1983:
The first of India's biggest moments of glory on the cricket field came in the Prudential World Cup of 1983. Kapil Dev's Indian squad succeeded in pulling off a sneaky and cheeky conquest. It was amazement time in India, and amusement elsewhere. Kapil's devils had laid an audacious claim to the World championship denying all odds in the regular round, and exceeding all expectations in the knockout stages. It was a story lit up with moments of individual brilliance as well as instances of true team effort that might make a true fan's eyes go misty. Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Madan Lal and Kapil Dev starred in the script in which the Indians went into the tournament rated about as the same as Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka and came out winners against all odds. It was as surreal and unlikely as a stereotypical plot of a typical Hindi movie. The team was like the bell-bottomed Bollywood hero of the late 70's who takes 7 bullets in the torso from point blank range, yet throws over 18 henchmen single handedly over the cliff, then rides a horse behind a speeding Beachcraft, clambers aboard the almost taken-off plane to take the villain out and claims his trophy - the darling doe eyed heroine with the elaborate hairdo. Too good to be true, and yet it was right there in front of your eyes. A true case of David v/s Goliath on the world stage of Cricket. A Cinderella story. 13 years later it would repeat with Sri Lanka at its center. (It is another story that the West Indians toured India right after the 1983 World cup and showed the Indians their rightful place with a vengeful 5-0 mauling).
2007:
The second major achievement to go in India's cricketing journals would be the victorious campaign of the inaugural T20 World cup in 2007. T20 was an upcoming revolution in the cricketing context then. It was (still is IMO) a raunchy and grotesquely distorted format of the gentleman's game that was not welcomed by the puritans/conservatives in India and worldwide, including some of the prominent players themselves. India in general had a step-motherly outlook to this new child of cricket, but being the most (financially) powerful cricketing nation, it could not ignore it completely either. In September 2007, the Indian team flew to South Africa almost reluctantly. Like a first world nation that was morally obliged to have a presence in an inconsequential summit of second and third world nations (that it did not care about), on Green issues (that it did not care about either). It must be the least publicized boarding for a world cup of any kind by the Indian team in recent times. However once they set afoot, over a period of 13 days the Indian cricket team shed its inhibitions about the new format of the game and emerged its winners even perhaps to its own surprise. It went the way of a classical 'outsider'. One of the least favored big teams became the eventual champions of the world in cricket's virgin format. Captain Dhoni later validated that low expectations led to high determination among the ranks. How prophetic was he, because in the next T20 World Cup, India went in as the most touted, most favoured nation, only to crash out before anyone could blink an eyelid. The story seems to be repeating itself at the third T20 world cup in 2010 too, as I write this. 2010:
The third one came a few months ago when India, for the first time since they started counting, officially claimed the top spot in the Test format of the game. This pinnacle of all decorations has to be the more rigorous, more hard fought, and more applause worthy achievement among the three discussed here. The journey to the previous two glories was just one tournament in length, a few days or a few weeks of toil, climaxed by that one good day of cricket that coincided on the final day of the tournament. The journey to the top of the Test table started more than half a decade ago. Sourav Ganguly taught India to stand up and retaliate. Dhoni took it further by culminating a winning attitude and self belief in his Indians. What transpired under these two captains (with due credit to Anil Kumble too) over a period of the past 6 years is a weighty 14 series wins (against just 5 series losses). India is undefeated in a Test series 22 months now and counting. With Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, (ex-Anil Kumble), Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the control room, the Indian ship has finally become the flagship of the cricketing Armada. It is flanked rather uncomfortably on both sides by South Africa and Australia, but the momentum with which the Indians are sailing at this period will perhaps keep their ship in the lead for some more time. This, in my opinion has been India's greatest triumph since it began playing cricket. Three formats, three triumphs. It is my firm notion that two of the three have been indubitable flukes. A fluke, by the dictionary means "an accidental advantage; a stroke of good luck". What would be your choice for the best one among them ?
No comments:
Post a Comment