You have to read the newspapers to believe it. With an admittedly deserved and dominant test victory at Lord's, the British media (the ex-players particularly) have already spent a good inventory of print and grey matter (the latter in visibly lower proportions) in writing out the obituary for the current World Champions of Cricket. While not trying to belittle their impressive display of team game at the home of cricket, it is a little bemusing to see some of the greats of the game falling over one another in a hurry to write the epitaph of Team India. Accepted, they are the worthy challengers to the number one ranking in test cricket, currently in possession of the Men in Blue, but the cockiness and incredulity of their articles leaves you wondering, is it mere competitiveness or a little bit of insecurity creeping in? Agreed, you have beaten an ageing Australian team in their most vulnerable rebuilding phase, and have arguably one of the world's finest all-round bowling line-up (debatable, since all of their performances have been in pace-friendly conditions), but I guess you have still a long way to go, if you want to wrest away the mantle from a team which has been playing smart cricket consistently for quite a long period of time, and have most recently been crowned the deserved world champions in the fifty over format.
India has always been a slow starter in a long test series away from home, which can be attributed to the lack of adequate practice matches in foreign soil, to acclimatize themselves. You can't and won't always hit the ground running. The BCCI has to take a larger role in ensuring that there are adequate number of practice matches before the start of any series, especially away in foreign conditions. The host country will seldom be as indulging as us; Indians have historically been gracious hosts and the perfect guests, while the response from the foreign boards while touring have barely been so. It's all very justified; professional sports is a hard-knuckled fight, the opposition will always want you on the mat, with any form of external help within sporting spirits most welcome. Would you expect Nadal providing hitting practice to Roger Federer across the red soils of Paris, before the Roland Garros?
Coming back to the present series, not much should be looked into the performance of the Indians in the first test match, other than the fact that it was below par. The increasing number of batsmen fishing outside the off stump was an alarming sight, with Sunny Gavaskar perfectly wondering about the increasing amount of effect the twenty-twenty game has brought into the current-age batsmens' game, their bat speed, their eagerness to score runs more quickly than ever, to get on with the game, bringing about their downfall. Test Cricket is still the litmus test for class, and only the worthy ones survive, the average ones get grounded out quite early.
It is famously said that from the moon, only the great wall of China can be observed. While not going into the authenticity of that observation, one thing that can be ascertained is that when India's greatest batting line-up is constructed many centuries from now, one name will ease in before many others: India's very own version of the Chinese Wall: Rahul Sharad Dravid. For over a decade and a half now, India's greatest number three, and the best away batsman for generations to come, has held fort as the crisis man, the man for the occasion. While we have raved about and ogled at Tendulkar's genius, Ganguly's elegance, Laxman's artistry and Sehwag's butchery, this man has quietly gone about his business with little fuss, barely playing for the spotlight and rarely found beneath it, and even the spotlights let him be. But when these batting maestros have built one epic innings after another, it has been hardly noticed as who has been supplying the brick and the mortar, under whose supervision such gems have been nurtured and established; the man who more often than not has been at the non-srtiker's end, bearing the brunt of the opposition bowling's sharp fangs, blunting them and then letting the more exuberant partner to feast on the carcass. At the indimidating and vociferous Eden Gardens, at the famous bullring in Johannesberg, on the rapid deathbed at Kingsmead, on the world's fastest wicket at the WACA, or in the Don's backyard at Adelaide, The Wall has continuously scripted monuments that will stand the test of time, but the ones which perhaps got overshadowed by the skyscrapers erected of his other illustrious team-mates. Even with the current test match underway at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, when you have witnessed the ball zip around alarmingly, there is only one prayer on your lips, let Dravid hang in there for at least until tea, and the battle will be halfway over; as by then he would have ground out the English attack with his dour defence, his body and willow behind every ball, his eyes watching every delivery like a hawk, and his mind not wearing out a wee bit even if his body will scream to give in. In Dravid we trust, for it is he who offers us hope in the darkest of hours, especially in an away series, and he has hardly let us down.
India has always been a slow starter in a long test series away from home, which can be attributed to the lack of adequate practice matches in foreign soil, to acclimatize themselves. You can't and won't always hit the ground running. The BCCI has to take a larger role in ensuring that there are adequate number of practice matches before the start of any series, especially away in foreign conditions. The host country will seldom be as indulging as us; Indians have historically been gracious hosts and the perfect guests, while the response from the foreign boards while touring have barely been so. It's all very justified; professional sports is a hard-knuckled fight, the opposition will always want you on the mat, with any form of external help within sporting spirits most welcome. Would you expect Nadal providing hitting practice to Roger Federer across the red soils of Paris, before the Roland Garros?
Coming back to the present series, not much should be looked into the performance of the Indians in the first test match, other than the fact that it was below par. The increasing number of batsmen fishing outside the off stump was an alarming sight, with Sunny Gavaskar perfectly wondering about the increasing amount of effect the twenty-twenty game has brought into the current-age batsmens' game, their bat speed, their eagerness to score runs more quickly than ever, to get on with the game, bringing about their downfall. Test Cricket is still the litmus test for class, and only the worthy ones survive, the average ones get grounded out quite early.
It is famously said that from the moon, only the great wall of China can be observed. While not going into the authenticity of that observation, one thing that can be ascertained is that when India's greatest batting line-up is constructed many centuries from now, one name will ease in before many others: India's very own version of the Chinese Wall: Rahul Sharad Dravid. For over a decade and a half now, India's greatest number three, and the best away batsman for generations to come, has held fort as the crisis man, the man for the occasion. While we have raved about and ogled at Tendulkar's genius, Ganguly's elegance, Laxman's artistry and Sehwag's butchery, this man has quietly gone about his business with little fuss, barely playing for the spotlight and rarely found beneath it, and even the spotlights let him be. But when these batting maestros have built one epic innings after another, it has been hardly noticed as who has been supplying the brick and the mortar, under whose supervision such gems have been nurtured and established; the man who more often than not has been at the non-srtiker's end, bearing the brunt of the opposition bowling's sharp fangs, blunting them and then letting the more exuberant partner to feast on the carcass. At the indimidating and vociferous Eden Gardens, at the famous bullring in Johannesberg, on the rapid deathbed at Kingsmead, on the world's fastest wicket at the WACA, or in the Don's backyard at Adelaide, The Wall has continuously scripted monuments that will stand the test of time, but the ones which perhaps got overshadowed by the skyscrapers erected of his other illustrious team-mates. Even with the current test match underway at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, when you have witnessed the ball zip around alarmingly, there is only one prayer on your lips, let Dravid hang in there for at least until tea, and the battle will be halfway over; as by then he would have ground out the English attack with his dour defence, his body and willow behind every ball, his eyes watching every delivery like a hawk, and his mind not wearing out a wee bit even if his body will scream to give in. In Dravid we trust, for it is he who offers us hope in the darkest of hours, especially in an away series, and he has hardly let us down.
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