An unequal contest

An unequal contest
Rajdeep Sardesai

Among the thousands of cricket enthusiasts who thronged Mumbai's Wankhede stadium to watch the recent India-Australia Test match was Indian cricket board secretary Jaywant Lele. In the last two years, Mr Lele has been lampooned in the media for putting his foot squarely in his mouth. Lelespeak has become synonymous with a comedy show, designed to attract ridicule and laughter. And yet, in a kingdom of flannelled fools, both on and off the field, it's often the court jester who has the courage and the garrulity to tell it like it is.

Eighteen months ago, just before the Indian team travelled Down Under, Lele predicted that India would be decimated three-zero by the Australians. Obviously embarrassed, he later claimed to have never said it. The irony is that he was dead right: India suffered a crushing defeat. Now, a little wiser with experience, Lele has chosen not to publicly pronounce his final verdict on the return series. But after watching the first Test demolition, he might be tempted to throw in the towel once again.

But there is a difference between losing to Australia in Australia, and being given the same treatment at home. After all, the conventional cricket wisdom has been that the Indians may be rabbits abroad, but are tigers on home turf. Statistics back this claim. In the last decade India has won just two Tests abroad, one in Sri Lanka, the other in Bangladesh, hardly striking conquests. By contrast, the Indians have lost just one series in this period at home, to South Africa last year. The Indian cricket establishment has been sanguine in the belief that every cricketing disaster on foreign soil will be followed by triumph on doctored wickets in front of adoring crowds. The Australians now threaten to turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Their breathtaking performance in the first match has shown just how wide the gap really is. In the last year, as the Australians have gone on a 16-Test winning streak, there have been inevitable comparisons with the great teams of the past. Such comparisons are often unfair, since they have to be seen in the context of different generations and the quality of opposition. What can be said of the present Australians, though, is that they are the best contemporary team in the game, 11 highly motivated individuals led by a truly inspirational captain.

In the process, the Australians have revolutionised cricket. Like the great Dutch football team of the 1970s or the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls basketball team of the 1990s, they have shown the capacity to raise the bar of the sport to a new level. Until recently, cricket was seen as a relatively leisurely sport requiring a lower level of fitness than action packed sports like rugby and football. In the almost Brahminical hierarchy of the sport, fielding was considered a menial task, the real stars batted and bowled and didn't get their trousers dirtied in the outfield. The sport itself was seen as less of a science, more a matter of pure individual skill. So, unlike American football or baseball, the idea of specialised coaches for every function in the game was considered outrageous.

The Australians under Steve Waugh have changed all the rules. Every player in the team is a good fielder. All the players have fitness levels that would measure up to some of the best in other contemporary sports (a couple of them can run the 100 m in sub-11 seconds). The Australians have also successfully completed the marriage between cricketing technique and modern technology. Each player's strengths and weaknesses are part of a scientific databank while the opposition is also sized up on the ubiquitous laptop. In a style more reminiscent of American sport, John Buchanan is today virtually a head coach of sorts, with specialist fitness trainers, sports psychologists and even media managers to assist him. To give an example of the new cricket philosophy: after every day of the Mumbai Test, each Australian player had a urine test to check the level of body dehydration.

Now, contrast this super-specialisation of Team Australia with the Indian approach. It was once said of the great Ranjitsinhji that while he wielded the willow like a magician, he left the fielding to his serfs. It would seem that in the grand tradition of the princes (with the notable exceptions of Tiger Pataudi and Ajay Jadeja), fielding remains an unfortunate burden for most Indians. With the possible exception of Bangladesh, and maybe Pakistan, there is little doubt that India is the worst fielding team. Having a one week conditioning camp before a major series isn't going to be enough. Nor can suddenly bringing in a foreign coach make our players fit and flexible overnight. Again, while the Australians have demonstrated an intensity and mental toughness that enables them to fight it out in the most adverse situations, the Indians, barring the quite exceptional Tendulkar, are simply unable to raise their game when it counts. The body language is often that of a team ready to wave the white flag.

But why blame 11 individuals when the system they represent is so archaic. It's astonishing that a cricket board which manages multi-crore transactions and runs India's second biggest entertainment industry doesn't have a professional chief executive at the helm. Power-hungry politicians, small-time businessmen, retired bank officers -- the composition of the board has little relevance to a corporate work culture that modern sport needs.

Nor can the future be built in the Jagmohan Dalmia style of simply aggressively marketing one day international cricket. The Pepsi-colonisation of the Indian team isn't going to make them world champions. For that to happen, the entire structure of first class cricket in this country needs to be revamped. From better quality pitches, to more cricket academies, to a non-zonal selection committee, to, most crucially, a more competitive Ranji trophy championship, only a radical overhaul of the existing system can create an Indian team that is capable of matching the new benchmark for excellence set by Australia, and to some extent South Africa.

Ironically, about 20 years ago, soon after the Kerry Packer invasion, Australian cricket too faced a similar crisis of confidence. That's when the sport in that country was shaken up enough for it to be systematically transformed into a corporate enterprise that placed a premium on performance at every level. Now, the products of that system have come to this country and given our national obsession a wake-up call. Perhaps, Mr Lele may be tempted to speak up and ask his board colleagues to rise from their somnolence, or face the prospect of cricket, like our hockey, remaining a prisoner of the past.

òf40óThe writer is with New Delhi Television. The views expressed here are his own

Conventional cricket wisdom has been that the Indians may be rabbits abroad, but are tigers on home turf. The Australians now threaten to turn it on its head.