The sun rises in the east and sets in the west is been said as universal truth but the real fact is sun neither rises nor sets only earth revolves. Like that, ICC rankings can say the No. 1 and No. 2, but the fact is the performance of the team on and off the field is what tells the real No. 1, No. 2 and the truth is India is not yet the real No. 1.
To be Champions: India must beat India
For a nation with more than a billion people, being No. 1 in a sports event is not a surprise but having reached there only 2 years ago is rather a disappointment. So, for team India works starts now only to satisfy the desire and dream of millions of cricket fans. Being a No. 1 is milestone but making a history as No. 1 is an achievement. An achievement that going to need lots of sacrifice, dedication, hard work, aggression, self belief and team unity to pull off a success to match or even beat the success reached by the former champions West Indies and Australia.
The fiery West Indies set the benchmark for what it takes to be a world champions which the Australians recoded by taking the level of champions altogether to another level with their never give up attitude. If not more, Australians certainly created the same kind of waves that West Indies created among their oppositions. India needs to take a leaf out of Australia to transform them from being called soft No. 1 to champions, a leaf called ruthless, fearless and merciless into their attitude for every match.
India is often critical for their slow start, being content, restraining themselves and lack of self confidence which altogether earned them a name, soft travelers and now soft No. 1. India could have won both the 2004 and 2008 Border-Gavaskar series in Australia, against South Africa in South Africa in 2010, against England in England in 2001-2002, against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka in 2010 and more if not for the poor first test match, not only outside India, it has happened in home also where they are forced to play heart out in 2nd Innings to earn a draw on more than one occasion.
When they actually bailed out from first test with just a draw, they often content with just 1-0 series results when they had more than a chance to make it one more, most notably being against England in 2007, against New Zealand in 2010 and recently against West Indies. This had huge impact to the fact that India had never won more than a test to win a series outside subcontinent except against Zimbabwe. For a No. 1 team to have not won a test series in Australia and South Africa is a bad badge in their tie.
There are more facts like this which is going to hurt India badly in their claim for No. 1 status in following years. To prove all those facts wrong and overcome them, India needs to beat them before thinking about their opponents. It’s not that India doesn’t have those attributes in them but it came like rainbow in sky now and then is what worries. The way Sachin and Sourav played in the 2nd test against England in England 2001-2002 on the 2nd day of the match refusing to take the bad light and start demolishing the new ball, in fact for the whole match India threatened every moment like a lighting with thunder on dark night is a poof of what lied inside that came out so few times when it was needed. There have been many other instances or matches where India did looked like threatening but until we start finding matches where India did not threatened, this quarrel continues.
There is no better time to ignite this starting from England where India is going to have a packed tough session ahead. They can start erasing all bad facts one by one with their performance in coming 8 months. If India manages to beat India, then no one can point fingers at them.
There have been plenty of stones thrown at team India, it’s time they start turning them into milestones to achieve big thing.
Tags: Champions, Cricket, Cricket Fans, Cricket India, ICC Rankings, India, Indian Cricket, Team India
