BOMBAY, 28 March 2003 — Hope deferred make the heart sick. The great hope, or rather the desire of millions, of India winning the World Cup came crashing down like a house of cards and the whole nation was in a state of mourning.

Between lament and excuse, fortunately, most chose the former to express their disappointment, as, even in defeat, they could not see this Indian team doing anything wrong. To the discerning, however, to say that Australia were just too good on the day of the final, is poor consolation and hides a stark reality. The fact is that the Indian players were once again the underachievers and, as has happened so many times in the past, they were overtaken by the final jitters. Look at the way India performed, compared to the way they had played in earlier matches. And the batting? The big guns just failed to boom when it mattered the most. India’s pace trio of Zaheer Khan, Javagal Srinath and Ashish Nehra, which constituted what was being hailed as one of the best attacks in the tournament, unforgivably floundered in every possible manner, length, line and swing. Between the three of them, they conceded an enormous bulk of 230 runs in just 27 overs. From the very first over that Zaheer bowled, he gave away 14 runs, eight of them as extras. No attack can ever afford to start with that many extras, made of wides and no-balls. It was a clear indication that the young fast bowler, who has come up by leaps and bounds in the last one year, was palpably nervous and overawed by the occasion. The infection spread to Srinath and, in a limited way, to Ashis Nehra. Was it that the bowlers, as indeed the entire Indian team, was taken aback by the shocking decision of their captain, Saurav Ganguly, to opt to bowl first, after winning the toss? Whatever the reasoning on the likely state of the wicket, the skipper ought not to have forgotten the fact that the only way that the Indian team could have put pressure on Australia was by offering them a challenging target. That meant that India had to bat first and give all its stars a good run at the crease. There is no doubt that the better side had won, but the fact also remains that the second-best side did not perform even half as well as was expected of them.

That is the great lament.