Sports: Cricket: Building Steam

Despite recent losses, Indian cricket has had a good year. But with
low confidence and public backlash, the team has to get its act together before Dhaka.

Oh darling, yeh hai India. Sahar Airport, Mumbai, 3 a.m. Out walk India's most glorified or vilified men -- depending on the vacillating moods of a fickle nation. The Indian cricket team is used to handling a frenzy of emotions crashing around them. But even the boys aren't prepared this time. Back from a series in Zimbabwe (not having done badly -- won the one-dayers, lost the one-off Test), bone tired, jetlagged and probably irritated that their luggage took too long to retrieve, they walk out of the terminal to shouts of "shame, shame" from a large crowd. The team blinks in disbelief, then tries to duck the sharp lights, cameras and mikes that the journalists around shove into their faces.

Anshuman Gaekwad, the national coach, decides he's had enough. A man known for his no-nonsense approach, he stands tall and delivers. "Why do you people keep talking about losing? Why do you guys forget that we've won too?" But it's like shooting at the moon. The jeers continue long after the team bus rolls out of the airport. Oh darling, yeh hai India.

Even allowing that the point has been overstated, it needs to be stated again: public memory is short. Always has been. Who remembers that this is the very team that didn't allow the Australians to crown themselves as world champions of cricket. That deed, as far as everybody is concerned, is buried 6 ft under and pushing up the daisies. What's fresh is the Sahara Cup rout in Toronto (4-1) against Pakistan, preceded by the ignominious defeat in the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Suddenly the Indian team started looking bruised and battered -- and vested interests started questioning the integrity of a man who was thought to have an Indian flag imprinted on his soul: Sachin Tendulkar. There was talk on the streets claiming that the matches at Kuala Lumpur did not interest the little maestro simply because there was no money in it. The hype was so relentless that it brought about one of the lowest points in Tendulkar's own career: he had to issue a statement reaffirming his patriotism.

But cut out the hype and get a perspective. The first way to do it is to confine yourself to bare statistics. Mohammed Azharuddin's men (hallelujah!) are actually learning to win. Last year they were a floundering team, desperately looking for direction -- winning just 10 of the 39 one-day internationals played. Their rating in the world was ninth and the success rate hovered around the knees at 33.33 per cent. But slowly things are turning around. This year they have won 19 out of 33, boosting their rating to No.3 and the success rate to almost 60 per cent. And if you remove the Sahara Cup from this (which one should), it hovers close to 70 per cent.

In fact, the same holds for Tests too. Last year the success rate in Test matches was just 41.66 per cent, this year it's a respectable 50 per cent. Even individual performances show promise. Tendulkar's average in one-dayers has almost doubled from 30.63 last year to 61.29 today. Similarly, Ajay Jadeja's up from 32.31 to 49.58 and Azharuddin's from 40.88 to 46.62. The bottom line: this team is the best we've had in years and even allows hope that the World Cup can be won by India.

But they're already on the backfoot. Consider the defeats. Anybody with a shred of cricketing sanity should brush aside the Toronto defeats as inconsequential. The reason: they are getting to be a good team but they aren't that great that they could have hoped to beat Pakistan without four of our best players. It's like the Chicago Bulls attempting a seventh NBA title without Michael Jordan. You just can't do it. Says a senior member of the team: "When you break up a team you are breaking up a unit. People get used to playing as a team."

And therein lies the tragedy. The Indian team, a vastly improved one, is going into a major tournament (the first of its kind) with its head and heart down. the Wills International Cup in Dhaka starting October 24 is being sold as a mini World Cup where all nine Test-playing nations will play a straight knockout round. Whoever wins this tournament will walk into the April 1999 World Cup arena with confidence levels that are reaching into the stratosphere. But call it fate; we play Australia first. While the Aussies hop across from Pakistan with a halo around their heads having won in that country after 25 years, we'll be walking in rag-tag and psychologically ill-equipped.

The damages of having split the team are being harvested now. Says former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar: "The split as well as the public backlash have made a difference to the confidence of this team." From that point on everything else seems to have gone downhill. Admits Azharuddin: "We seem to have lost our rhythm -- we have to get back into that winning habit."

Books have been written on how to nurture a winning habit. It's all about believing you have the edge, the illusion of an advantage that makes you aggressive enough to strut out and deliver time and again. It's also called confidence. The Indians were getting around to acquiring it, now they've lost it. Any sportsman can point out a team which isn't sure of itself: heads are down, expressions grim; batsmen play as if their willows have gaping holes and bowlers start to see 12 stumps instead of three. But add confidence and the resurrection of that very team is miraculous. As Gavaskar puts it: "The attitude becomes aggressive, 'right guys, take us on'." Everything is in the realm of possibility; an average talent puts in an awesome innings, great catches become routine and tight matches always swing your way. So simple is the essence of victory.

For one, at least the coach seems to have grasped that. More than anybody else, the responsibility of performing well in Dhaka rests on Gaekwad's shoulders. It is he who showed them the way the first time round and it is he who needs to do it again. Ask Rahul Dravid, who is once again back among the runs: "He exudes confidence, he never panics, instead of losing his cool he works out the problems."

And it paid off, especially in close matches like the ones in Sharjah, Colombo and Dhaka in the recent past. In fact, many of the team members confessed the former Indian opener was doing a great job. People seem to be working out harder for fitness and the general attitude seems to be positive. No more lazy circles around a stadium before putting in some net practice. Today all of them work out on every aspect of the game. In fact, so carried away is Saurav Ganguly by his fitness drive that he has installed a complete gymnasium at his home in Calcutta.

But fitness alone won't win matches. To win in Dhaka, a team has to be constantly in form -- after all it's a knockout tournament. With as much as $40,000 in prize money. As Gaekwad himself admits: "You have to get it right the first time." India, going by past records, rarely starts out with a win. They take time to build up steam. All that needs to change. Despite being short on confidence, they have a few things going for them. For one, a good batting line-up. When at least playing in true, flat subcontinent pitches, the team is now known to chalk out big scores. Trouble is our bowling has become thinner and thinner over the years. Srinath has fallen into a rut: he bowls an impeccable first spell but loses direction in the second (during the slog overs), blasting away when he should be trying to get in variation. Ditto with Ajit Agarkar. After a dream debut when in a single season he took the maximum wickets in the world, batsmen seem to have sorted him out. He needs to acquire the ability to think out his opponents. Says the chairman of the selectors Ajit Wadekar: "I believe we have acquired the right bowlers for the team. But now they must learn to perform."

But, as always, the biggest chink in the armour is the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). For a while now, many cricketers have been complaining of a gruelling schedule that leaves them no time to rest their limbs and rejuvenate. Consider the latest: straight after Toronto the Indian team flew into India for precisely 18 hours, then caught a plane to Harare. After the Zimbabwe tour, they flew back to India and a day later assembled at Ahmedabad for the Challenger Cup. Now they fly to Dhaka and a week later to Sharjah for the Champions Trophy. Apparently, when the team management, worried over by growing injury levels, complained to BCCI Secretary Jayant Lele, the reply was a terse "we'll see".

But Dhaka, in the end, should really be perceived as a stepping stone for the big one -- the World Cup. Gaekwad, despite everything, admits: "Yes, I still think we can win it." But that, as always, is easier said than done.

Rank	Team	P	W	L	Success %	Rank	Team	P	W	L	Success %
1	SA	23	17	5	76.08	1	WI	5	4	1	80.00
2	SL	28	19	7	71.42	2	SA	19	14	5	73.68
3	Eng	14	9	4	67.85	3	Ind	33	19	12	60.60
4	Zim	22	12	8	59.09	4	SL	17	10	7	58.83
5	WI	19	10	9	52.63	5	Aus	21	12	9	57.14
6	Pak	36	15	19	44.44	6	Pak	19	10	9	52.63
7	NZ	17	6	9	41.17	7	NZ	21	8	11	42.85
8	Aus	19	7	12	36.84	8	Ken	5	2	3	40.00
9	Ind	39	10	23	33.33	9	Eng	11	3	8	27.27