. Being a Bombay boy, he can converse in English and is a couple of steps ahead of his friends from Pakistan, Bangladesh and the rest of India. It appeared as if the managing committee of the team liked what they heard from Rohit. He sounded super confident that India would carry home the World Cup, beating Australia in the process. This must have been music to the ears of the managing director, Ravi Shastri, also from Mumbai.
Mind you, Rohit Sharma is no ordinary Indian cricketer. He holds the record for the highest score in one-day cricket, a double century against a Sri Lankan team minus all its top stars, medium stars and small stars. This boosted the ego of the Indian team and in its opinion, made it THE Cup favourite. I don’t know who handled the media briefing for Indians, but as the team went on to win one match after another in the qualifiers rather easily, confidence ballooned to super confidence. It was catching and spilled over to the TV commentary team.
Reaching the quarter-finals was going to be child’s play after that, with Australia and South Africa watching out, while Bangladesh could be shooed away. The Indian team and its media began to think about the semi-finals and beyond. That is some confidence.
Sixers flowed freely from Indian bats, outnumbering even the IPL figures. We forgot the dimensions of the grounds on which the IPL sixes were hit. The two left-handers, Raina and Jadeja, clear favourites of Captain Dhoni just stacked up their ‘six’ packs, so to speak. Raina is now bulkier, Jadeja has a bad shoulder and his bowling was flat. There was nary a challenging match in the qualifiers.
New Zealand defeated Australia in a thriller, India defeated both Pakistan and South Africa, with the former playing like a bunch of schoolboys. They must now seriously consult some cricket psychologists to find out what goes wrong when they meet India in World Cup matches! The experienced Yunus Khan was sadly out of form, ‘Dasher’ Afridi couldn’t do anything right.
It is laughable that the India vs Pakistan matches are now compared to the legendary ‘Ashes’ matches between England and Australia! The ‘Ashes’ regulars could sue us for defamation. There was no huffing and puffing when India put aside Bangladesh, though there was an un-neighbourly ruckus over some umpiring decisions. The semi-final between India and Australia generated the frenzy of a final.Rohit Sharma’s mouth worked overtime. Once again the Indian camp was at its ostrich-best. There was no intelligent analysis of the relative strengths of the two teams and we seemed to have completely blanked out of the thrashing we received just two months ago in the Tests and triangular series!
Optimism has its place in sport, but we went overboard with our victories in the qualifiers achieved against minnows. Doubts were raised over the choice of Jadeja, as he had not played serious cricket for nearly two months. Raina’s only plus point was that he was once again playing under a captain who could not function without him even after the former’s running scared from anything over medium pace. Big scores against the minnows were not going to help. The only people who felt India had a chance were the admiring TV commentators and members of the media brigade.
When India and Australia moved for action inside the Sydney Colosseum, the contrast was clear. The Aussies meant business and were menacingly confident. Their winning the toss and batting first was regarded to be a lucky break. Did that mean that ‘champions’ India can only win if they win the toss and bat first? The match was a damp squib. Australia was all over India. Even Rohit Sharma has to admit this.
The only sensible cricket writer in our midst, Bishan Singh Bedi, blasted the Indian fantasy of being a superior team ‘unlucky’ enough to lose in the semi-final. In four months of touring Australia, they could not defeat the home team even once! And unlike New Zealand, they had played in the huge MCG more than once.
In the final, victory went to the better, stronger, more talented, more capably-led home team, whose three-pronged pace attack troubled both India and New Zealand. Brendon McCullum, who led NZ, offered no excuses, acknowledging they had lost to a better team.
His early loss was a blow from which the Kiwis never recovered. However, the blinkered Indian media continues to grope for the truth and is thinking of new adjectives for the London World Cup! Dhoni disappeared after the Australia match.
Srini appeared at Melbourne, was roundly booed by the crowd and after 45 days, we can finally catch up on sleep!
