National interest

In a country of a hundred crore cricket coaches it is tougher to defendSachin Tendulkar8217;s cricket team at this moment than it was to justify SoniaGandhi8217;s politics in the last elections. But we cannot forget that thisrecord is entirely consistent with our away performance for a long, longtime. We haven8217;t won an away series in a decade and a half, barring a 1-0victory in Sri Lanka in 1993. In fact, that is the only Test we have wonabroad since 1986. The last time we went to Australia, under Azhar in whoseprowess Lele has such faith, in 1991, we lost 0-4. It was the same beforethat with Dilip Vengsarkar8217;s team in the West Indies. Earlier in 1999, welost 0-1 in New Zealand and, subsequently, reversed the scoreline quiteconvincingly when they came calling.

It is not as if the home advantage works only for India. Simultaneously withour recent series in Australia we saw South Africa and New Zealand also winseries at ho-me. In recent months the only team to defy this law was SriLanka in Zimbabwe. Despite Steve Waugh8217;s claim that his team could now becompared with all-time great teams, Australia lost a series in Sri Lankajust four months ago. And if you think the margin of our defeats was soshamefully large, please remember the margin of our victories against theAustralians in 1998. Australia lost the first Test, at Chennai, by 179 runswe lost Melbourne by 180 and the second, at Calcutta, by an innings and219 runs we lost Sydney by an innings and a mere 141. Of course, Australiawere able to salvage something by winning the last Test but it was against atruncated Indian attack, with Srinath and Prasad unfit and with HarvinderSingh who is he? and Saurav Ganguly opening the bowling at Bangalore. Evenin 1996 the Australians lost the one-off Test in Delhi by eight wickets,scoring just 182 in the first innings and 234 in the second. Not verydifferent from Indian scorelines in the recent series, no?

In India, Ponting and Steve Waugh had averages of 21 and 38, respectively,compared to 111 for Sachin, 77 for Azhar and 44 for Dravid. In Australianow, the figures only got reversed. Ponting 125, Steve Waugh 55, but Sachin46 and Dravid 15.5. Even for the bowlers, statistics tell a comparable story.The larger question therefore is, why have India performed so poorly abroadin the past 15 years. The answers are many, and complex, and not what Leleand his ilk who run the Board wish to hear. Second, it is only because theyare so aware of the way they have destroyed Indian cricket that they can soconfidently predict disaster when their teams go abroad.

On India8217;s tour of South Africa in 1992 Sunil Gavaskar once made a tellingpoint. Please look at the shirt-collars of Indian batsmen at home andabroad, he said. At home, where the ball rarely comes higher than the knee,the collars are up, almost nuzzling their ears. Abroad, where the ballbounces into the ribcage, the collars are down where they should be, to thebone. This is why they are such tigers at home but so easily slaughteredabroad.

What this, the shirt-collar index of Indian batsmanship, underlines is thefact that our batsmen are brought up on pitches where many fast bowlerswould have chosen to build their mausoleums. Even in domestic cricketbecause we want each match to go the full length we produce sleepingbeauties that kill cricket, vastly exaggerate batting talent and destroy thebowlers8217; will. That is why there are so many scores of 600-plus in ourdomestic cricket and so many of our tail-enders have first class hundreds.

Mr Lele and his Board have reduced domestic cricket into a World WrestlingFederation WWF kind of farce. Except that they dig up the same pitcheswhen foreign teams visit India to help Kumble and co. For the Board,preparing fairer pitches for home series is risky. If India lose at home, itwill keep spectators and sponsors away and thus punch a hole in the Board8217;spocket. A defeat abroad has no such implications.

Cricket, in India, is more than a mere sport. It is an obsession thatinfluences national mood and morale as possibly nothing else does. Worldcricket now survives on the numbers that India brings to the game in termsof spectators, viewers and sponsors. This is what fattens the Indian cricketboard, gives its office-bearers international clout whereby one of them isnow the chairman of the International cricket Council ICC. And what dothey give Indian cricket in return? Lousy pitches, poor playing conditions,sniggers and curses. What do they do for Indian cricket?

They accept silently the destruction of a teenaged Harbhajan Singh, on achucking charge, while failing to raise a murmur of protest over a Brett Leeor against a Darrell Hair who has made a habit of victimising not just Indiabut all teams from the subcontinent. From Australia to South Africa theyacquiesce to poor umpiring, partisan match refereeing that target India,Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the three teams without whom international cricketwould lose all financial clout and revert to being a weekend club sport forgentlemen.

So keep your chin up, Sachin. Your team may have done poorly, but ultimatelythere is no shame in losing to a superior team with the home advantage. Theshame, if anything, should lie in being self-seeking, self-serving czars ofthe cricket establishment, living off the game and its Indian supporters andyet gloating in the humiliation of their own team.

Postscript: For those like Mr Lele who may believe that Mohammed Azharuddinwould have changed India8217;s fortunes in Australia here are some figures.Azhar8217;s average at ho-me is around 56 against 36 abroad. His record againstAustralia is reasonable at home: just under 53. But take him to Australiaand it drops to a mere 27.72.