Triumph’s individuality

Individuals will continue to rule Indian sport, including cricket, marked as it is by episodes of record-breaking triumph amidst pervasive mediocrity

N Chandra Mohan Delhi

Individuals matter more than objective forces in making history. The force of this truth was evident when India triumphed in the World Cup way back in 1983 and its subsequent victories, including the most recent one over Sri Lanka in the one-day international (ODI) series. Who were the architects of this last-mentioned victory? None other than former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, who made a stirring comeback with the bat. So, too, did, medium pacer Zaheer Khan. All-rounder Yuvraj Singh recovered from injury.

Stellar performances from such individuals single-handedly decided the outcome of the ODI series with Sri Lanka — strengthening the popular impression that Indians shine only as individuals in sport while their achievement in team events is, at best, spotty. Consider, for example, the excellence of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in shooting, Jeev Milkha Singh in golf or PT Usha of yesteryear fame in athletics or Michael Ferreira in billiards. By contrast, our track record is hardly worth mentioning in team events like football.

Back to cricket, a debutant Sunil Gavaskar’s exploits contributed to India’s triumph in the West Indies in the early 1970s. Together with GR Vishwanath, he dominated Indian batting for a couple of decades. During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was the spin quartet of BS Chandrasekhar, EAS Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi and S Venkataraghavan. Individual rather than team effort mattered even when we won the 1983 World Cup: K Srikkanth’s batting, Mohinder Amarnath’s all-round play and Kapil Dev’s fielding.

This state of affairs is unlikely to change in the future. Individuals will continue to rule Indian sport, marked as it is by episodes of record-breaking triumph amidst pervasive mediocrity. This will be sadly true of Indian cricket as well and has a major bearing on any realistic assessment of India’s prospects in the World Cup of 2007. While there is a surge in national enthusiasm that the Men in Blue are ready to calypso in the Caribbean, cricket buffs seriously wonder whether we can reach the semi-finals of this event.

What accounts for this dismal prognosis of India’s prospects in a version of a game that is best known for its glorious uncertainties? Look no further than our track record against the leading contenders like South Africa and Australia. Pundits like to factor in the complete record of team performance in every ODI over the last five years to stick their necks out. On this basis, the good news is that India has played 154 matches and won 80 of them. Furthermore, it was even-stevens in matches played at home and abroad.

The bad news, however, is that this performance was rather dismal against the three-time World Cup champions, Australia and South Africa. India played 12 matches against the Aussies and the loss percentage was as high as 75 per cent. Against the South Africans, the new leaders of the ICC ODI rankings, the loss percentage was 58 per cent. Against other top contenders like New Zealand, which most recently trounced Australia in the Chappell -Hadlee series, it was only marginally lower at 57 per cent. Against Pakistan, it was 52 per cent.

India’s consistent success against only the minnows of one-day cricket like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Kenya is hardly a good augury of its chances in the 2007 World Cup. If past performance is considered a yardstick to judge future prospects, it should therefore have no problem in dealing with Bangladesh, Bermuda and Sri Lanka in its Group B matches starting March 17. The big problem is when it reaches the Super 8 and faces competition from the much more accomplished teams like Australia and South Africa.

At a different level, India (like others) will face problems playing on West Indian pitches that are considered slow and sluggish. Some of the key pitches are also being re-laid as in Guyana and Grenada — a prospect that perhaps appeals more to the South Africans than other teams as they might not be dissimilar to the ones they have back home. But for the rest, the expectation is one of dealing with pitches that encourage bowlers to deliver well-concealed slower balls rather than those that bounce, encouraging batsmen to hook or pull.

In this context, Sir Garfield Sobers — the greatest all-rounder — in his autobiography, mentioned an interesting contrast between his batting style of standing upright and playing with the bat drawn forward and that of Sir Vivian Richards, another West Indian batting great: "He came up in another era, playing on lower bounce wickets and off the front foot…Viv went across the line of good-length balls, picking them up just as they bounced, whereas in my era we stood up and pulled, hooked and cut."

Although the Men in Blue do have a lot of batting depth, the question is whether they can handle such low-bounce deliveries — like punching those deliveries off the back foot through the covers or hitting them across the line, as did Viv Richards. Sachin Tendulkar, for his part, certainly can. As for the other type of bouncier deliveries, there seems to be some respite for teams like India that cannot handle genuine pace as the quickies in most of the leading teams like Australia nurse serious injury problems.

The prospect is for the bat to pulverise the ball — to borrow an expression of Australian cricketer Bobby Simpson. All attention naturally will be on the strategy of competing teams to handle powerplays when fielding restrictions are in force. A hardly perennial of World Cup of 1996 folklore is the explosive start provided by openers like Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana to hit over the top and gather as many runs during the first 15 overs that helped Sri Lanka to win the event that year.

Does India have the capability in this regard? Most certainly, if the swashbuckling strokeplay of Robin Uthappa is any indication. But whether he will play at all is uncertain as the Indian team management is far from done with experimenting with the right opening combination. As many as eight such combinations have been tried of late and it is still not clear who will eventually open the Indian innings at the World Cup along with the out-of-form Virender Sehwag. But further down the order, there is more depth in the batting line-up, with explosive hitting expected from Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh.

Naturally, all eyes will also be on India’s bowling department – as to whether Munaf Patel recovers from his injury to effectively partner the in-form Zaheer Khan and how the spin department fares with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. The former is not the force he once was although he remains highly competitive, while the latter’s form is somewhat unpredictable. But that could be said of India’s prospects in general.

Even if India doesn’t have that many bits and pieces players (genuine all-rounders) that enabled it to win in 1983, barring the likes of Yuvraj Singh, if star batsmen like Ganguly and Rahul Dravid blaze away with the willow, India has a 55 per cent chance to reach the semi-finals and even hoist the World Cup with such brilliant performances.