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Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007
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India needs to stand by its team

Sport is rich with comebacks, writes Rohit Brijnath

How does one play collected cricket amidst this din, this hysteria, this "don't come home," this "team needs to be whipped." The air is thick with insults, invective, effigy burning, and this is not new, in fact it's as stale as the team, still it makes Brazil appear rational about football. We are proud of this? The saddest thing after the Bangladesh match was that we quit. Not the team, but so many fans. It was a day when Indian skills went into hiding and an energetic neighbour gave us an instructive spanking. In sport it happens.

Yet we lost our nerve and said farewell to the Super Eights. Bishen Bedi was quoted as saying: "It's all over?" This is a former Indian captain, and in his reflexive defeatism lies a tragedy.

It's strange, we impale players for not believing in themselves, yet we chucked in the towel without a backward glance; we derisively point to their body language even as our shoulders have slumped; we go on about the virtues of "team," yet TV channels have polls to pick who is the guiltiest player after defeat.

In Australia, there is no abandonment of team, there's no "can't be done."

When they stumble, fans mutter, grimace, then put their shoulder to the team's cause. There is a sense that for better or for worse this is their team and the marriage has to endure. And perhaps this faith binds them, for few teams are as adept at rescuing themselves from positions of expiring hope.

This relationship in India, between fan and player, is edging beyond the uncomfortable. Respect from both sides has dimmed. Players might see many fans as noisy nuisances, useful only to their bank balance. Many fans see players only as idols or targets, whose effigies they burn or pictures they garland.

Middle ground

So little rational middle ground exists, so little delight found in the game except in victory, so little sense of adventuring together. A shrill worship has been confused with affection. In a game of patience, it is now fashionable to pass definitive judgements every hour. Perhaps we need to learn to love the game again.

We do not know yet what caused the death of Bob Woolmer, but must be mindful of the stress we place on unformed men and greying coaches. If men bat with tension darting through their fingers it should be because the occasion is exciting, not because the repercussions of failure are grim.

In 2001, John Wright asked Harsha Bhogle to address the team, and though the exact words elude him, the wise commentator remembers talking about Indians across the world rising early to check India's performance on cricinfo, beaming when the team shines, and reminded the players of the power they had over people. We might say this team tends to forget that. But we might also say that if it's hard for us to cheer a seemingly slothful team, it's hard to play for someone who wants to kick down your house. Yes, this team is annoying, exasperating, sloppy. Yes, you'd think they have enough free time to learn to field. Yes, their teamwork is sometimes less than admirable. But they're also the best of us.

Their erratic nature should not surprise, for no perfect team can be born of a flawed system. We are impatient for greatness without caring to carefully court it. Still, this team is all we've got, we cannot exchange it for another. So we might as well believe, that Rahul Dravid, perhaps one final match left as captain, will find the words to rouse them, that old men will stand proud and young men take their chance.

Sport is rich with comebacks, some forged by these men in 2001. It would be nice if they stood up against Sri Lanka, and we stood by them. And that even if they fall short, we can criticise, fume, hope for better days, push for a smarter system, but leave it at that. No burning nothing. No worst player polls. No "disgrace to the nation" posters. There would be, after all, something cruel about young Indian men, whatever their failings, feeling nervous of coming home.

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