Looking at the last 3 decades of Indian test cricket, 80s was a year of resilience, 90s the nadir and 2000-2010 victorious. I don’t even want to second guess, what would 2010-20 look like, as it seems like a decade of clean sweeps. The Indian team has always been strong at home but as a touring side has had a history of capitulation.
India is the wealthiest cricket team in the world, they practically run ICC, have the greatest batsmen in international cricket, hold almost all batting records, access to the best coaches and coaching facilities. Name it, we got it. Yet India until 2000 had won 3 test matches out of 76 tour games, that’s a win probability of fewer than 4%. They had won just one series against England in 1986 for 20 years, not including a fledgling Sri Lanka in 93. Touring games were virtually over before they began; India was at best a boost for the home team, before a major tour. Out of form batsmen got back into form, bowlers bowled their career best spells and teams strolled to victories.
Towards the end of 90s India hit rock bottom with the match fixing scandals. India’s greatest cricketing son struggled to lead the team with the same success he enjoyed with the bat. With the turn of the millennium when everything was doom and gloom, in walked Sourav Ganguly. Unfairly cast aside after a one match opportunity in 1992, he came back roaring with a century on debut in 1996. It was a sign of a character with steely resolve, focus and one of the feistiest players cricket has seen. A team that lacked all three of Sourav’s virtues received the perfect tonic with his captaincy. Combined with John Wright’s perseverance and focus on getting the basics right, was a success formula like none other in the history of Indian cricket.
Between 2000 and 2010, India won 9 series out of 22 while touring abroad. This included wins against England, Pakistan, West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand, four of them more than a handful in home conditions. But what was truly incredible for a country that won 3 matches in 20 years, won 23 matches while touring in 10 years. During this period India showed incredible resolve, belief and came back from virtually impossible positions to win. Unlike the 90s, when India usually went flat and let oppositions walk all over them, Sourav’s fire was the ideal fillip for flagging spirits. He was also not one to shy away from mind games and intimidation. He was in fact one step ahead of them when he made Steve Waugh wait for the toss before the match or did the now famous T-shirt act. The aggression brought adrenaline and intent, to what was a rather timid team.
If 2010 was a glorious decade in Indian cricket history. 2020 seems like a decade for 20-20. The IPL has virtually transformed cricket in India. Cricket was a sport played by half a billion Indians on dusty dirt tracks, but it was maybe a handful of batsmen in the playing eleven who made the big media contracts, the rest were impoverished struggling cricketers. IPL changed all of that, a six weeks extravaganza that saw new stars emerge and made many more millionaires. All of a sudden all batsmen were practicing lap sweeps off fast bowlers, right-handers played left handed and helicopter shots. Dravid who is by far a thoroughbred technician, was playing scoops across the line and over the covers, showing the new crop of talent the future of cricket.
The fab-four got an extended lease, while BCCI bought time, playing merry go round tours with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. During this time the selectors tried Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Murali Vijay, Virat Kohli and Abhinav Mukund. All bright talents in the shorter swashbuckling form, but completely lacked the technique for sterner tests, where bowlers were not push over dummies. An ageing fab four stood behind numbers taller than their shrinking forms, from years of carrying the burden of a billion cricket-crazy fans and insane tour schedules. An appropriate glorious parting gift would have been the world cup, but who will take their place? All of a sudden Indian test batsmen are a scarce commodity as coaching manuals were burnt. Some in fact predicted the demise of a tradition over a 100 years old, as the popular lucrative format seemed to replace the old. Fortunately cricket lies in more reliable hands. Only time will tell if an increasingly corporate BCCI may have killed the golden goose, as they are left with an average crop of inexperienced test cricketers and extremely irate fans after watching their country’s pride and glory getting publicly flogged. But something tells me we wouldn’t have to wait very long.
