twenty2yards

(Picture Source : Cricinfo)

As young boys, me and my cousins would scramble up to the roof of my grandparents’ single storey house in Chandigarh in our growing up years and engage in our favorite pastime. Much to the chagrin of my grandmother, we would not care a fig about the weather, most of our time together being spent during the months of the summer vacation, and run helter skelter on the roof making our presence felt to everyone down below. All we needed was a large wooden plank that served as the wickets, a smaller one that was our bat (on some occasions we managed to get a real one) and a rubber or a tennis ball. Each of us would choose a team, there being a fierce competition for who would take India. The entitlement would eventually be decided by draw of lots. We would call it our very own World Cup and the one who had chosen India would try his mighty best to justify the burden of carrying the nation’s name. 1992 went, 1996 went and so did 1999, by when all of us were in our teens. And by common consensus we had jokingly come to believe that it was easier for India to win the World Cup on our grandmother’s rooftop than in the actual cricket field.

For a generation of Indian cricket fans that grew up loving the game and following its team during the 1990s, every Indian victory was meant to be savored. For much like the legion of fans that preceded it in the earlier decades, it was more used to watching the team lose than win. We were devoid of cognitive images and memories of that small golden window between 1983 and 1987 when the world cup winning Indian team perhaps enjoyed its most confident period of cricketing performance since Independence. The 1990s had Tendulkar, the match winner and a number of dedicated performers such as Kumble and Srinath and saw the emergence of Ganguly and Dravid towards the later part of the decade. But the 1990s also had a list of test defeats all around the world, from the crushing clean sweep in Australia in 1999 to the heartbreak in Barbados in 1997 to the drubbing inside 3 days at Durban in 1996. The one day games were littered with instances of matches being lost once Tendulkar was dismissed. Barring the sandstorm series in the summer of 1998 where Tendulkar demolished the leg spin of Warne, Sharjah remained an arena identified with disappointments against Pakistan. Three world cups came and went with none seeing the team as serious contenders. The closest it came was in 1996 when a high charged triumph against Pakistan was followed by a disgraceful exit in Kolkatta.

The Indian cricket fan in that period did not take victory for granted and has suffered from perennial pessimism having seen multiple winning positions (17 runs needed with 3 wickets left against Pakistan in Chennai in 1999 being a prime example) being squandered to hand over the glory to the opposition. Thoughts of victory were entertained with extreme caution. Laudable efforts of a Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid or Kumble were welcomed with grave apprehension of the imminent collapse of a brittle lower middle order and a tail ineffective with the bat. Australia and South Africa were envied for their ruthless efficiency and dogged determination to win, Pakistan for its multitude of match winners with ball and hard hitters with the bat and Sri Lanka for showing us our inadequacies too often with the bat, ball and specially in the field. In the middle of it we had Tendulkar to savor, the rising graphs of Ganguly and Dravid to admire and the perseverance of Kumble to respect. Team victories were outnumbered by the losses that wounded the confidence. One of the most galling apart from Barbados in 1997 was in the 1999 World Cup against Zimbabwe when an India sans Tendulkar threw away a winning hand and the tail capitulated to grab a loss that all but ended any hopes of effective progress in the tournament.

For this generation of fans, optimism always came with a rider. The game was never considered to be over till the final run or wicket was taken (purists would say that is always the case!) and each Indian victory was meant to be cataloged in memory. It took a decade of gradual achievement, the emergence of new match winners and a captain who transformed the attitude of the team for the confidence to be planted. Saurav Ganguly became captain, a hopeless looking India performed a miracle against Australia in 2001 and a campaign in the 2003 World Cup that threatened to get derailed right at the start was transformed into roaring wave eventually to be stopped by an equally strong Australian juggernaut. The belief would grow gradually with victories in Australia, Pakistan and then England. Tigers at home and lambs abroad was a phrase we all knew the meaning of since our middle school days. It took monumental performances from the trinity of Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid backed up by an untiring Kumble and the re-emergence of Zaheer Khan to chip away at the doubts that arose before every overseas performance. A new set of performers, emerging from the mofussil map of India, took over the reins towards the end of the first decade of this century. A new leader, exuding an almost un-Indian like calm amidst the frenzy of a cricket game, took over the reins of a team that believed in its strength (the high quality batting lineup) and was aware of its limitations (a thin and unpredictable bowling and an uninterested fielding). Yuvraj, despite his blip last year, Raina, Gambhir, Sehwag, Harbhajan and Zaheer – a new set of match winners whose rise coincided with India winning more games than losing. Dhoni’s ODI win % is close to 60. A decade back no Indian fan could have imagined this to be true for its team’s captain. A rising confident country broke its economic shackles in the early 90s. Its cricket team took a decade or so more but the reins are truly snapped now. The Indian fan now believes. There was guarded optimism in place of the superstitious pessimism when the team was tagged as favorite in the latest edition of the World Cup.

This World Cup and its final is now the new index by which the fan would measure this team. Our minds will be pulled towards the memories of 2nd April, 2011 time and again – a World Cup final, a toss lost, a required run rate of 5 and a half, Sachin and Sehwag lost within the first 7 overs. Those demons of old made hovered dangerously when Gambhir and Kohli began rebuilding the chase. But this is a different team and these are different men. An innings of high quality and balance by Gambhir, a statement of confidence by the captain and a run chase that should serve as a template in the multitude of cricket academies all over the globe. On this night, the team soaked the pressure like a sponge and showed a deep well of self belief. The Indian fan has finally been gifted for his attachment, sometimes tempestuous, to the nation’s most popular game. An entire generation now has its moment of glory to savor. The World Cup can indeed be won by India, and not just on my grandmother’s rooftop.

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