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Opinion
There’s a fine line between taking advantage of your privileged situation and becoming complacent prima donnas.
India will never rule the cricketing globe in the dominant fashion that they crave if they play like a team that expects everything served up to them on a silver platter.
In the lead-up and during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia, they have been exuding an air of preciousness that comes with pretenders rather than the confidence that is the hallmark of a champion team.
Apart from fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah and hungry young guns like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Nitish Kumar Reddy looking to make a name for themselves against the world champions, the Indians have been dripping with entitlement on and off the field.
There have been dramas about who can and cannot take photos or film their training sessions with black sheets at one stage draped around the practice nets to prevent prying eyes from deciphering any inside information.
Every professional sports team has the right to decide how much of their preparation will be done behind closed doors and the Indian cricket team also has to deal with an armada of fans who will do pretty much anything to get up close and personal with their idols.
But the training shenanigans continues a theme which has been apparent with the Indian team for several years – they are the rich kids on the cricketing block who get the rock star treatment wherever they go.
That is all well and good but does it breed the high level of desire that sporting teams need when they’re out on the field against a more desperate opponent, particularly when you have cheerleaders like Sunil Gavaskar coming up with all sorts of excuses for the team from the commentary box along the way?
You end up with incidents like Mohammed Siraj giving Travis Head a send-off after he smacks a ton, Kohli dropping the shoulder into a teenage opponent, Jaiswal questioning the third umpire’s decision after his clear deflection and the BCCI’s vice-president then crying foul that India were hard done by.
If the home side had carried on like this there would be a chorus of the “ugly Aussies” stigma going on again.
Every Indian cricketer who defies the incalculable odds to make the national team has a story of how they made their way to the select group of XI who will represent the world’s most populous nation when there were literally millions of kids of the same age when they were coming through the ranks who had the same dream of becoming an Indian Test cricketer.
Getting into the team or making squillions in the IPL cannot be the end goal.
Mohammed Siraj gives Travis Head a send-off after dismissing him. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Becoming the best needs to be just as important, if not more, otherwise the players in the national team will be satisfied with their achievements before a ball is bowled when they take on a rival nation.
The players need to play with the insatiable desire that got them to the national side in the first place.
For a team that has had myriad advantages over the past couple of decades since India has become cricket’s unquestioned main revenue source and, in turn, wielder of influence, the national side’s record is underwhelming.
This century they have won the men’s 50-over World Cup once (when they hosted the tournament in 2011) and they have lifted the T20 trophy twice – in the inaugural event in 2007 and last year’s version in the US and West Indies (where they incidentally had the advantage of knowing when and where their semi-final would be played throughout the tournament so the TV viewing audience could be maximised back home).
They have been runners-up in both World Test Championship finals and their women’s squad is yet to add any ICC global silverware to their trophy cabinet.
Despite winning the previous four Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, including two trips Down Under, their performance this time around has been briefly hot and mostly cold on the back of their 3-0 hiding at home to New Zealand.
In the series opener at Optus Stadium, the brilliance of Bumrah’s 5-30 dragged them back into the match after the team’s first-up failure with the bat before Jaiswal and KL Rahul, another of the few players exhibiting hunger after being in and out of the line-up, won the game for them with a 201-run opening stand.
Kohli cashed in against a tiring attack backed up by Marnus Labuschagne’s dreadful attempts at fast bowling and the unbeaten ton turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Australia with the veteran star cementing his spot in the team but doing little else since.
Umpire Michael Gough speaks with Virat Kohli and Sam Konstas at Melbourne Cricket Groun. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
The other unexpected bonus for the home side turned out to be Rohit Sharma’s return to the team for the second Test after he missed the series opener on parental leave.
His collection of 31 runs from five innings have come mostly from edges and the nature of his twin dismissals in Melbourne last week painted the picture of a batter who has overstayed his welcome in the national team.
It is the job of the selectors to realise when a player’s use-by date has expired and the Indians have failed on this front with their skipper. Even if he is indeed “rested” from the final match in Sydney when it gets underway on Friday, it’s likely to be too little, too late to prevent a series defeat.
It’s not like he came into this series with any form on the board after compiling 42 runs from four knocks against Bangladesh and an equally paltry 91 from six hits in the Black Caps debacle also on home turf.
And he couldn’t even use the Mark Taylor excuse circa 1997 of justifying his place in the team with his tactical nous.
He has under-bowled Ravindra Jadeja after the world’s best all-rounder was somehow omitted from the team for the first two Tests, relied heavily on Bumrah to bail them out of trouble to the point where it would not be a surprise if he breaks down in Sydney under the strain of the workload, and been unimaginative or reactionary with his field placements.
All signs indicate that he has indeed been dropped for the fifth Test when you combine coach Gautum Gambhir’s lengthy chat with likely replacement captain Bumrah on Thursday, his refusal to guarantee that Rohit is in the team and curious comment that “we are going to have a look at the wicket and announce our playing XI tomorrow”.
Indian media reports overnight indicate that will be the case with the team installing Bumrah as skipper in the hope that he can recapture the spirit that the team displayed in Perth.
(Photo by Morgan Hancock – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Since then they have been an abject failure – a 10-wicket loss in Adelaide where they failed to top 180 in either innings, a draw at the Gabba where Rohit made a dud call to field after winning the toss and they had to rely on the Aussies slogging in the second innings and wet weather to save face with a draw, followed by last week’s MCG epic where Bumrah, Reddy and Jaiswal kept them in the contest but India were always playing from behind.
Their only chance of making the World Test Championship final is to win at the SCG and for Australia to go winless on their two-match tour of Sri Lanka.
India are likely to lose and finish the two-year cycle with a 9-8 record with two draws from 19 Tests, which is mediocre for a team that is supposed to be a global powerhouse.
Privilege has its disadvantages.