England steamrolled India with a consistent and ruthless display in the recently concluded 4-0 series whitewash but the tourists’ meek surrender of the number one test ranking was primarily their own doing. Occupants of the top slot since December 2009, India added the 50-over World Cup in April this year to signal their intention of dominating the game like the West Indies and Australia had done so in the recent past.
However, England’s utter dominance in a quartet of lopsided test victories proved that India’s fortress was built on flimsy foundations.
India’s much-vaunted batting line-up failed to fire, their bowlers bled runs without success and the standard of their fielding would have embarrassed any club side.
“Indian cricket has become the laughing stock of the world game and while that might not seem to matter to a board that generates 70 percent of the sport’s global income and has in its locker-room the World Cup trophy, no less, ridicule tends to be a corrosive disease,” ESPN Cricinfo’s Andrew Miller wrote. Many believe the seeds of destruction were sown by the Indian cricket board, which compiled a lucrative but punishing schedule that ensured most of the players were either exhausted or injured by the time they set foot on English soil.
India’s World Cup victory in April was preceded by a South Africa tour and less than a week after lifting one-day cricket’s biggest trophy in Mumbai, skipper MS Dhoni and his men were honouring their Indian Premier League (IPL) obligations in the cash-rich Twenty20 league. A short tour of the West Indies followed before they arrived in England just in time for a practice game ahead of the four-match series against a battle-hardened and hungry England side.
Ajit Wadekar, who led India to their first series victory in England 40 years ago, insists the players should have skipped the IPL tournament.
“Tell me which English player participated in the IPL? None of them,” Wadekar told Reuters.
“We could not even enjoy our World Cup win properly. The IPL started immediately. It was too much and it’s telling on the players.” Wadekar’s point was driven home by the dismal experiences of three key players before and during the England series. Openers Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, and pace spearhead Zaheer Khan either picked up or aggravated existing injuries during the 51-day IPL tournament and subsequently skipped the trip to the Caribbean. On top of that, a fresh injury to Gambhir compounded India’s crisis and the tourists were only once able to start a test with their regular opening partnership, tinkering with the batting order in the other three matches.
Sehwag was unavailable for the first two matches as he recovered from shoulder surgery and after being rushed into action for the third test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, was dismissed for first-ball ducks in both innings. Zaheer lasted just one test, bowling 13 1/2 overs in the first innings of the opening match at Lord’s, before a hamstring injury ended his tour. India’s lack of planning, the hallmark of any team that wants to dominate the game, was also cruelly exposed.
Well, it's more than a case of simply myopia – as even the article itself suggests – given the fact that monetary benefits, regardless of morality, is the name of the game with the Indian cricket establishment! One of the "by-products" of these notorious financial gains was that most segments in the global media started to over-rate this team unfairly – not considering the fact that winning games in one's own backyard does not really represent "world dominance"!
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