Cricket’s spotlight shines solely on the Indian Premier League (IPL) during April and May.
Precocious youngsters, T20 specialists, legitimate superstars, and resuscitated champions congregate for Indian cricket’s annual feast of frenetic entertainment.
England may be cricket’s spiritual soul, but the game’s foothold is in India.
No country worships the sport as fervently as the cricket adoring Indian populace. During this period in the sports calendar, the British consciousness is consumed with the culmination of the English Premier League.
In Australia, the onset of the cooler weather signals the start of the football codes, consigning cricket onto the lower rungs of sporting relevance.
India fantasises and worships the game every day of the year. The world’s second largest country is cricket’s pulse.
It appears inevitable that India’s stranglehold as the sport’s off-field superpower materialises on the pitch.
Barring India’s miraculous ‘83 World Cup triumph over the might of the West Indies, surely one of cricket’s greatest upsets, India endured continual mediocrity during the 20th century.
This century, hope has materialised. India shook off their stupor to finally morph into a heavyweight, a status they so desperately craved.
They indelibly won the last ODI World Cup on home soil and were runners-up to the rampaging Aussies in ’03.
Unsurprisingly, India has performed well in cricket’s shortest format, winning the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.
India’s success in the coloured clothing has not masked their deficiencies in the whites. It gnaws me that mighty India haven’t dominated Test cricket.
I know, I know, India were officially deemed Test’s best during a 20-month period starting in late 2009, but I have scant regard for the ICC’s rankings.
I’m sure my disregard is not uncommon. Test cricket is unique in the sports fraternity for its ambiguous rankings system. Most sports have a championship decider to determine the year’s best team or individual.
I believe the ICC’s proposition to introduce a Test championship in 2017 will be inconclusive in definitively pinpointing the best Test team.
To become a dominant Test outfit takes years of accumulating series victories on various terrains.
In the modern era, the West Indies were Test’s best for a 15-year period starting in 1980.
Australia followed with a domination of Test cricket lasting until 2008. South Africa’s recent successes in England and Australia have finally established them as Test cricket’s frontrunner.
India always felt fraudulent as the number one Test team. They appeared to be holding the mantle by default.
Despite their improvement in the longer format, they never possessed the aura of being Test’s best team, and only the delusional could believe that they were a great team during their reign at the top of the Test tree.
True, India did not lose a Test series from late-2008 until mid-2011 (15 wins from 27 Tests) but their success was skewed because a South Africa tour (drawn series) was their sole overseas challenge during this period.
In other words, they reaffirmed their status as home bullies, while preying on the meek abroad.
Subsequently, their reign embarrassingly crashed with successive 4-0 routs in England and Australia. Perhaps more alarming, India’s home dominance was squashed by a good, not great, England recently.
Fortunately, an undisciplined and inexperienced Australian outfit helped reenergise India’s stalled Test fortunes.
India dominated through their spin havoc, while their batsmen dined with disdain on Australia’s beleaguered bowlers. This was hardly surprising.
The Indian batting order looked in dire trouble following the retirements of Dravid and Laxman, and the decline of Tendulkar and Sehwag.
But the rise of their young batsmen produced Joker-esque grins on a billion faces. Gambhir (I’m still a believer), Vijay, Pujara, Dhawan and Kohli is a nucleus to build around.
Unfortunately, any momentum has screeched to a halt due to the ICC’s irregular scheduling, which sees India not needing their whites until an end of year tour to South Africa.
In the meantime, they will compete in the ICC Trophy, followed by a meaningless tri-series in the Caribbean against the West Indies and Sri Lanka.
It’s baffling that an Indian Test series in the Caribbean couldn’t have been propositioned.
India needs more Tests away. The England and Australian debacles are their only tours the past two years.
To borrow a hackneyed idiom overused by Mickey Arthur recently, the time is ripe for a “line in the sand” moment for India’s Test ambitions.
They can no longer be satisfied with home romps, while producing turgid performances against quality opponents abroad.
India’s struggles abroad will continue, and a rise to the top of cricket’s tree is futile unless they uncover a batch of talented and dedicated quicks.
Fast bowling has been a problem for years, and perhaps Indian pitches should be more conducive to pace. Memo to the BCCI!
They need specialised coaching to succeed in Australia, and to a lesser extent South Africa and England.
But most importantly, do the Indian populace care about their team’s Test malaise?
In a revealing interview recently, a straight-shooting David Warner said: “India people just love Sachin but they don’t like Test cricket. Once Sachin retires, Test cricket will have a real problem in India.”
Warner’s comments aren’t hyperbole. Near empty stadium during Test matches is an all too familiar blight in India.
Indian administrators, players and supporters have the opportunity to propel the national team to an era of international dominance across the formats.
Right now, they are culprits for grasping the attainable, which makes the collective failure more frustrating than a Sehwag fumble in the slips.
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