Opinion The magic of 2011

Ask Australia. Part of the reason this is not 1983 is that since the mid-1990s the Australians have rewritten the rulebook that determines what makes a champion. Greatness,with them around,was no longer a random collection of good days in the park. They innovated,they affected aggressiveness,they never let up,they kept on winning — most of all,they allowed themselves no excuse. If they were world champions in 1999,2003 and 2007,it simply reflected their performance elsewhere.

When Ricky Ponting was booed after the Ahmedabad quarter-final,it was shocking not only because he had been a gracious captain in defeat — but also because he had just passed on the baton,to be picked up by a team that would be the new Australia. Australia will recoup,for sure,but in the meanwhile they have set a standard for what world dominance requires. The West Indies were champions too,in every way,once — and while their flair often masked their hard work and their cricket embraced all of us with its post-colonial messaging,they did not set themselves up as the team to beat. They were too nice. Australia,on the contrary,overstressed the result-above-all-else code — recall Mark Taylor’s act of denial in passing up a chance to go past a Bradman record. And even as Australia made an easy meal of their opponents in 2003 and 2007,they asserted that winning the World Cup signified that dominance.

So,for what it’s worth,with its mismatches,the same old teams and boring build-up,the World Cup is our only measure to anoint a world champion. Every sport needs to sort out its ranks. Ask Sachin Tendulkar. He said afterwards: “Winning the World Cup is the ultimate. It is the proudest moment of my life. It shows it is never too late. I thank my teammates who were fabulous. I could not really hold back my tears.”

Cricket is a funny old game,with its individual profiles,its batsman-bowler match-ups,yet with the team result hovering over every one of those stories. Perhaps we must look at Sachin’s career to make sense of the enormity of the occasion — and also to inquire why it holds hope beyond the predictable triumphalism.

Sachin’s career actually touches that of the 1983 squad. As a 16-year-old,he made his debut on a tour of Pakistan in 1989. The heroes of 1983 were around,they must have been for it was still the era of Kapil Dev,but Sachin decided on his role in Indian cricket soon enough. At Sialkot,Waqar Younis,also a debutant in that Test series,bloodied Sachin’s nose,but the little boy refused to retire hurt. He’d say later:

“It didn’t feel nice,what with blood flowing from my nose,but I couldn’t leave for the side was not doing well.”

The side did not do well far too often. It’s fanciful,and what’s sport without its flights of imagination,but it’s essentially true: for Sachin,cricket’s greatest son,to realise the sport’s greatest prize,a team worthy of Sachin’s presence had to be constructed — the bits-and-pieces brilliance and fairytale twists of 1983 would not do. Sachin’s greatness needed to be validated by that of the team he inhabits. In team sport,a great player needs a team’s triumph. His mates know it,as they also must know that it in no way diminishes their own contribution. As cricketer after cricketer dedicates this World Cup to him,the irony is revealing: the man who could not be a great captain,a captain who could not summon the serenity and aloofness Dhoni does,became in the end a great leader. And what Sachin’s done above all else,as he sits on the cusp of his hundredth international century,is reinforce the ambition of going on and on,and on,searching for the next victory,the next challenge. It’s like Simon Barnes writes in The Meaning of Sport,“Greatness requires a kind of perpetual thirst.”

Will this team of world champions,then,show the thirst to go on and on? In that line of questioning lies hope. Barnes emphasises that no sport can afford to devalue its heartland. The effect of 1983 was to read that heartland as a geographical entity,the hundreds of millions of fans in the subcontinent who sustained the profitable commerce of the game based on broadcast rights. But as the standard formats of competitive cricket,international and domestic,move towards new,shorter,hyper versions that still do not have the coordinates to measure greatness,another heartland,the people who invest the game with romance and something beyond the scorecard’s reading,is being sidelined. Barnes says that what is being privileged,and this includes one-day’s recent gimmicks,is “cricket for people who don’t like cricket”,and that cricket today underestimates this heartland’s capacity to move on.

People who don’t like cricket usually do not like Tests,the ultimate arbiter of the game for the heartland. The effect of the Australian reign was to imbue the five-day game with techniques and tactics of the one-day game,to make it more competitive and interesting. India come to one-day championship as the current top-ranked Test team. If India can work out why the 2011 World Cup final is Sachin’s triumph,when his contribution to the run total was so meagre,they would restore equilibrium to cricket. Twenty20 will benefit from this moment too,but now T20 will not consume cricket.

mini.kapoor@expressindia.com