Must they win only to lose again? In tennis, even club coaches will caution you about breaking your opponent’s serve. That’s the easy bit, they will explain, the true test lies in holding your own serve after that. The same sentiment underpins cricket. Watch New India’s trajectory. India won at Port of Spain in April 2002. They immediately lost the next Test at Barbados — and the final test of the series at Kingston. India won at Adelaide in December 2003, they lost at Melbourne. India are chasing that rare commodity: an away series win. At Multan, they appeared to have it firmly in their clasp. They so comprehensively outplayed Pakistan — double pleasure — that you’d have thought all they needed was to show up at Lahore and the series would be theirs. Seems they thought so too. At his press conference today skipper Rahul Dravid admitted that the team has to take stock of their win-one-lose-one tendency. Team India today understands the importance of mental strength. Cricketers themselves requested sessions with a sport psychologist. And in Multan, in extensive interaction with the media, they alluded to the benefits of sitting with Sandy Gordon this winter. Emphasise the positives, some among them chanted, to sum up Gordon’s formula. Umm, but Gordon also later said in an interview that by the time India showed up for the latter stages of the one-day series, they seemed to believe that they had done enough — implying that their exploits at Adelaide and Sydney and in the early stages of the ODI tri-series were spectacular enough, nothing more was required. That, said one among them, was Gordon’s opinion, full stop. Good sportspersons produce match or medal-winning performances. Great ones take these in their stride, they consider them just another day at the office. That India are still traversing the bylanes of goodness is evident from the Yuvraj Singh story this week. Yuvraj came in at the Gaddafi Stadium with India tottering. Demonstrating an instinct for expediency, he carried them to 287. It was a century compiled in extreme adversity. India — the team and the bandwagon — were floored. It was such a remarkable contribution, it must be immediately acknowledged and rewarded. An injured skipper promised the young man a place in the Rawalpindi line-up. A grateful country ran through every permutation and combination to figure out how he could be fit in. Here are the facts. Yuvraj played at Multan and Lahore as substitute for Saurav Ganguly. He rendered invaluable service in the team’s cause. In a settled side accustomed to fighting comebacks he would have got a hearty pat on the back, and his entry in the side upon the next emergency would have been sanctioned. India, however, are a team only beginning to expect miraculous stints from their cricketers. On being handed one, they are stunned. It’s exceptional, let one of the regulars go, never mind that they have done nothing to deserve marching orders. Never mind that mature squads would contemplate these changes after the current campaign has concluded. And this is understandable. India are recent addicts to the winning habit. Port of Spain, Headingley, Adelaide and Multan are magical because these away wins are still scarce. They are still thrilling in the ability to put together an 11-member squad that can craft conquest. The realisation that there are a dozen amongst them who can boast of match winning and saving aptitude is a new feeling. So, in seeking reasons for the drift at Lahore, don’t run down field placements and bowling changes, shot selection and batting orders. Instead, acknowledge the Multan-Lahore two-step as a vantage point to take stock of India’s tremendous journey so far from the dismal nineties and of the distance they must still traverse to match Australia.
