The Inflection Points

In any trend sheet - things dont just happen. There is always an inflection point - the one thing that seems to trigger off the long trend.

Indian cricket - briefly - rose to great heights. World No.1 in Test Cricket and World Cup Champions. On the back of the ability to fight and fight really hard at that. The fighting spirit was inculcated by Wright and Ganguly no doubt - but the inflection point for the eventual rise to no.1 and champions was Perth.

The events in Sydney had left the team pissed and hurt. They responded in Perth. The fastest pitch, the one pitch where India should have had no chance. They fought hard - typified by Ishant's spell to Punter. The spell that defined the match. What stood out however was not the fact that Ishant had bowled 6 fire-breathing overs to Ricky but the fact that when Sehwag suggested that he bowl one more and Kumble asked "Ek Aur Karega" - inspite of being justified to feel tired and let someone else take up the cudgels, Ishant replied "Haan Karunga". And that "ek aur" delivered the wicket of one of the best players of the short ball in Australia. That team was willing to run itself to the ground to win. Because they fought hard.

And lets make no mistake - the rise to no.1 was not just because we played a fair bit at home - it was because we fought hard outside home. The World Cup saw the same fight and the refusal to give up and thus was the Cup won.

But attitudes change. And that change shows. In West Indies, the World no.1 team refused to chase 86 in 15 overs with 7 wickets in hand and called for a tame draw. It matters not that they might not have won it even if they went for it - but the not trying was a crime. It signalled the start of a flagging intent.

The inflection point for the decline however - was in an ironical life coming full circle style - centred around Ishant Sharma again. We were at Lords - we were under pressure. In the second Inning before lunch Ishant had picked up 3 wickets and was firing hard.There was a chance to blow away England and make a match out of it. There was great amount of interest in how India would fight back after lunch. Ishant should have had the ball in his hand raring to go.

Instead Raina started the session with his slow spinners. The man who after a hard long spell had said yes to "ek aur karega" had now after a 45 minute break refused to attack citing tiredness.

And there in lies the story of a lost spine. The Indian team so willing to fight had in their minds clearly given up long back. If no1 and the World Cup was a direct result of a fighting spirit, 8-0 is a fair and just result of the lack of that very fighting spirit.

Indian Cricket (2001 - 2011), We will miss you

It was 2001 and I was in the first year of my engineering. In my 19 years of existence on the earth, I had been a cricket follower and supporter for as long as I could remember. I remember excitedly waking up to the sound of a TV hearing the words "Kapil Dev" and "97" mentioned in the same breath - and thinking WOW Kapil was on 97, only to discover that the full sentence meant that Kapil was at the crease but India was 97/7.

It was the 90s and that was how life was. India would struggle abroad, India would struggle against quality opposition. And we would take solace in some brilliant individual performances - mostly by Sachin - but also by Azhar, Kumble nd the likes of Jadeja/Robin Singh.

With 1996 arrived a new set of batsmen but the results were yet to show. 1999 we got hammered 3-0 in Australia - predicted not by Glenn McGrath but by the Board Secretary. But it was to be the start of something. VVS had a 167 to show and a group of great young players had been hurt enough. Because by the time that season died out on us, we had a new captain. We got a new coach. And between them Ganguly and Wright laid down the foundations for our best ever years of cricket. The foundation was laid for our best ever generation of players to lay down new benchmarks.

2001 - April 2011 is when Indian Cricket arrived. For someone who woke up to a 97/7 - this golden era was everything one could dream of. It began - as it should have - against the Aussies who were on a 16 match roll. It happened as it should have with our captain setting down the tone for eyeball to eyeball confrontation. When for the first time Aussie arrogance was answered in kind. When for the first time following on two Indian batsmen refused to give up. I remember the headline in the Times of India saying "3 Days 403 runs 14 wickets, 1 day 335 runs No wickets"

It was the start of defiance. It was the start of belief. It was the start of an era.

We reached the WC finals in 2003, We won a Natwest final chasing 326, We beat Pakistan in Pakistan,, We drew in West Indies, We won in West Indies, We won series in England, We won matches in Australia and South Africa. We won at Perth. We kept losing first tests - we kept coming back to even the series. We showed gumption time and again - for the first time ever in this golden period. We won a World Cup - every match when we were down, we fought back. Fight back was the DNA of this team. And this DNA led us to that WC win and a climb to no.1 in the rankings.

The Achilles heel in this entire fight was that it was the same set of players doing the winning. Unlike the Aussie great teams - there was not a seamless structure where if a new player came in, he would settle down with the same ease. And that finally showed. A great batting lineup was exposed in England and crushed in Australia.

When that ball slipped through Dravid's gate for an umpteenth time, when Laxman started facing 30 balls without a boundary for a fluent start, when Sachin started getting out while looking sublime, when Sehwag's patience also could not convert into anything substantial, when Gambhir's grit only meant getting the edge - it was the end of an era.

The denouement might have been sad. The end was a tragedy - for this set of greats knew they had failed themselves of their greatest chance to be recorded in history as conquerors. They will now go, having lost their best chance of a glorious exit. But let that not take away from what has been tremendous time of our cricket following life.

For 2001 - 2011, Thank you. It will take time to rebuild and I am willing to wake up to some more 97/7 as long as there is the promise of another such era. But till then its these memories to cherish