June 7, 1999
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CRICKET Back With A Bang Almost done in by the lack of self-belief the Indian team comes up with scintillating play unfettered by the strangehold of orthodoxy. By Rohit Brijnath
The senior Indian player who sat thoughtful amid the chaotic hotel lobby in Taunton, England, had never heard of Shaw. No matter, cricket is an art form too. Twenty-four hours before India played Sri Lanka in the World Cup, he mused, "The final edge that's missing is mental. All of us are scared of doing anything against the rules. Even if we have a beer, we have to hide. There is an image we're supposed to maintain. We're always supposed to look good, we're never supposed to abuse, we're never supposed to be seen to scratch the ball. But we have to learn to go beyond our parameters."
Saurav Ganguly, a prince of occasional timidity, allowed his spirit to roam, and the ball with it, sending it in graceful arcs into the river Tone that bends past the stadium, an act of defiance which only Viv Richards at Somerset was once wont to do. As that evening wore on, and only a memory of the wild drumbeats lingered, Ganguly stepped forth, champagne bottle under arm, signing autographs for hunters who had stayed on. Days earlier, with his form erratic he was prophetic. "There are going to be ups and downs, I know that, but when you strike form you just need to cash in." Now, he arched his eyebrows in recollection, "As opener sometimes I will fail, I don't have the comfort of coming in at No. 4 or 5 but I never put myself under any pressure." But there was more to his 183 in 158 balls with seven sixes than angelic shotplay. As Sunil Gavaskar said later, "The problem with this team is that they don't think. Today they did. Look at Saurav, even at the end of the innings he was running twos with a fresh Azharuddin. That, I like." Standing in the shadow of Ganguly's light -- and Tendulkar's a few days earlier -- was another man, less celebrated but alive with the knowledge that like a bruised, bleeding boxer who refuses to be counted out, staying the distance has been worthwhile. Being dropped for 25 or so games last year is a rejection that belittled Rahul Dravid. It also drove him. "There were two ways to look at it. Either to feel wronged, that the whole world was against me. Or to work harder, which was the more appealing choice." A batsman whose craft beckons words like immaculate went to the nets aware that "I needed to improve my off-side game and be more aggressive in my shot selection". A 104 in 111 balls, a 145 in 129 balls, 316 runs in four matches, the most by an Indian batsman, is the sweetest measure of his accomplishment. As New Zealand great Martin Crowe said, "Rahul's movement, his style, attracts my eye and I prefer to watch him over Tendulkar." Perhaps he knew too that here again was a player redefining his parameters. Yet the heart of this team, the emotional centre, remains Sachin Tendulkar. A former England captain asked whether the myth of Tendulkar was exceeding proportion. The team would have laughed at him, the reality is staggering enough. As one player said, "On the day we were to play Zimbabwe, early in the morning his wife broke the news (of his father's demise) to him. When he came out of his room, shaken as he was, the first thing he said was, 'You guys better go and sleep, you have an important game'." At the press conference after the Kenya match, he was a study in despair, every contour of his face reflecting his pain, his eyes blinking as he closed the door on the tears that threatened to fall. He had travelled nine hours, had the indignity, so goes the story, of having his luggage thoroughly searched on arrival, yet found the resolve to score the tournament's first century, 140 in 101 balls. A few from the team had taken him out for dinner the previous night, not talking about his father, attempting desperately to be normal. Still his century stunned them. As Ajay Jadeja said, "Despite everything he was still focused. He knew which side of the ground was bigger, he even knew which way the wind was blowing so he could reverse sweep in that direction." Dravid shook his head as well. "He showed tremendous character. I've always had great regard for him, but he went up a few notches in my esteem." But it was not just Tendulkar. A few days earlier at a team meeting, haunted by defeat, the Indians conspired to renew themselves. They spoke about their responsibilities to an expectant nation. And they spoke of themselves, that players should not merely expect from each other but introspect and see whether they were living up to their own expectations. On the cusp of the Super Six, a team's struggle to reinvent itself demanded applause. To unsettle the enemy you must play with his mind. No doubt, what the Scottish supporters, carrying an inflatable whale, believed when they hurled "Save the Whale" slogans at the portly Shane Warne. The Kiwis weren't too far behind. First, admitted a former New Zealand player, "We decided I would get the Aussies riled by stirring them up in the press." Then, Kiwi coach Steve Rixon, an Aussie himself, fanned that spark by telling Australian journalists that Warne and captain Steve Waugh were not exactly sending each other love notes. Except the Aussies who can't quite pronounce the word "humility" soldiered on though their ability never quite matched their arrogance. One example suffices. Warne to Roger Twose: "You're an embarrassment to bowl to." Then Twose wins the match for New Zealand. Add Glenn McGrath and Adam Dale, both with PhDs in How To Bowl Straight, losing their line and the Australians look like wimps posing in leather jackets. The white ball, not covered with lacquer like the red one but with a plastic polyurethane coating, is behaving unreasonably, difficult to control. As Tony Greig said, "The problem is McGrath has been unable to come to terms with this." If the Aussies have a chance, the Sri Lankans don't. Arjuna Ranatunga's Last Stand is over, a romantic journey has found closure. A team whose batting resembled a weather report, once a tornado then a typhoon, has been stilled. The word pinch-hitter is anachronistic here -- Paul Strang hasn't worked, neither has Mark Boucher, but Sanath Jayasuriya, the Lord of the Slog, has been most undone with scores of 29, 5, 6 and 3. He, Aravinda de Silva and Ranatunga, the batting hub, have among them scored 188 runs in four matches, five more than one Ganguly innings. As Dave Whatmore, the Australian coach who led them to glory in 1996, said, "You can't go forward if you're marching on the spot. Youngsters would have put pressure on the existing team and I don't think that prevailed." As Lanka went and India held on, it was Pakistan who were painting English pitches with the most stirring brush. Wasim Akram can be held accountable. Says coach Mushtaq Mohammed, "In team meetings he has been stressing unity, telling them that keeping in mind the slurs on the team in the past, they must win." Every avenue to success is being explored. Imran Khan has been conferring with Akram and exerting his powerful influence. With rumours of Shoaib Akhtar's chucking -- the Pakistanis say it emanates from the Indian camp -- and a tabloid story on match-fixing, Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Khalid Mahmood summoned professional help. Nadir Chaudhri, apparently a member of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's media advisory cell, has been called in as media manager to handle delicate matters. And Akhtar is being polished for a final assault. The man who Mark Waugh says "is the quickest through the air I've ever seen" is benefiting from sage advice. "Wasim told me not to go flat out. He said that I've already built a reputation, that batsmen are already under pressure facing me." Then eventually the reins will be cut, for at meetings they have told him, "When the time comes we will tell you to cut loose." What makes Akhtar and Jacques Kallis and Alan Mullally, the other two emerging stars of this World Cup, similar is an uncomplicated, uncerebral approach. Mullally, asked by an interviewer how he makes the ball swing wickedly as if he had dipped it in some witch's brew, drawled in response, "Aaah, well, mate, I don't really know, I just pitch it on a length and then it does whatever it wants to. And if I don't know what it will do how will the batsmen?" Kallis, murderer with a bat and ball, his body nourished by creatine, a legal bulk-building substance that athletes use, is certainly not in danger of being awarded membership to Mensa. As one famous story goes, while touring New Zealand and told there was no bacon for breakfast, he said, "What, seven million sheep in this country and no bacon?" But as South African journalist Guy Hawthorne said, "Bob Woolmer thinks that guys who are not big thinkers make better players. They don't dwell too much on technique, they just do their thing." And so a Cup, shaking off the detritus of teams who lack the right stuff, moves towards a more deliberate stage. As men come closer to their dreams it is strange that it is not just sweat and blackboards that they turn to. Prayer has a place as well. Pakistan believe the Cup is their destiny. South African captain Hansie Cronje is accompanied by Pastor Ray McCauley, his spiritual guide as it were. The Indian fans don't believe all this is necessary. As one poster in the Kenya match proclaimed, "Only God can save us". And then was written the word "Sachin". Still, India asks too much of this man. -with Abdul Waheed Khan |
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Every
art form has no finish line to creativity. It is about expression in its purest form, it
is about challenging the frontiers of possibility. Artie Shaw, the legendary band leader,
abandoned his profession in his prime because people were asking him to play the same
thing all the time. Shaw wanted to go further and once described music as "an
evolving art, not a factory product. If you're on the edge of your ability you are going
to make a mistake occasionally". 
The
next day, minutes after India had destroyed Sri Lanka, the same player yelled at me from
the balcony in triumph. He smiled, he raised his fist, there was no need to say much else.
For the first time, India had overstepped its boundaries of careful play and stepped into
the unknown, only to make an improbable magic. 
