Decoding Indian Cricket’s Downfall

By Carl Jaison

“When you die, you die. You don’t see which is the better way to die,” remarked MS Dhoni when the Indian captain was quizzed on whether a series whitewash in hands of the Aussies is more dis-heartening than the one England handed out to the men-in-blue. Correction: The Men in Whites. The aforementioned tag’s cousin, the blue brigade, have showcased undeterred fighting spirit and a will to succeed whereas the “men in whites” have been  excessively whitewashed to the extent that they will remain white throughout their playing-span unless a change-over of sorts is on the cards. Forget about the washing and whitening, India have not even bothered to play fighting cricket, probably because they fear their whites would be soiled. It is hard to discontinue the use of “white” simply because India have wilted meekly to their counterparts, who too are in whites.

The core problem with the team stretches far beyond colours, hues and cricketing jargons. When a Jharkhand lad took control of the reins of  the Indian cricket team, none would have imagined in their wildest of dreams that the lad would take India to greater heights and scale greater barriers. He marshalled his troops with authority and his silent demeanour created a pulse of  fascination among the cricketing fraternity. He embattled India’s cricketing woes at a time when the greats of the game like the Kumbles and Gangulys called it a day and steered the cash-rich unit to an all-time high which included victories in South Africa, New Zealand and the Caribbean. Not to forget the World Cup triumph and the gradual ascension to the top rung in the Test table. MSD has played his part in the drama to good effect. He has raked in unimaginable sums of money and support through his glamour quotient and the investment opportunity in him that was identified by the branding world. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and his typical Indian way of speaking English during press meets have caught the eye of Forbes Magazine, which has listed Dhoni’s way of speaking  in the group, “5 things which you shouldn’t do” Yet, it is surprising that a man of his credentials and leadership qualities have few foes in near visibility or is it that we fail to notice the ones who eagerly await his downfall? 

 

Dhoni will certainly be hated by the Aussie outfit given that he led India to his team’s victory over the Aussies that arrested the Australian juggernaut in World Cups. Michael Clarke would be on cloud nine as it is very rare to witness a situation where Dhoni comes under scrutiny due to his captaincy-flaws when the media heaps praise on the former’s game plan and leadership qualities. Some of the Australians express high regards and respect for the current Indian team while there are others who simply taunt the skins out of the “respected unit”. Double standards of Aussies are exposed. The Indian team - better put, men in whites - doesn’t’ seem to realize this. While we rest on our past laurels and achievements, our rivals strategize and plan for their future course of action. While we stick to playing in high-liquidity tourneys like the IPL, our rivals stick to their national commitments. While we address critical issues of failures by taking a break off the game (remember go-karting?), our rivals sweat it out in the nets by being always involved with the game. While we anxiously await a century from the Master’s blade, our rivals have garnered century after century to make our wait pointless. 

 

While Ponting’s  present image as an Aussie player (not captain anymore) has earned him accolades and surprising respect, it remains to be seen whether our big daddies will relish facing the situation Ponting is in. While we have used our fingers to little effect, our rivals have used their grey cells to good effect. While we have a Board that itself believes it is the world, our rivals have a Board that appreciates efforts when it is to be appreciated and corrects flaws when it is to be corrected. Our Board, rather the “know-it-all” Board, believes in applauding player’s strengths, while their weaknesses are made to look irrelevant. Now that is dangerous in itself. While our media supplies news of the successes of  the home team more than the magnanimity of their failures, our rival media criticizes our own team of  internal team disputes and provides unfettered support to their own national team. It is a shame that our media hasn’t been able to adopt such an aggressive tactic. The Aussie media is often referred to as the “12th man of the team”. MSD blurts out an untimely suggestion of him retiring from one of the formats in order to divert the media’s attention from the pathetic display of his team. In fact his suggestion looks far more pathetic. However a portion of his suggestion has been realized. Dhoni has been handed a one-match test ban for slow over-rate. However it is hard to conclude whether MSD will be weeping over the lost opportunity to relive himself or whether he would be more than relieved and content to be handed out the ban. Relinquishing power is not easy if not impossible. Holding onto the throne, along with which comes power, is something that Indians cherish both in the sporting and political domain.

The reins have been passed onto an almost misfit. Virender Sehwag is no captaincy-material. Consensually supportive, Sehwag has his own batting to worry about let alone burden the team’s folly. This decision may come in as a dampener much so because Sehwag’s present tour is horrendous to the core. But which are the other options lying ahead for the team? Virat Kohli? Certainly not now, next please? Gambhir? A better option but stands to be seen whether he can boomerang the team back to it’s good old days. Dravid is crying over his bowled dismissals so much so that even if he is dismissed in another fashion in the next test he would count that as “improvement”. Sachin doesn’t have the century in mind but his team does. That’s absurd right? Certainly, the pressure of the century has taken a toll on him and on his team to the extent that none of them have scored a ton in the series so far. Instead of being fingers-crossed on Sachin’s next ton ( which is just around the corner), India might as well wind up the series without a single hundred to their name, not to forget their inability to score 300 runs. The only way India can be assured of accumulating 300 runs, is by hoping that Viru bhai goes on to score a triple ton, which otherwise the team would reach in a painstakingly slow rate.

Captaincy call: Sachin and Dravid ruled out. Then remains VVS Laxman, who is fighting for his own place in the team let alone captain the side. Zaheer is already over-burdened with being India’s pace spearhead while the likes of Ishant, Umesh and Ashwin are relatively new to the mix. Hereby, India is in a situation where it cannot do away with Dhoni. Back in the last Australian tour, Sehwag scored a breath-taking 151 at Adelaide and let’s hope the Lord of 22 yards re-writes history.

Summarizing India’s downfall is best exemplified by the catch-line, ‘Tigers at home, lambs abroad‘. The die-hard Indian fan would only wish their team puts up at least some kind of fight  rather than suffocate and panic in dire situations. A pure Aussie blood would wish for an Indian win in Adelaide because the series is already in their kitty and a Sehwag-led victory would unsettle the Indian team’s scheme of things and questions will start to be posed on Dhoni’s very inclusion in the team given his barren record with the bat overseas. Like Gavaskar famously said at the end of the Sydney test, ‘Melbourne is gone, so is Sydney and Perth will go as well.” Horrifyingly, but truthfully, India will taste loss in Adelaide as well. 

India Down and Out, Down Under

By Carl Jaison

Battered and tamed, the Indian team resembles not more than a bunch of sight-seers. Crushing defeats at Melbourne and Sydney have got the impatient and hungry critics up on their feet.

If one were to look back at the start of this series, none had given the Aussies a glimpse of possibility to emerge eventual victors. India was tipped to overpower the mighty Aussies with considerable ease. However the story-line has undergone a revamp. Australia, defying all odds, including Ponting’s dismal performances, perpetuated one of the most famous drubbing of India last week at the SCG where they mauled the Indians with an innings victory.

The ease at which former Captain Ponting has been relegated to an ordinary player is striking and stands as a sharp contrast to what would be a former Indian Captain’s attitude as an ordinary player in the team. For India what matters is its bigwigs,  while for the Aussies it is the team.

Over the past couple of years, India has always gone into a series with the ‘favourites’ tag stuck firmly on their foreheads but returning back as mere sitting ducks. Fair to say, Indians have been non-impressive and nonchalant in their game approach. The fighting spirit and sting were lacking in their method of play.

It seems the entire team is eagerly awaiting ‘Paaji’s’ 100th ton so much so that the very crux of the recent debacle is being underwritten. It would have been great if Tendulkar declared that he would consciously avoid the 100th century in 2012, which would allow the whole team to perform.

India is a unit comprising of highly-rated individuals and a multi-million dollar captain with the vision of attaining the top spot  doing minimum of labour and maximum of incentives. This is what the present team represents at the moment. It is worthwhile to ponder whether a player like Kumble would have strategized like Dhoni’s minimum labour methodology. 

 

Otherwise, which Captain would have allowed two days of leisure and carting immediately after two successive defeats for a nation of one billion cricket lovers? Does scheduling even half a day of practice on those days require great strategy? Or is it about mere commonsense and a sense of duty? Evidently, the Captain as well as his team-mates lack that diehard attitude.

A critic can never keep mum about such a discrepancy in the Indian cricket team’s methodology and letting go of such incidents unnoticed will only further famish the already rusting team.

To add to their woes, indecent and derogatory gestures show-cased by the young Viraats and Isshaants (names altered to rake in a bit of luck!) highlights the scarcity of moral values and principles embedded within the team.

Rejuvenated and replenished, the Aussies are definitely going for the kill notwithstanding the recent cruelty meted out to the Indians. The Indian Team may not fancy the constant bickering and pestering from the media’s side but Dhoni and Co are unaware of the fact that contemporary Indian psyche is all about playing down successes and highlighting failures!

Dhoni claims that the team has begun to sniff at the doorsteps of improvement but the results have suppressed his very claim. The down-fall has got to do more with the emotional and mental aspect rather than the technicalities involved with the game. Unconscious competence reckons that the Indians are too proud a race that minor mistakes will leave them unperturbed rather than make them introspect whether the cause for the mistake is the solution to their embarrassing problems.

A case in point is whether the higher bat speed from recent T20s and ODIs is affecting our batsmen in this test series. It was only recently that Michael Clarke claimed that quitting T20 made him a better player. Another glaringly evident error is our poor understanding of overseas pitches. Any side would game domestic pitches to their advantage, and that is why no team is really great until they master winning at pitches in other countries.

Gambhir has looked far from regaining form, nevertheless reports suggests that he is the sole player who regularly hits the net sessions. Gambhir’s hardwork may pay-off but it may come too late for a team gasping for a grab at victory.

The swashbuckling Virender Sehwag has pictured himself more of a sorry figure than the prefix attested to his name with his irresponsible style of play not helping his cause.

Dravid has been out bowled 52 times in his career (another dubious record in the making) and ‘The Wall’ has looked easily pregnable and defense-less to the moving ball that have made experts point out that Dravid’s resilience is slowly loosing it’s sheen.

For stalwart Tendulkar a century is outstanding and the moment he achieves the landmark, Indians may as well start off the packing process for the return flight back home where unsolicited critics are waiting to shower them with praise.

VVS Laxman and ‘Conquering Australia’ were seen as two sides of the equation. But everyone’s witnessed a deficit from the Hyderabadi’s side while the other part of the equation has been re-written as ‘Conquering Australia?’

The likes of Dhoni, Isshaant and Kohli have made headlines off-the-field than on it. Captain Cool has come out with baseless defence of his team stating that their most important, short-term goal was achieved i.e. accumulating 300 runs on the score-card which is a pathetic and tooth-less self-defence tool adopted by MSD. Such tooth-less strategies can be adopted by not only Dhoni, but Srikkanth, and Srinivasan too.

Rather than their bat and ball do the talking respectively, Kohli and Ishhaant  have exercised their fingers to good effect! And Dhoni was not as disappointed with this as he was with Sreesanth’s antics. If only the line and length of Sreesanth were right, he would have at least contributed some mind-games to the Indian side, provided his Captain allowed.

The overall outcome is just spicy news for the blood-thirsty media, and nothing more, nothing less.

Zaheer and Umesh Yadav have showed only sparks of brilliance with no citation of them troubling the Aussie batting line-up. Ashwin has ensured his batting heroics will find him a place leading to the third test at Perth but his bowling figures may prompt the think-tank to toss the ball to Pragyan Ojha since the former has looked ineffective and out-of-ideas sorts.

As the script reaches it’s final phases, at present, the only ones wary of an Indian fight-back are the Aussies themselves. Is this too one of their famed mind-games targeting the fragile Indian minds?

Anna Hazare Changes Political Stance, Will He Launch a Party?

Anna Hazare led India Against Corruption (IAS) movement has today announced that it will not specifically campaign against the Congress Party in the upcoming state polls, which is a marked departure from its earlier stance that Congress is the principal, if not the only enemy, standing in its way to get its version of Jan Lokpal bill passed.

The Core Committee of the movement had yesterday met in Ghaziabad to chalk out a new strategy, and this decision was apparently arrived at this meeting. The anti-corruption movement’s change of stance is said to be due to disillusionment with the stands taken by non-Congress parties in Parliament recently on the issue. But the movement still holds the Congress Party as primarily responsible for scuttling Jan Lokpal Bill.

The new strategy will be to tour all the poll bound states to spread awareness about the Lokpal bill, and to educate the masses on what was the specific roles played by Congress as well as the other parties in effectively blocking the provisions of the Jan Lokpal bill.

The latest move has, however, brought back speculations whether Anna Hazare will eventually launch a party for their own cause of reforming the nation’s democratic processes. In India, political parties launched during corruption scandals have exhibited better traction, and in a more rapid way. The rapid success of VP Singh led Janata Dal, a couple of decades back, demonstrated the importance of right timing in India.

Fruits are best eaten on a specific day, if not a specific hour. One year back, if Anna had launched a party, the taste would have been bitter.

But if Anna had launched a political outfit just some weeks back, before the Government tabled its version of the Lokpal Bill, well, it would have been a different Lokpal Bill altogether. All would have eaten the fruit in perfect taste.

But fruits past their prime day, quickly turn rotten. Maybe for the movement kick-started by the veteran Gandhian, there will be more leeway. But definitely not till they have exhausted all other options, like waiting for the UP poll results to roll in.

For honest citizens of this country, it was heart-breaking to see the movement crumble towards the end, rather than achieve a fitting finale. The whole might of the Parliament was too much for the anti-corruption activist.

The Government succeeded in exposing the attitude of all political parties including the Congress, BJP, Communists, and the regional parties, towards a strong Lokpal. The 187 amendments brought forth by various parties were more than proof.

But important for Anna Hazare is to realize the distinction between Parliament and this Parliament. India’s supreme law-making body is not static, but changes every two to five years, partially to fully.

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect that if it is business-as-usual, the Parliament will have a sharply different outlook towards Lokpal. But then, why Team Anna is not open to the idea of penetrating the Parliament itself?

It is one thing to have Sushma Swaraj and Brinda Karat share the dais with Anna Hazare. And totally another thing to see these firebrands in action inside Parliament, acting against Anna’s wishes, even if ostensibly it is to thwart Congress’ idea of a Lokpal.

In what is glaringly evident now, the Anna movement badly needs a political party of its own. It can’t expect to fight the Congress using ammunition like BJP or CPM. They are ammunitions with priorities of their own.

A battle may be lost, but not the war. Sentiments against corruption is so strong in the country that a reasonable political initiative by Anna would be welcomed massively by the masses. People want power for their leader.

Anna Hazare can easily create a political party if he makes it a point to select high-achievers from different walks of life and different regions, to head central roles as well as regional operations. Anna should invite high achievers, rather than sift through numerous useless applications already lying waste in the IAC office.

Imagine invitations going out to leaders like Abdul Kalam, E Sreedharan, Rajendra Singh, TN Seshan, Verghese Kurien, Medha Patkar, MS Swaminathan, and so many other such achievers. Even if they couldn’t participate, they would have helped in formulating a sound, workable vision for the Lokpal movement.

But for that to happen, Anna should not confine himself to just the Lokpal. However noble this cause might be, the masses are looking for solutions to all their problems, not just corruption. The poor wants food, the middleclass wants wealth, the young want affordable education, the sick wants affordable care, the youth wants opportunities.

A stringent non-participation in all these issues that matter to the masses, was the Achilles’ heel of Anna’s movement. The dubious track-records of core team-members like Shanti Bhushan and Kiran Bedi didn’t help either.

If the Anna movement has to be revived, it has to be a political revival, and there is no doubt it will be for the good.