By Rahul Nair, 17 April 2004
April 17 2004

There’s an inexplicably wide smile on every Indian fan’s lips. India won its first match, then its first ODI series and, finally, its first Test series in Pakistan. So is this really the greatest Indian team ever? GOING OUT WITH A WHIMPER
Before the start of the last day of the series (Day 4 at Rawalpindi), the commentators and the fans were expecting a defiant Pakistan to offer the Indians some stout resistance. But before play began, the camera happened upon a passing shot of the Pakistan dressing room. Inzamam was staring blankly into space, while Miandad looked thoroughly disinterested in proceedings. The mood seemed subdued and the boys were hardly talking to each other. This is the biggest difference between this Pakistan team and teams of yore: a team like Imran’s boys would have still been thinking of a win, even on the fourth morning, facing a 300-plus deficit with eight wickets in hand. This version of the Pakistan team has no stomach for a fight, while Ganguly has molded his mates into a scrappy, fighting unit with different people throwing their hands up in every success — the truest hallmark of a champion team.

However, Inzamam’s team was beaten even before the first ball was bowled at ‘Pindi. As soon as he lost the toss, one could discern the disheartenment that the Pak skipper felt. Ganguly had literally won the match for India by merely showing up for the toss of the coin. Inzamam’s disappointment may have had some influence on the poor showing by the Pakistani top order on the first day, especially after the inexperienced Indian attack had got off to the worst possible start on a helpful pitch – spraying it around and looking unable to bowl a single ball on the stumps.

On the last day, it was the turn of the Indian fielders (who had been very good during much of the series) to get over-excited and careless. Despite dropping as many as six catches within the first hour of play, India still managed to pick up the wickets of Akmal, Inzamam and Hameed. Balaji, who has been disparaged throughout his association with the Indian team as a mere stock bowler with the debatable ability to bowl a few tight overs while the strike bowlers took a breather, produced a stunning spell of seam and swing bowling. He was literally making the ball talk — getting it to swing away and then cut back in after pitching as well as the other way around, with the occasional slower one or faster bouncer thrown in for good measure. He earned six well-deserved edges, only one of which was pouched by the Indian fieldsmen. Balaji has truly surprised even close observers of this Indian team with his remarkable work ethic, smiling visage under pressure, and rapid improvement as a genuine swing/seam bowler.

A TEAM GAME
The biggest difference, as one of the ex-Pakistani skippers put it, between this Indian team and previous one is that they fully understand the importance of a collective effort. For the first time after a big series win, we don’t have any star performer that stands out individually. Looking back, there were key performances all down the line-up: from Sehwag and Chopra through Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and the young turk Yuvraj Singh backed by Patel, Irfan, Balaji, Nehra and Kumble.

Many have commented on the bench strength of this Indian team. But many of these same critics were amazed that India had the temerity to embark on a Pakistan tour with rookie Laxmipathy Balaji and teenager Irfan Pathan leading our attack with injury question marks over Agarkar, Nehra and Zaheer (neither of whom are established bowlers themselves, to begin with). Most of these folks had written off our bowling resources well before the tour even began and, having been pleasantly surprised, are now jumping on to the “bench strength” bandwagon.

This bench strength is primarily the long-term result of the inherent team philosophy, inculcated by Ganguly, Wright and the seniors. Their active inputs have wrought a very nurturing environment, where even the youngsters feel secure and motivated enough to work hard and improve with every outing. A classic example is Balaji, who was a raw, one-dimensional bowler that went wide of the crease and metronomically bowled in-cutters from just short of a length when he came into the squad. He was picked up after a string of good performances in the domestic circuit to support the big names in the role of a work-horse. Within just a few months, he has applied himself, worked hard and improved his bowling to an extent that it is barely recognizable from his first outing against a rampaging Chris Gayle. He has improved his action and his leading hand does not fall away as much any more. He is also getting much closer to the stumps, while developing a back-of-the-hand slower one and, most remarkably, a superb outswinger that he can bowl from wide of the crease (like a Kapil or Hadlee) or, with a subtle change of wrist position, a perfect leg-cutter like the one that got a well-set Youhana at Lahore. Given his natural angle in to the right-hander, these are two wicket-taking deliveries almost every time he bowls them.

Contrast this with the Pakistani camp, where we saw a remarkably talented bowler like Sami go to waste. With little movement in the air, it was very important for him to embrace discipline and formulate specific bowling plans for every top-order Indian bat, at least in the Tests. The combined failure of his coach, skipper and vice captain (all of whom, incidentally, are batsmen) to rein him in or give him straighter fields to help his line meant that until his very last outing (coinciding with the absence of Shoaib Akhtar at the other end), he seemed the same bowler that he appeared to be in the first ODI at Karachi: a fast bowler with a radar more out-of-whack than Devon Malcolm and Patrick Patterson put together. In other words, an unusually profligate bowler in Test match cricket with the added handicap of not being able to take enough wickets.

DEDICATED TO THE FANS
John Wright said at the end of the ODI series that he and his wards were happy to have won the series for the fans back home, since “We have the best, most loving fans in the world and they deserve this.” After supporting the Indian team through years of heartbreak and near-misses galore, it was a great moment for every long-standing fan when Kaneria slogged Sachin to give a simple catch to Ganguly that signified a new chapter in Indian cricket. Some of the old-timers in the viewing room were in tears as they clapped and cheered the whooping players hugging and celebrating on the pitch, and later, in the dressing room. The younger members in the audience broke into an impromptu bhangra and some of the women had brought along rasagollas and gulab jamuns which they distributed to everyone who was there.

The scenes of celebration will get even wilder when the team makes it back home, since the importance of this series victory can never be underestimated. Saurav Ganguly has achieved such a level of immortality in the history of Indian cricket that some of it will have rubbed off on even the non-playing members such as Powar and Kartik. As Ganguly pointed out, this team has been performing much better abroad but has failed to take that last step to close out series wins. Now that it has done it, the mental block must be over and the team will be that much stronger for it. In pure cricketing terms, this series win is comparable to Border’s team winning the 1987 World Cup (or in terms of Test cricket, regaining the Ashes in 1989) that signified a remarkable turnaround in Australian cricket from the tearful Kim Hughes days.

LAST WORDS
Shoaib Akhtar’s public pillorying by his captain and former Pakistani cricketers makes it look like he has become an isolated figure in the Pakistani establishment. Many have insinuated that his injury wasn’t serious enough since he batted with such aplomb. However, it could also be argued that he batted like that since he was injured and didn’t care to prolong the agony in a losing cause.

Inzamam’s reaction to a possibly disruptive phone call Akhtar allegedly made to Latif was eloquent enough in revealing how much Shoaib has fallen in his teammates’ estimation. However, Akhtar is a fine bowler and to question his integrity in such a crass fashion is not fair to him at all. But then, this is typical of Pakistan (and, until a few years ago, of India): to find a scapegoat after a terrible performance and hasten a precipitous personnel purge. Ganguly rubbed it in when he spoke after the match, urging the Pakistan authorities to not chop and change too much after this series loss to their arch-rivals. Truly then, this loss could prove to be the sternest challenge to the relatively new Pakistani cricketing establishment.

On the other hand, India finds itself in the relatively new position of having to guard against complacency. Australia and South Africa will be very keen to bring Dada’s Dirty Dozen down to earth in their own backyard. The most interesting question, considering the performance of our young bowlers on this tour, will be: what kind of pitches will the BCCI prepare for these teams when they tour India? Anything except the sleeping beauties which greeted the Kiwis last year will be acceptable. Those pitches made even the likes of Sehwag and Laxman appear boring, strokeless blockers and Balaji look like a pie-chucker with less talent than Craig McMillan the bowler.

Hopefully, they will be pitches with good bounce and carry.

Hopefully, Ganguly and his boys won’t be overwhelmed by the hype when they get back home and regain focus in time for sterner battles ahead.

Hopefully, Harbhajan, Zaheer and Agarkar will be back to peak match-fitness. Hopefully, Paaji would have taught Bala and Irfu a few new tricks.

Hopefully, Sehwag will be pulling and hooking with more authority.

Hopefully, Sachin will rediscover his attacking ways very soon.

Hopefully, Avishkar Salvi, Munaf Patel and Siddharth Trivedi will hot up the competition for bowling spots in Team India even further.

Hopefully, Chopra will score a double hundred as opener, while carrying his bat in the deciding Test against the Aussies in the summer.

So, as the fans watching the last rites of the Rawalpindi match kept shouting at the fall of every Pakistani wicket, “Bring on the Aussies! Bring on Punter, Haydo and Warnie!!”