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Virat Kohli disguises the real India

Virat Kohli and his attitude are key to India's success. (AFP PHOTO / SAEED KHAN)
Roar Rookie
9th January, 2015
14

There has recently been a lot of articles venerating Virat Kohl for his fine individual performances against Australia, but these articles miss the point of team sport.

The point is cricket is a team game and the aim is to win. And with this Indian side it’s same old, same old, so much hooplar and veneration of individuals in a team that has a dismal record of making it count when it really needs to count and has yet again failed to fire in Australia.

I’m not trying to be deliberately rude because essentially this criticism is born out of frustration. Maybe Indian fans out there can help me work it out, do they really give a rats toss if Kholi, or Dravid, Tendulkar or Gavaskar, act like a cricketing god, come to earth to play beautiful, imperious innings after innings if his team loses match after match after match?

And it’s not just the losing. Once upon a time you could forgive this as India were essentially a rubbish team with a couple of brilliant individuals, but that was decades ago. I still remember after that epic series in India in 2001 saying to many friends: “just wait, in 10 years time India will be unbeatable home or away”.

Instead what we’re left with is the same old story, as if time has stood still. As if all the brashness, innovation and promise of modern India, in economic, social and political terms, has yet to infuse its way into the cricket side.

I must confess I am simply bemused as to why still India have yet to win a series in Australia or South Africa…

And this bemusement is not born of a forlorn hope in times of trouble, it is exactly because Indian cricket for a long time has been a place of great hope. Where an embarrassment of riches and wave after wave of sublimely talented players would translate into an all-conquering side of the stature of the 1980s West Indies or 2000s Australians.

But… well, it just hasn’t happened, and I’m getting tired of defending the same old stereotypes. Don’t get me wrong Kohli is amazing, by far and away the best batsman to watch in this series, easily the most gifted, almost ridiculously so.

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Its just that I’ve seen and heard it all before: it was the same with Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Dravid… India got thrashed then too.

Perhaps the best case in point I can remember was the 2003-04 series in Australia, where Australia were without both Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and ripe for the picking. Remember, India 1-0 up, Boxing Day in Melbourne, Virender Sehwag scores 195 smashing the ball to all parts of the ground. India were 4/311 when Sehwag fell at the end of day one and collapsed to finish all out for 366. Australia went on to rout the Indians in this Test and draw the series at one win apiece.

An Indian friend of mine still considers this series one of Indian crickets greatest moments. Really? A 1-1 draw when you should have buried Australia? So for me, and apologies again as this is no disrespect to Kohli himself, it’s like these sort of articles and the veneration of the media the Indian media in particular, are a cop-out, a sort of diversion from the real story, like saying ‘hey, we might get smashed as team but we’ve got the best individual players’.

I strongly believe that all those myths of national character and conditions, you know about Australia’s weather, open spaces, working class ethic, toughness etc, are just more bull-dust. It simply comes down to hard work and team ethic.

The total is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Another illustration to finish with, that may explain where I’m coming from. Sure Australians remember and venerate Bradman, but they remember and venerate the great team he led to England in 1948 even more.

In contrast, I read an article at the start of the series by a well-know Indian journalist about how India no longer lives in Australia’s cricketing shadows. That is probably true when it comes to pride and attitude,just one look at Kohli’s demeanour on pitch tells you that.

But it really misses the point, India will only move out of Australia’s cricketing shadows when they beat, sorry thrash, Australia in Australia. And that is all the really needs to be said. I’m still waiting for India’s 1948. Otherwise Kohli is just another hero in a hopeless side.

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