Breathe - It's all over

By Gokul
March 25 2007

Even if Bermuda beat Bangladesh (and I'll practice celibacy for a whole week if it does) it's all over. Thank god or whoever was responsible.

The ouster of India from WC 2007 seemed the only way to tear open millions of blindfolds and nail home the point that the team had regressed mentally. It was this constant paralytic state that cost the team dearly and a lesson has been taught the hard way to whoever will care to learn it. Both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been the professors who handed out this lesson and showed the world how far they had come along and how fragile India's mental state has been for some time now.

Sri Lanka started out in the 70s and Bangladesh in the late 90s. Both these nations have improved rapidly since they started out as minnows playing under the shadows of their more accomplished neighbor. In this short period, both nations have strived for and reached the next level leaving behind their more respected opponents in just about every aspect of the game, mental and physical. And this has been on the biggest stage of the sport that separates the men from the mamma's boys, the wheat from the chaff, the substance from the style, the wins from the losses.

Meanwhile, India has stayed put as an international-standard team with sporadic improvement translated into brilliant performances whirling in the aftermath of disastrous displays. Both the losses in the WC showed the world how India had been caught deeply embarrassed with its hand in the cookie jar. To be fair, who would have expected a bunch of U-19 Bangladeshi cricketers and a few wily Lankan veterans to sweep the carpet from under a team who had just beaten them in the recent past? The answer is everyone but India. While the established teams worked smartly in anticipation of a competitive WC, India remained behind underestimating the enemy (even overestimating them if the captain's standard pre-match comments had any value).

Enough has been said, heard and seen about the methods of a coach whose previous occupation may have been that of a drill sergeant on off days and a Nez master on other days. For the uninitiated, Nez is reverse Zen. There are not many known practitioners of this rare art. Even for those who propound its values, the results are often a never-ending process.The essence of Nez is finding out what exactly the process is.

More than enough has been seen of the captain's defensive attitudes articulated with a rigidity of a boarding school prefect. Both men are, however, immensely gifted in speeches executed at twice the speed of sound. Oftentimes, this means that the train of thought that governs the speech is left behind. Those of us who seek answers in English are left to sort out the haze of contradictions that capitulate into what most of us understand as gibberish.

Most appalling however has been the lack of fight in India's best – replaced instead by a look of fright. This would be a good time to inversely rate all high-pressure India matches as PG-13 for lack of violence. Would you want your children to be influenced by the body language of this Indian cricket team?

So, yes, Indian cricket has come a long way. Most of the times, it also goes way back a longer way. Where it goes next is anybody's guess. Like it has happened several times in the past, this too shall pass. The ravages of time and yet another series victory on home soil will be the blue pill that most of us will swallow and sink back into the wet dream we have of India being the best team in the world. On paper.