Team India. New, Improved8230;

And so we salute Team India today where two weeks ago we looked into the thesaurus for more words that meant losers. Business page writers wrote about how endorsements were drying up. Two days ago, Dhoni was the hottest celeb in the ad world. Perspective is a two-day vision, sometimes merely an hour-and-a-half.

To be honest, India have played good cricket and the signs have been as encouraging, if not more, than the results. Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid make a good team because they think similarly, their work ethic is identical and they believe in hard cricket. More than anything else they put team first. They will have their differences as time goes by, but they will have the maturity to sort out issues.

Greg Chappell comes from the hard school of Australian cricket, where work ethic is valued more than just ability, where the team scores over the individual at all times. It is a principle that corporate India has embraced and it no coincidence that they are making rapid strides. It is the only principle that should count if excellence is the objective.

Chappell has seen the effect of a drop in work ethic in Australia as well. After that one calamitous day in Australian cricket when he, Marsh and Lillee retired at once, when Australia was still recovering from the after-effects of the Packer split, when a rebel tour was round the corner and when insecurity and mistrust ruled, Australia plummeted to the bottom of the heap in international cricket. The first step on the journey back was to drop the prima donnas that had emerged and revert to the hard-nosed, tough-as-nails players. It worked for them and it is a pattern that Chappell seeks to import here. It cannot fail provided the commitment runs all the way up. Currently though there is no 8216;up8217; in Indian cricket and those that might represent it are far busier knocking each other in print!

That will worry Dravid less for he would have seen it all; including recently the initiation of discussion on contracts that expired a month ago! But he keeps his disgust to himself and remains upbeat about the future. Under him you can expect a little word to the parents of a new star about what their son is likely to be up against and at the same time, a firm refusal to allow a great player to whine. Like Chappell, he is a voracious reader of books, even happy to go searching for a recommended piece in a business paper, and his mind is open to any kind of inspiration. Most important, his team-mates can trust him completely.

In this regime, people will know where they stand and what is expected of them. There will be no false promises and nobody is likely to be led up the garden path and ditched. Dravid is a great admirer of Steve Waugh and you can expect the same directness of approach. Early in his captaincy, Waugh had to leave out Shane Warne. You can be sure that Chappell and Dravid will not, similarly, allow sentiment to come in the way of leaving out a champion fallen on bad form.

This Indian team is happily showing a return to the fielding/fitness regime that is a pre-requisite in international one-day cricket. To the fitness of body, Chappell will lay much emphasis on the preparation of the mind or there is no doubt at all, whether on a treadmill or in the heat of a day-night match, a happy man has much more to offer. It was no coincidence that Chappell called this team a 8220;happy8221; team. Dravid himself has seen the remarkable effect of fitness on his cricket. Behind the large scores in test cricket in the last four years, and the dual role in one-day cricket, is a man who understood that his future lay, not just in being a fine batsman but a fit player.

Every time an Indian team has done well, it has been fit and has fielded wonderfully; whether in the phase from 1983-85 or from 2001-03. The slide in India8217;s fortunes in one-day cricket had as much to do with the loss of form or the absence of key players as it had with increasing slowness in the field and between wickets. Already this team is speaking a wonderful tongue; of putting process before result. It does not mean that the result is jettisoned merely that the perfection of the process tends to make the result inevitable. Personal and team discipline will be non-negotiable in this regime.

But before we go overboard with this new Team India and doesn8217;t that sound like the relaunch of a detergent! a few words of caution. Whenever Sachin Tendulkar has done well, Indian teams, captains and coaches have looked good and we need to be wary of that. Also, these matches are being played on dreadfully dead wickets where batting is sometimes too easy; it isn8217;t always a measure of future achievement. Remember, too, that you cannot have islands of excellence in a largely malodorous administration; the empire will strike back and favoured selectors with localised mandates will be the most likely enemy.

Excellence is often judged by the strength of its adversary. This team will need to face sterner tests before we can pronounce the arrival of dawn.

The writer is a cricket commentator with ESPN/Star Sports