Kapil Dev’s desire to protect the team’s inefficiencies is glaring

The cricket followers in India are pretty gullible. But not to the extent that they are not aware of the team’s shortcomings or misfortunes. It was widely reported that the game against Tasmania was undesirable. “For whose benefit?” asked the Indian coach. For the benefit of Indian team’s practice, damn it. Are we to believe that the team management was unaware of the tour itinerary?

And then the lament of a longish rest — “…Nets and more nets…” — before the second Test. I am not too sure why the Indian coach is getting so bored so soon. A belated demand for a video camera is indicative of Kapil’s longish layoff from the game, when his golfing and business interests flourished. It is not my intention to pull down Kapil’s simmering love for cricket. But so far, not so good. His desire to protect the team’s inefficiencies is glaring. He wants more time. How much more, one may well ask.

The win over New Zealand lacked all the necessary finish. In Australia, well into the second month, the team is still short of a compact and winning combination. Not entirely Kapil’s fault as his bench strength is actually the team’s greatest weakness. That is where the wisdom of the selectors can be questioned openly. And, the drama enacted to send an SOS to Nayan Mongia only for the decison to be reversed, leaving much bad taste in the mouth and plenty of room for unpleasant team spirit.

Surely, the coach and the captain cannot absolve themselves of the last ugly episode of Indian cricket for the millennium. Lest I do a Lele, there are few more days to go. You never know what Indian cricket is capable of!! Most crucially, the validity of packing off Mongia was shorn of sensitivity of feeling and sympathy of expression, which is often the domain of our politicians. Even in happier moments, such a move is unpardonable.

This Indian team is far from happy. The Australian players know it and so does the hostile Aussie media. So the bravado of our own Kapil Dev showing up for nets on crutches literally is one for the media’s consumption.

Pray tell me, did the coach seek anybody’s (whoever would like to own up responsibility!) permission to go for the knee operation during the middle of the tour? In the absence of a good team of helpers, like the South Africans or even the New Zealanders, an unsure Tendulkar is left holding the baby and the bath tub.

It would be churlish and also untrue to say that the Aussies are on top of the cricket world due to sheer good luck. A certain system of rearing champions had brought this revolutionised transformation that a rookie like Brett Lee should be cause for so much depression in the Indian ranks.

Indians at best are merely a gathering of eleven players of varying abilities. It is too late now to shed any tears. In any case, they would be idle and vain. No matter how the Indians shuffle their bowling resources, they are in fact too thin to rip apart the cocky Australian batting line-up. One man Mark Waugh, whose neck was on the block, has been given a reprieve. I suspect Indians might assist in prolonging his Test career.

We are still in the process of learning how to catch in the slips, how to bowl side-on and how to occupy the batting crease. Yes, indeed Kapil Dev is “out of this world”. For goodness sake, we want him `in’ this world to take charge and deliver, with or without the crutches.

Tendulkar must lead by personal example and as ruthlessly as possible. The Psychology of Cricket is off-season reading. What is required now is shades of practical psychology of cricket.