Way back in 1971, when India beat the West Indies for the first time ever in a Test match and won the series, the Indian team on its return had tens of thousands of people at the airport to welcome them. A few months later, when India beat England in England for the first time and won the series, there were even bigger crowds that received them at the airport and the streets of Bombay were lined with people who cheered and applauded the team as they were taken in a motorcade from the airport to the Brabourne stadium for a public felicitation. That time, the Chairman of the Selection Committee, the late Vijay Merchant eloquently said that the performance of the team would be written in letters of gold when the history of Indian cricket is written.
Today, when the Indian team has just returned from Pakistan, they were whisked away from the very people who have supported, prayed for them and who had turned up in huge numbers to welcome them back home after their stupendous performances in Pakistan. It is still not too late and it would be wonderful to have the BCCI as well as some of its affiliates have public felicitations of the team whose deeds, the late Vijay Merchant if he were alive, would have described as fit to be written in Platinum in the history of Indian cricket.
Any which way one looks at it, this Indian team was superior to Pakistan in all departments of the game. They outplayed Pakistan on more days of the tour and were deserving winners not only of the one-day series, but also the Test series. There was that one aberration at Lahore in the second Test but apart from that, the Indians were man-to-man better than the Pakistanis. It’s the tendency to lose the next Test after winning the previous one that the Indians have to overcome to be the best side in the world.
Here in Pakistan, they were able to raise themselves after the defeat to win the next Test and hopefully this is the harbinger of things to come. This is the kind of mental toughness needed to forget a bad day and to begin the next one with a clear mind focused on doing better that day. It’s pretty much the same on a given day where players learn to forget the previous ball and concentrate on the next ball. A team that has more players in the eleven who can do that more often will end up doing better than the opposition.
The series was touted as a contest between India’s batting and Pakistan’s pace and more specifically, between Sachin Tendulkar and Shoaib Akhtar. In the latter instance, with Tendulkar’s massive unbeaten 194 in the first Test and his dismissal to Shoaib’s first ball to him in Rawalpindi, that contest could be termed as a draw, but in the context of the team, the Indian batting made ‘khasta’ of the Pakistani bowling. There was the first triple century by an Indian by Virender Sehwag and Dravid’s masterly 270, not to forget the innings of Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh, and in all their efforts, the Pakistanis seemed to be firing blanks. Only Umar Gul, who was considerably slower than Shoaib or Sami, but who moved the ball appreciably, was the one the Indians had to watch out for.
It was bowling which was the surprise packet from the Indians. There was never any doubt that Kumble was going to be a tough nut for the Pakistanis, though on previous tours, Indian spinners have copped it from the Pakistani batsmen. Kumble is a different kind of a spinner and with due respect to those magicians of yore, is a far more aggressive spinner. He is no longer a one-dimensional bowler, but has a variety and the confidence and the expertise to use it against different types of batsmen. He not only got wickets at vital times but also kept the pressure on by choking up the flow of runs.
The new-ball bowlers Pathan, Balaji and Nehra invariably gave the breakthrough and ensured that the experienced Inzamam ul-Haq and Yousuf Youhanna did not come in the bat with their side comfortably placed. Like Umar Gul for Pakistan, they showed that at the highest level it is movement off the pitch that gets wickets and not just sheer pace. Pathan’s progress in Australia had raised hopes about him and he did not disappoint and the biggest plus for India was the emergence of Balaji as a wicket-taking bowler. He was predominantly an inswing bowler, but he was bowling late outswingers that were reminiscent of the great Kapil Dev. India’s greatest cricketer was the bowling coach for the short camp before the Indian team left for Pakistan and his imprint could be seen not just in the new weapon in Balaji’s armory but the way Nehra also rediscovered his natural outswinger. It is fashionable to credit foreigners for India’s success but here is evidence that if tips given by former Indian greats are observed and followed, then the results will be there.
The last six weeks have been one of great anticipation, anxiety and excitement. With this superb win, it is time now for congratulations and compliments. The public’s hearts are bursting with happiness and pride at the deeds of our team. C’mon BCCI, let the felicitations begin!
