Just Do It!

Prem Panicker

This Sunday, a routine bout of channel surfing produced an unexpected reward - Star Sports was showing a complete re-run of the final of the SBI ODI series between India and South Africa at Durban.

True, I had not only seen the match live, but even - till technical troubles intervened - relayed a ball by ball commentary on the game on the Rediff site. But kicking back at home, watching the game with a can or three of beer, made me realise the enormous difference there is between watching the game as a reporter/commentator and seeing the same thing from the perspective of cricket fan.

In the former avtaar, you see the minutae. In the latter guise, you see the broad picture. In the former, you 'see' the action with your head, in the latter, with your heart.

Thus, as commentator, when Sachin Tendulkar in the fourth over of the Indian reply backed away from his leg stump, and lashed a Rudi Bryson delivery bowled at 145kmph bang on middle stump and good length through extra cover, you see the cricketing reasons that prompted the stroke, you analyse the risk factor involved, and make the point that had the stroke missed, the batsman would have been accused of sheer irresponsibility. At home this Sunday, though, I saw that same stroke - and marvelled at the supreme self-confidence bordering on arrogance that made it possible.

In fact, "self-confidence bordering on arrogance" is an apt description for the major part of that Indian reply, when the touring side got within a toucher of making the impossible ask of 251 off 40 overs look ridiculously simple. And at the end of it all, I was left with one thought that overrides all others: given that India is capable of such feats of extravagant derring-do in crunch games, why then is it that this side plays so much below par in most games? Asked to make 241 in 40.5 overs in the previous game against Zimbabwe at Benoni, Indian batsmen breeze through with insouciance - in the process mauling the Zimbabwe bowling. Why then did the same side, in previous league encounters between the two teams in the selfsame tournament, make such an unholy mess of things?

This is a question Indian cricket fans have asked themselves ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Almost inevitably, one answer is thrown up: 'Indians lack the killer instinct!'.

Is that right? How does the World Cup win against Pakistan at Bangalore, the Titan Cup league encounter against Australia, the Titan final against South Africa, the Benoni game against Zimbabwe or even the ODI final against South Africa, jell with that assessment? On each occasion, India was faced with do-or-die situations against top quality outfits. And on each occasion, India made the task look simple. No killer instinct, did someone say?

As it happened, a few friends dropped in at home this Sunday, while the telecast was on. And inevitably, the discussion veered round to the reasons for India's on-again, off-again performances on the cricket field. And it was during the heat of that debate that a thought struck me - are we, as a nation, too meek, too apologetic, too unwilling to stand up and be counted, to have much success in the international arena?

I suspect so.

I suspect that we are, as a race, largely defensive. Unwilling to make a public stance. Unwilling to stand up for ourselves. Unwilling to defend ourselves against attack.

"Unwilling", I said. Not "unable".

Thinking along these lines, I was suddenly reminded of something Australian skipper Mark Taylor said at the conclusion of the one-off Test against India at the Firozeshah Kotla in New Delhi last year. Describing the Delhi track as the "worst" he had ever played on, Taylor said that if he had any say in the matter, Australia would never again play Test cricket at the venue.

Barely a couple of months later, Taylor's Australians took on Walsh's West Indians at the WACA ground in Perth - and if you need telling, that pitch had not a crack, but a crater, on the good length spot at one end. And this on day one of a five day Test, prompting the likes of Richie Benaud, Ian and Greg Chappell, Bill Lawry, Bob Simpson (all former Aussie Test captains) and Michael Holding of the West Indies to unanimously opine that it was the worst Test wicket they had ever seen in all their lives.

Not a peep out of Taylor, though. No protest at the nature of the wicket. No threat that he would never play there again. That crater might as well not have existed.

Taylor's statements are, of course, his own problem and nothing to do with us. But the lack of Indian response is what worries me - when the Kotla was slammed as a ground not worth Australia's while, why did the BCCI not utter a word in defence? Why does India's apex cricketing body never seem to care a fig for its reputation and that of the country?

Why do we take criticism, condemnation, without a word uttered for the defence?

The more obvious example is that of the recent home-and-away series against South Africa. Never mind the imbroglios involving the players - the Pollock and Donald incidents, the Cronje shoulder charge on Srinath and such are too well documented, the implications of match referee Barry Jarman failing to take action in a single one of those instances too elaborately discussed, to need repeated iteration here. Let us, rather, look at events purely from the point of view of the Indian attitude.

When South Africa toured India, the BCCI and its organisations in the various states ensured that at no time did the visitors lack for practise facilities. True, at some of the lesser venues, the practise wickets were less than ideal - but facilities there were, and the visitors got optimum use thereof. In contrast, take the Indian reciprocal tour of South Africa. At Bloemfontein, before the first one day game between the two sides, the Indians were scheduled to have nets in the afternoon, winding up at four pm. The South Africans were then scheduled to have nets for the remainder of the time.

In the event, it rained at Bloemfontein that morning, and nets was not possible till around 2.30 pm. India, thus, lost almost two hours of practise time. And what happens? Come 4 pm precisely, the Indians are thrown out, literally, from the nets. The argument is, your time was till four, it is four now, so get the heck out. No consideration of the fact that it was raining and therefore, the Indians couldn't practise for the scheduled three and a half hours. No attempt to give the touring side the least leeway. Just a rigid adherence to pre-fixed time.

What happens in India? The BCCI, and the respective state boards, actually bend over backwards to accomodate a visiting side - sometimes at the expense of the home team.

Again, take the issue of practise bowlers - South Africa failed to provide a single one before the Durban and Newlands Tests. Again, there was no practise bowlers at Bloemfontein - not one single bowler. At 4 pm precisely, over a dozen of them began warming up - because it was the South African turn at nets.

Contrast this with what happened in India - at every single venue, there were at the least 20 bowlers waiting for the visitors, prepared to bowl for over after over, hour after hour and thus help the visiting bowlers conserve their own energies.

What did Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer say of conditions in India? That the facilities were imperfect, that they never got good practise bowlers... and so on. And what did Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Dev say of conditions in South Africa? "We have no complaints, the facilities were good".

Take yet another issue - the question of umpiring. After S K Bansal's performance in the first McDowell Test at Ahmedabad, Woolmer and Cronje were scathing in their criticism. This despite the fact that Bansal's incompetence was democratic - if a Cullinan got a shocking decision, then so did an Azharuddin. What happens in South Africa? A Peter Willey adjudicates, makes mistake after mistake, India gets the bulk of the questionable decisions - but not a word from Messers Cronje and Woolmer about the standard of umpiring.

Interestingly, not a word from the Indians, either - not from the players, not from the BCCI.

Sunil Gavaskar raised an interesting point in a recent article. If a Bansal's errors are criticised as bias, why then does the BCCI not question the appointment of a Peter Willey to officiate in South Africa? After all, Willey did play, for an enormous salary, as part of the Graham Gooch rebel tour to S'Africa when that nation was still on the apartheid blacklist. Why then is Willey deemed any less from from bias than say a Bansal?

Okay, these instances specified above relate to playing conditions - what of off-the-field matters? A Gary Kirsten, writing a tour diary after the Indian tour, makes a big thing of how he did not even get mineral water to brush his teeth with. He - and other South African players - talk of the horrors of catching early morning flights to zip from one part of India to the other, to play one day games.

What then of the South African leg of the tour? At Paarl, to cite one instance, the players were put up at a mountain lodge - with none of the facilities, such as room service, that touring teams look for as their due.

Did any of the Indians complain? No.

Again, the SBI ODI series, just like the Titan Cup, involved early morning flights, long bus journeys and all the rest of the difficulties that travelling in a foreign country involves.

Nary a peep from the Indians, though, mind.

I could go on and on, on these lines, for pages - but the point I am trying to make does not, I suspect, need further underlining.

And what has the result of all this been? That India has acquired the image - biased umpires, designer dustbowls, shoddy facilities, bad food, polluted atmosphere, not even mineral water darn it - of being the touring cricketer's nightmare.

And what of Australia? South Africa? Paradise enow, as friend Omar Khayyam would say.

When one brings up such issues, the immediate reaction from people both at home and abroad is that we are a hospitable, gentlemanly race. That we, by temperament, bend over backwards to accomodate visitors, and take any drawbacks in course of our own foreign tours in our stride.

And therein, I suspect, lies the problem - we are getting a shade too defensive, too uninclined to stand up for our rights. We are carrying this whole thing of the hospitable Indian too damn far.

Look, the argument is simple - some teams have a fierce desire to win. A case in point is South Africa which, following its re-entry into the international cricketing fold, has embarked on what, to their mindset, is tantamount to a holy crusade. Having been out of cricket for two decades, it is as if South Africa is now trying to compensate for those years of drought with a flood of wins.

In the process, it is not particularly concerned about the tactics it uses - whether it is sledging on the field, or denial of basic facilities, or the constant running down of opposing sides and nations. Anything that saps the will of its competition is seen as a fair weapon - and used with absolutely no qualms, no considerations of sportsmanship.

India, meanwhile, goes about its business with trademark meekness - unwilling ever to stand up for itself.

It may be true that 'The meek shalt inherit the earth'. But one thing is for sure - the meek shalt damn well not notch up too many wins on the sports field.

Am I arguing that if India had denied S'Africa practise facilities, or made a hue and cry when its own players were denied it at Durban, Bloemfontein and elsewhere, then the results would have been different?

No. At least, I am not saying that being abrasive will, in and of itself, ensure cricketing victories.

What I am saying is that if the Board, and the cricketers themselves, learn to be more aggressive off the field, then that attitude will grow and be part of the team's makeup on the field as well.

Just one example suffices - the case of Sri Lanka versus Australia. When Lanka went Down Under in late 1995, they were unfairly labelled cheats in the first Test. Ace spinner Muralitharan was called for chucking in the second. The Australian captain was relentless in his criticism of Ranatunga and his men, the Australian media remorseless in playing up such criticism, without ever listening to the other side - or, in fact, even acknowledging that there is another side to the story.

If that had happened to India, the fallout would have been predictable - the Indian captain and manager would have, at the end of the tour, come up with a statement that reads: "The tour was very enjoyable, the Australian players were very friendly, the media was impartial, the facilities were the most perfect you could find anywhere..."

Sri Lanka, though, was made of better stuff. If Taylor slammed Ranatunga, then the latter gave back as good as he got - in fact, epitomising the attitude was Ranatunga's comment when, before the Wills World Cup began, he was asked to rate the chances of his opponents. The Lankan captain named South Africa, India, and Pakistan as the three most favoured teams. Not Australia? "No," Ranatunga shot back, "because in the World Cup, we are playing with neutral umpires!" Again, when Taylor recently named Ranatunga as a confrontationist on the cricket field, the Lankan captain promptly retaliated by dubbing Taylor and the Aussies "racists".

And it was not just the players - the Sri Lankan board, media and public threw their collective weight behind the team. And this aggressive attitude was perfectly channelled into a World Cup campaign not aimed at merely winning the title, but humiliating Australia into the bargain - and this is what Sri Lanka did.

Put simply, the Lankans reacted to off-field events with the ferocity of wounded tigers - then carried that attitude onto the playing field as well.

Another prime example of this attitude is Pakistan. It has its own problems - bad blood within the side, dicey wickets, umpires who have been criticised, riots in stadia, the works. But no matter what, the Pakistan board, fans and players back each other up to the hilt, and react aggressively to attack.

Is it mere coincidence that Sri Lanka and Pakistan win more games than they lose? Or that gentlemanly, hospitable India loses more than it wins?

The tenor of this piece appears to indicate that I am advocating that India plays dirty. Perish the thought - I believe that sports should be played in the spirit of the game. I will applaud an Azharuddin who, having taken a marginal catch, promptly signals that it is not out - rather than another fielder, who claims a catch that was unfairly taken.

But having said that, I also believe in the dictum of an eye for an eye, barbaric though it sounds. I see no reason for the BCCI to shy away from criticising other cricketing countries, when deserved. I see no reason for the Indian players to suffer injustice in silence. No reason for the Indian media to make a hue and cry about designer pitches in India, conveniently forgetting that every single cricketing nation milks the home advantage to the hilt.

In sum, I believe that only when Indian cricket stands up and dares to be heard, and counted, will the spirit of aggression permeate the Indian players as well.

Am I wrong?

You tell me...