Despite losing in Pakistan, the Indians finally displayed they
have talent and courage.

By Javed M Ansari

It is a good thing that one-day cricket, especially between India and Pakistan, is played by strong men with healthy, young hearts. Fainter men may not quite survive the fluctuations in blood pressure. One day the adrenalin rushes like a dam burst through the body and nothing goes wrong; next day every perfect plan collapses and lethargy clogs the veins. Exhilaration and depression sit close together, victory and failure are never too far apart. This, in a sense, was the story of India's tour to Pakistan.

In the Maharaja Lounge of Mumbai's Sahar Airport, as the team waited to cross a border they hadn't for eight years, you could hear the nerves jangling. Said Captain Sachin Tendulkar cautiously: "We are hoping to do well." Two days later caution had turned to despair in Hyderabad when India collapsed to 170. Same old story? Not true. For, 48 hours later in Karachi, these same men who couldn't swim were walking on water. Now rival Captain Saeed Anwar was saying, "This is a team that knows how to win." And coach Madan Lal, understandably drunk on the moment, would say:"I don't want to talk big but if things go according to plan then we could well have an Indian summer in England 1999." Indian summer? 1999? How about October 2, 1997 and the Lahore Lashing when "this team with spunk" (as Majid Khan termed them) looked like a team in a blue funk? That look of disbelief that every Indian player has grown accustomed to carrying in his bag because he is forced to wear it so often, was back.

Indian cricket has come full circle. Or has it?

One-day cricket is too cluttered. A mess of trivia, an avalanche of statistics, a series of performances, one looking so much like the other. In two weeks, India and Pakistan have played each other eight times and who did what and where is erased. Memories (of four consecutive matches won in Toronto) die fast and like a rambling, endless book only the last few sentences are remembered -- Ejaz Ahmed's 10 fours, nine sixes and a line for the record books that says India lost 1-2 and continues never to have won a one-day series in Pakistan.
But India did not fail. If you looked carefully at the matches in Pakistan and Toronto before that, the truth could be found. A bad team had not suddenly turned good; but it was making progress. Even Javed Miandad, who could never be mistaken for a Missionary of Charity, said, "Give them some more time, this team will take on the world."

Team was the operative word. Astonishingly, a group of men usually accused about worrying only about their paycheques, were -- imagine this -- rooting for each other. It was ambitious yet unselfish Rahul Dravid, his tooth paining, his stomach destroyed by antibiotics, on liquid diet for three days, walking up to Tendulkar and saying, "Don't play me, play someone else." Later he would say, after watching the Karachi match in his room, "I get goose pimples just thinking about it." It was Ajay Jadeja, lifting part of the burden from Tendulkar's shoulders, assuaging beleaguered bowlers, till Debashish Mohanty would admit: "He's a great help to me on the field." It was Saba Karim and Rajesh Chauhan, not sulking after the captain said his tail-enders were useless in Hyderabad, and batting longest at the nets next day. It was Saurav Ganguly, the same fellow once unfairly accused of not carrying drinks for his teammates in 1991, now standing on the balcony at Karachi, the new God, and comforting them, saying: "Relax, relax, this time we will do it." And it was the local catering staff bringing in a cake and watching the team smear it across the faces of its heroes Robin Singh and Karim.

This team is a failure? Forget it. As Anwar said, "They showed character." And perhaps the best evidence would come with Tendulkar's poor form. In eight matches his scores read 17, 25, 0, 6, 51, 2, 21, 7; yet, instead of folding with his early departure as is usual, the team would rally. More than cheering on the next man, they were also taking personal responsibility. And if you rewind the entire three weeks, there is not a man to be found without a performance behind his name. Ganguly, always a David Gower impersonator, now bowling sensibly and saying, "I don't mind the added responsibility, at this level you have to contribute any way you can" (indeed, his and Robin Singh's bowling meant Tendulkar only had to play four frontline bowlers). Add Jadeja with a mature 76 in the last match, Mohanty and Harvinder Singh with eight wickets each in Toronto, Chauhan hitting sixes in clutch moments, Robin Singh blasting 31 off 32 balls -- "He's got guts," admitted Miandad -- and Karim 26 off 32 in Karachi ... the list goes on.

For a team that boarded the plane to Toronto, each one's bag stapled with the sticker "cricket's whipping boys", they haven't done too badly. Indeed, says Bob Woolmer, whose South Africans are readying for a series against Pakistan: "Their talent was never in doubt; what they needed was confidence in their abilities."

Having won in Toronto and seized victory in Karachi -- Pakistan have never lost to India there -- it is difficult to attribute the word 'choke' to this team. Still, Lahore was a reminder that the Indian bowling on placid wickets resembles Geoffrey Boycott's "moom" turning her arm over and that once an opposing batsman is set, Indian inventiveness runs dry. Carpe Diem (seize the day) is a phrase they are yet to grasp completely.

If on the field the Indian team was an elegant ambassador, off the field its reticence was a trifle confusing. Despite some idiots in Karachi who had come armed from a stone quarry -- and Tendulkar was entirely justified in walking off -- and though Pakistanis tend to wear their patriotism on both sleeves, anti-Indian hysteria was comparatively muted. The last time I came here during the 1996 World Cup, I met a stereotype family which blamed India for everything. This time around a mellowness had crept in and the same head of the family now preached tolerance: "Fifty years of tension and animosity have yielded nothing; it's high time we decided to live in peace." Cabbies, as usual, refused to accept fares from visiting scribes, thousands turned up at Karachi airport when the team landed in Pakistan, a big roar echoed through hotel lobbies everytime an Indian player was sighted and fans even offered to carry the Indian players' bags. A welcome so strong that South African Captain Hansie Cronje, staying at the same hotel yet conspicuously ignored, joked, "We seem to be poor cousins at the moment."

Understandably, the team was restricted. Suffocated by security, it was driven to Hyderabad under heavy paramilitary escort and confined to a civil aviation guest house, dissuaded by local authorities from accepting invitations in Karachi and forced to commune endlessly with their tv sets.

Still they appeared invisible, the management's public relations so poor -- add a pr manager to the list of foreign coach and trainer the Board must provide -- that some Indian journalists actually spoke to Madan Lal about trying to rectify this image problem. The South Africans found time to pose for photographs with fans and say the right things to the press. It is mandatory for visiting teams to do this; in the India-Pakistan context, such courtesy assumes an even greater importance. Still, even as men like Sunil Gavaskar and Asif Iqbal were pictures of diplomacy, a former Indian player turned commentator was actually advising the team management against going out of their way to make friends. The Indian team, full of reasonable young men, should learn that being fiercely competitive on the field and generous off it is not a contradiction.
The incident-free trip -- barring bursts of chaos in Karachi -- offers the possibility that both countries could be ready to resume tours. "There is no earthly reason why not," says Zaheer Abbas. "The two boards must gain from this visit," echoed Gavaskar. Already an Indian A team is slated to tour Pakistan in February-March next year, while plans are being worked out for a full Pakistani tour of India in early 1999. Ask the players and the response is similar, for there is a rivalry here with marvellous potential. Says Waqar Younis: "It would be like the Ashes." Adds Dravid: "I would love to play a full series here."

That is the future. For now, Tendulkar must go home, rewind videos of both tours, and start examining what else his team needs to do. Though they lost in Pakistan, all that baggage of "fear psychosis", and "losing mentality" that they carried into such encounters seem to have been stripped away. At the same time, he must not forget there are no prizes for coming second in cricket. Says Madan Lal: "We are mentally much stronger now and once we learn to go for the kill when the advantage is with us, we will be difficult to beat." India waits for that day.

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