I have always been a cricket fan for as far back as I can remember. My earliest memories are of me wielding a cricket bat: hoicking away at an imaginary ball that just kept popping into existence. I also specifically remember the color of that ball being bright red.
A little later down the line, I remember running-up to one of my cousins and watch him leap with joy over the magic that had just unfolded in Calcutta (2001).
By the winters of 2002, I was deep enough into it to wake-up at 4 am and watch India grit it out in Hamilton in sweaters heavier than required on a chilly Indian December morning. I remember being awed, enthralled! There was just something about Javagal Srinath running-in at 4 am Indian time, through the searing cold, in some distant land which looked! a continent away.
What followed was a timeless timeline of some indelible memories:
- Rahul Dravid cutting through the covers in Adelaide
- Irfan Pathan banana-swinging the Pakistani stumps into oblivion
- A certain Sreesanth break-dancing at the expense of Andre Nel
- Zaheer Khan ripping through the jellybeans to the tune of Chak De! India
- Steve Buckner swindling India out of a victory at Sydney
- Sachin Tendulkar standing-up to the Steyn storm in Cape Town
These are the just the highlights that, for some reason unknown, remain entrenched in my memory from a long list of moments that have defined cricket for me.
Perhaps, it is due to the nature of Test Cricket itself: a story, a narrative, a drama that plays out over a period of 5 days, encapsulating it itself brilliant moments of wide-arrayed emotions.
LOI might have the thrills but Test Cricket has a far greater narrative.
Anyhow, that love for cricket remained undying during the following decade as well, even during the torrid times that were to follow the 2011 World Cup victory:
The 0–8 vaccum-cleansing drubbing spread across 2 continents and 7 months.
It was a turn of events that ended careers.
It was a reckoning for an entire generation, a moment-of-truth that perhaps the game had left them behind. The age, just a number, had finally crept-up to signal the frailties of a human body.
The undisputed greats of the game had to accept that their defiance might outrun any challenge, but not the hands of time.
But, being true to their greatness, they bowed out. Gracefully.
They did not need a farewell or any gesticulation to celebrate their greatness; like true warriors, they died by the sword.
If anything, it only highlighted the long, enduring saga that is Test Cricket, especially away from home. If Test Cricket is about mastering the art of determination and defiance, you truly succeed when you demonstrate those abilities in alien conditions, against hostile opposition, through unfavourable circumstances.
By no means do I want to understate home victories: they are a much-needed and mandatory prerequisite for greatness, but away wins are the real crescendo; the summit of true greatness.
There is a reason Steve Waugh famously labelled India as the ‘final frontier’ for his fabled, ‘all-conquering’ Australian team. India was the last missing piece to Aussies’ cementing legendary dominance; a prize they finally secured in 2004–05.
The only other side in this century which even came close to being mentioned in the same breath as the Aussies’ was the South African side at the turn of the decade: by virtue of winning in overseas conditions.
When India travelled to England in 2011 post the World Cup win, they were the number 1 ranked side in the world. And their glorious downfall promptly eroded the sheen from the side’s laurels, and reinstated the fact that they were by no means, true world-beaters.
And even though India subsequently returned the favour to all touring sides in the coming years (and with such shrugging dominance at times that would make Rhonda Rousey proud), their bandwagon still came halting down each time they toured overseas, therefore preventing them from ever being counted as a truly great side.
And thus, is the reason why the overseas results of 2018 iteration sting the deepest and would continue to, until we conquer our ‘final frontier’.
For each time we buckled in 2011 and 2014, deep down, we knew we did not have the requisite resources to succeed. The teams had their own limitations, not least of which was the transition as India looked to settle upon a post-FabFour batting line-up.
Those series’ can be accounted for as precursors to an impending challenge; a build-up; a promise to develop and groom players for the future, who would one day come back to conquer.
It was a ‘process’ which turned into a furore literally: the word ‘process’ became synonymous with poor Indian performances and a hallmark of then Indian captain. It is a word which still induces disdain in a large section of fans, for it was taken as an excuse for under-performing in the name of ‘building for future’.
The appointment of Virat Kohli at the helm was viewed as a manifestation of that ‘process’.
He was the fore-bearer of a team that took 7 years in the making.
7 years during which every failure was masked as a sacrifice for the greater good.
7 years during which ‘earmarked’ players were given the rope to dig their heels in. For Kohli, the said proverbial rope was extended to the very last thread during the 2012 Australia tour (he ran with the last thread and never looked back since.)
Hence, it was no surprise that even though fans salivated at every glory of the rampage-riot that India ran during the long 2016 home season, the real Test beckoned with the onset of the away season in South Africa at the end of 2017.
This away season was the yardstick which the current team was always supposed to be judged against.
We had the team. For the first time in the century perhaps, India were going abroad with a bowling unit that was deemed good enough to not just compete, but win.
For the first time in a disputable-number-of-years, India were going abroad with the best batsman in the world in his prime.
More importantly, for the first time in many years, India didn’t just have hope, they had belief.
It is the failure of this belief that has hurt the most.
This is not the first capitulation of the Indian cricket team abroad, but this is the one which stings the most, and rightly so.