The Hindu : Beyond the defeat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Beyond the defeat

THE SIMPLE TRUTH about the cricket World Cup final is that the better side — nay, the much, much better side — won. The somewhat more complex and not adequately acknowledged reality is that the gloomy cloud of defeat has a vivid silver lining. Rather than dwell on the fact that India lost to a prodigiously talented and ruthlessly professional team, the focus surely should be on the substantial strides the country has made in one-day cricket over the last year or so. If one ignores the performance against New Zealand (which deserves to be disregarded because of the suspect nature of the pitches the entire series was played on), India's recent run in the one-day game has given cause for satisfaction, even delight. If anything, the team's performance in the World Cup, in which it beat all other opponents with the exception of Australia, confirms that the turnaround in its fortunes — reflected in victories in the NatWest and Champions Trophies — was not going to be shortlived. India may have been a poor second to mighty Australia in the World Cup, but its overall showing — which included facile victories over Pakistan, England, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and New Zealand — left no one in doubt about which side occupied the next rung in the cricketing ladder. And so while there may be reason to feel disappointed by the overwhelming defeat to Australia, there is hardly cause to feel disheartened by it.

What of the final itself? Clearly, the match was lost by the Indian medium pace attack, which showed nothing of the nagging line and length it had displayed in the earlier matches. Having surprised everyone with their accuracy and vigour, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra were hopelessly wayward and ineffective on a pitch that offered them a fair amount of assistance. For all practical purposes, the match was sealed once the Australians posted a colossal 359 runs, the effort spearheaded by a dramatic, almost cavalier, knock by Captain Ricky Ponting. Once such a total was on the board, hopes that India would surpass it were based on a mixture of hopeless optimism and naivete. The Indian Captain, Sourav Ganguly, has been criticised harshly but totally unfairly for his decision to field after winning the toss. Yes of course, India may have done better if it had elected to bad — this may be evident in the clear and advantageous light of hindsight. But the point is that Ganguly's decision was hardly a bad one — at least it is not the kind of decision that can be compared for example with Mohammed Azharuddin's baffling and inexplicable one to field first on an obviously crumbling track in the World Cup semi-final match against Sri Lanka in 1996. As Ganguly anticipated, there was both bounce and lateral movement in the early overs at the Wanderers. The problem was his bowlers were unable to extract the advantage they should have from this.

Despite the loss by a huge margin of runs, the Indian batting — which was forced into recklessness by the very size of the Australian total — did not perform as badly as the scorecard suggests. At more than one point in time during the Indian reply, it seemed more than likely that India would have surpassed a total of something around 300 runs, hardly a mean task against a well-honed attack such as Australia. It is not easy to see the positive side of things in the face of defeat, but this is exactly what Ganguly and his men should do — and also be allowed to do. Indian cricket commentators and fans of the game — who often tend to swing unreasonably between adulation and disparagement depending on whether the team wins or not - must not make too much of the loss in the finals. Two years ago, hardly anyone would have given the Indians a chance of getting so far. The real message of India's World Cup performance is that the manner in which it plays one-day cricket has undergone a cheerful metamorphosis. The positive energy and commitment the team has displayed reveals a foundation that can be built upon for an even brighter one-day cricketing future. Surely, this is more important than a defeat in a match, even if it is a World Cup final?

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