For this post,nothing in particluar.
Except the second love of my love,cricket... Will talk of the first one some other day.. ;)
India take on SA on Sunday at the Eden Gardens in a battle to regain test supremacy. In the first of this kind of instance in a long time, two teams are battling it out in a Test series with the winner emerging the numero uno, a rare situation in Test cricket where official rankings were first used only 10 years back. I think the only time this happened before was when SA took the No. 1 position from Australia just before the 2003 WC.
An Indian team high on expectations following their ascent to the top have had their hopes dampened by injuries to Dravid and Laxman and then the crushing defeat in the first Test.An innings defeat inflicted to the No. 1 team... Time to ponder? Time to accept that we are not the best? Time to play the waiting game? I don't think so... As any fan who has followed Indian team's sojourns over the past decade will vouch for, you never write off an Indian team and do so at your peril.
I suppose it is something inherently Indian not to be unfazed by adversity and achieve your bests when the chips are down.
Some of the more celebrated turnarounds that come to mind:
Year Venues Heroes
2001 Kolkata Dravid,Laxman,Harbhajan
2002 Birmingham Dravid,Bangar,Zaheer
2004 Adelaide Dravid,Laxman,Agarkar
2007 Cape Town Ganguly
Though the first name in three of those occasions would be missing the second Test, it is his counterpart in two of them turnarounds who gives me hope. Vengipurrappu Venkat Sai Laxman, making a return from injury, at a time when Indians are staring down the barrel after an innings defeat at the hand of the Proteas, has the script perfectly written for him to come and conjure magic and produce another of those beautiful innings under pressure that has dominance and elegance wonderfully blended.
It is this uncanny ability of his to remain unfazed under pressure and produce those gems of a knock that led some critics in Australia to call him the best batsman in the world. Very true, in his genre, he is arguably one of the best.... The genre of wristy,elegant batsmen, punctuated by names like Gundappa Vishwanath and Mohd. Azharuddin.
And the venue gives me further hope that Very Very Special Laxman will rise into his own. Eden Gardens witnessed the best comeback and one of the finest innings under pressure in Test cricket in 2001. Could it see an encore over the coming week?
It is also worthwile to note that when India played Aus there in the second Test, they had been crushed at Mumbai by 10 wickets by an Aussie juggernaut that had won 16 Tests in succesion and was looking to breach "the final frontier" to stake their claim to be the best in the world.
All this is what gives me a sense of deja vu. India down in the series after a crushing defeat, the battle for being the best in the world, speculation that the team's best days are behind, a Laxman coming back into the side (though this wasn't the case then) and the Eden...
Would we witness another of those special matches , or does magic happens only once in a blue moon?
We'll have to wait and watch.
Turn your eyes to Eden and keep your fingers crossed.
Rishabh Kalia
P.S. Do feel free to comment.
