AND THEN THERE WAS PERTH

While the entire country was hooked to their TV screens for ten days waiting to see if the Indian Cricket team is going to return from down under bringing a pre-mature end to the scheduled 3 months tour, amongst all controversies and accusations and fingers pointing to one man and then another, in the midst’s of Harbajan Singh’s trial and Brad Hogg being accused, very quietly, unobserved by the public, a script was being written in the Indian dressing room, probably the hands writing the story dreams and fairytales are made of had no idea then but in the 2 months to come, the world would view the Indian Cricketing spirit in a different light.

In the events to follow, we look back as men often do and realize that the Sydney test defeat was a point reached and from there on, there could be no turning back, the only way for our bays was meeting fire with fire and a fairly good way to put what happened would be to say that the “Indian Team looked the Australians in the eye, and did not blink.”

The much awed and feared pitch of Perth was ready for battle and the stage was well set for Irfan Pathan and Virender Sehwag to make a comeback after being out of the test team for about an year each, though our much loved young sardar had to sit out this time, as it turned out, he would get ample amount of opportunity to answer everyone with the ball later.

The Wicket, about which a lot had been written and re-written, had somehow failed to work for the Australians who had gone ahead with an extra pace bowler, in form of Shaun Tait, a 25 year old speedster who looked more like a 40 year old man, lacking skill, while bowling to the likes of Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman, these masterful stroke players looked at the top of their game against an Australian attack which seemed to lack inspiration, the papers reported it as a “dead WACA wicket”, and that was where our young bowlers, with swing in their arsenal came into picture, a top order collapse for the Ausies saw the return of a hero, as Pathan got rid of both the openers in both the innings, and the birth of a another, in form of Ishant Sharma, a tall, lanky boy from Delhi, who at the young age of 19, managed to send chills down the spine of the “worlds best batsmen”.

If you had sat through his 9 over spell in the second innings at the end of which he got the wicket of Ricky Ponting, if you had followed every ball fired down at the batsmen, who seemed to have no idea of the line, length or the movement of the ball, waiting for him to finally get out, you have to agree with me, when I say that that was some of the best pace bowling I have seen in life.

What we would realize later is that what we had seen in those 4 days was not just another test win, but more, much more. It was an answer to the Sydney test controversy and all that which followed, it was a statement that the team will not take things lying down, and it was the awakening of the spirit of Indian cricket.

The tri series which followed was just an aftermath I think, yes MS Dhoni seems to be a perfectly calm captain, at ease with a job which none of us believed he would be doing at least for a couple of years more, if at all. And he did manage to raise more than just eyebrows when he insisted on a young team, sending tempers flying all across the nation when Dravid and Gangully were dropped, for the likes of young Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir, but he got what he asked for, and did a fine job as well turning a bunch of youngsters into a fine team, and we don’t doubt him any longer when he comes on the stage and says that this will be the core of his team in the years to come.

The loss of Zaheer and RP Singh due to injury meant that Ishant, based on his performances in the test series, would have to lead the Indian pace attack, at the tender age of 19, and what a splendid job did the boy do, troubling both the Australians and the Sri Lankans (yes, the tri series did have another team, which came and went quite quietly), and so much did he grow with each and every match, that by the end of the tour, he did not look like a new comer any more, but a man who knew his place in the scheme of things.

But that’s not all that shone for India in the tri-series, with Gautam Gambhir ending up the highest run getter in the competition, another Delhi boy had decided that he would like to be a permanent addition to the side rather than an in and out batter, another young Sharma, shone for his batting in crucial times, showing great promise for the years to come, and a quiet, young, sly bowler, sat waiting for his chance for quite sometime, Praveen Kumar, who has a simple charm in his attitude and in his bowling, did not get a game till the must win match against Sri Lanka, just before the finals, and “he came, he saw, and he conquered,” a 4 wicket haul to open up his wicket taking account in international cricket, and the another 2 and 4 wicket in the finals, one wonders just why did he sat in the dressing room all this time, but more than that one wonders just what exactly, are Dhoni’s decisions made off?

Take, for example giving the last over of the T20 world cup final to Joginder Sharma, or more recently, saving Praveen Kumar for later, only to give him the new ball in the finals, or maybe taking a big chance with Piyush Chawla in the finals, for the leggie had had no game before them, or maybe the last over in this series? How about the courage to ask for weathered, bankable players like Dravid and Gangully to be dropped in view of a younger team? He says that he just gives them a chance and leaves it up to the individuals to perform, but there is much more to his captaincy, and we do not fail to notice how he has altered his “wham-bahm and thank you ma’am” ways of batting to get into a more responsible role of a captain building the innings, batting more like a man, who seems to be sure of the cards up his sleeve, neither do we fail to notice that whenever there is a tense situation on the field, he has his ways to calm things down, with a joke maybe, or just telling the bowler that he does trust him. Though it is often said that a true test of player is a test match, somehow we feel assured that when that opportunity presents it self in its due time, Dhoni will prove a fine leader in Test.

And lets not forget the ever mischievous Harbhajan Singh, who might have become the most hated player in Australia over this summer, its certainly not easy to go out and play, much less to do well, stop the runs, take those valuable wickets at the right time an to do it all with a smile on your face when half the crowd is booing you and cursing you with every move you make, but our man seems to be doing a fine job of it all even when all odds were against him. Really his valor seems to be inspiring.

And how about the great man who refuses to grow old, every ground Sachin Tendulkar went to, he was greeted by a standing ovation, the crowds not knowing weather he would play another match in Australia after this series or not. But the way things stand, we are not too worried that he’ll retire anytime soon, not the way he’s batting at the moment, not the way he almost repeated his performance of the Twin Centuries of Sharjah 1998, (wow, it really was ten years ago) with a spectacular century in the first final, and a breathtaking display of stroke play for 91, in the next one, he looks as good as new, and seems to have found his peace with a room full of players who were still toddlers when he started playing his cricket, he seems to be helping out with valuable coaching tips to the youngsters as well.

I would love to write on till the end of the day about this new phase of Indian Cricket but I’m afraid that’s not feasible, though I’m sure I will be following this team very closely in the next few years