Pussycats Everywhere

Time was when cricket freaks in this country used to wake up before the milkman came towatch ‘our boys’ getting a pasting from the Aussies by the third or fourth dayof the Test. It sure hurt, but somewhere something told us that we could sock it to themon home-turf. ‘Come here, Kangaroos, and we’ll show you,’ we toldourselves.

But when the first Test in Mumbai ended by 3.30 pm on day 3 last week, sports writerArvind Lavakare, who coined the phrase ‘Tigers at home, lambs abroad’, announcedthat he was retracting his immortal line on the conclusive evidence that a lamb is a lambis a lamb. And Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his syndicated column: “Perhaps the time hascome to change that to ‘Pussycats at home as well as abroad’.”

Shocked? In the last 14 Tests at home, we’ve lost six, drawn three and won five.That’s a success rate of 46 per cent. For a country that had maintained a decade-longaura of invincibility on “designer” pitches, that’s a pretty sad record.

Suddenly, or so it seems, our presumed strengths have become our ‘pucca’weaknesses. So you thought our spinners could suck their opponents into a web of defeat,like this? Well, think again because we are now struggling to prise out 20 wickets unlessthere is a minor miracle like Anil Kumble bagging 10 in an innings. Bangladesh scores 400in its debut Test against us. And our wiliest spinner most often is not Joshi or HarbhajanSingh or Sanghvi but Tendulkar.

So you thought our batsmen were great spin players, dancing down the track and allthat? Well, think again because Shane Warne and Saqlain Mushtaq and Nicky Boje and MarkWaugh have exposed the thin edifice on which our batting reputation rests. So you thoughtthis was a land of spinners? Well, think again because we now look to semi-retiredcricketers like Hirwani and Raju to fill up the bench.

And suddenly, so it seems, the presumed weaknesses of our rivals have become theirhidden strengths. So you thought their batsmen, bred on pace, wouldn’t be able to doa thing on our soil? Well, think again as Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden and GaryKirsten and Aminul Islam and god-knows-who’s-next sweep (and reverse-sweep) the hellout of us. So you thought their spinners were less penetrative than ours and that theirpacemen wouldn’t be able to rattle us? Well, well, well.

Yeh kya ho raha hai’? Simple: between Dilbert’s pigeons,Lavakare’s lambs and Gavaskar’s pussycats, the lion has been bearded in its ownden. But are we doing anything about it? To those who are foolishly emotional enough tobelieve that our team shares our sorrow, the truth is not slightly different but awfullyso.

Rediff.com’s Prem Panicker points out that most of our “boys”didn’t forget to collect the match allowance for the full five days of the first Testwhen they were on the field for but two-and-a-half. In fact, S. Ramesh told the MumbaiCricket Association chief, Ratnakar Shetty, that he didn’t have time to fill thoseforms. So could he please send the dough with V.V.S. Laxman?

On the night of the defeat, some of our cricket stars were expected to make an appearanceat an auction of Bradman memorabilia. None of them turned up, understandably, for thepublic sentiment was to sell them off first. Where they should have made an appearance wasat the nets. (They didn’t.) Columnist Raju Bharatan remembers that not very long ago,whenever we lost a Test, the team would practice at the nets the very evening. “Thatmade them feel the pinch of defeat. I don’t think this Indian team feels very badthat it has lost.” Ajit Wadekar, while not surprised that we lost against an“invincible side”, says that our bowlers let Gilchrist come into his own.“They must practice accuracy. It’s the key in a Test.” In Mumbai, Harbhajangave away over four runs an over, Sanghvi over seven.

Forty years ago, when Vinoo Mankad was at the services of the prince of Jamnagar, hewould go to the nets and try for long hours to land the ball on a coin. “If hedidn’t, he told me, he had to forego his lunch,” Lavakare remembers. “But Idon’t see such resolve from this Indian side. Everything is wrong about it. Thebatsmen can’t run between the wickets. I wonder how many of them can do 100 metres ina decent time. They are not athletic, they are not fit and some of them are lazy. And anignorant media has hyped up some of our undeserving batsmen. You may call Rahul Dravid asheet anchor and what not. But, still, that’s no excuse to score at the pace he does.Not in today’s cricket.” Dravid faced 215 balls, prodding away for about fivehours to make 48 runs in the two innings.

Writer K.N. Prabhu feels that the malaise of Indian cricket is the odi syndrome.“One-day cricket has ruined us. Batsmen are getting out to outrageous shots. Spinnershave forgotten how to flight the ball today. Even at the regional level, a specialisedspinner finds it difficult to get a berth. This is not a great climate to nurture spinwhich, all said and done, is our strength at home. It’s time to scrap odis.”

And then, there is the Board. Panicker points out that nobody can fully understand theBCCI. “John Wright wants some video footage for a software that he has. Star and espnsend 75 hours of footage. But the guy who can incorporate it works for a private firm andneeds the Board’s formal letter to his proprietor to let him do this job. For monthsthe Board didn’t find time to send this simple letter.”

As always, it looks like the Board and the selectors have taken a vow to do everythingwrong. Says off-spin legend Erapalli Prasanna: “They invited Hirwani to the team butdropped him suggesting they had no faith in the choice. When a team is selected, I believethere should be some planning.”

So, in the end, all hopes and aspirations continue to be on that one man again. SachinRamesh Tendulkar, who gets two chances every Test match to either swing it for us ordrown. Wonder what would have happened to us, if he was good at studies.