Yorked!!! – By Chetan Narula.

Hope the omens are wrong…..

You don’t need to be an alchemist to understand the omens if you are an Indian cricket fan. You can just take a look at the state of affairs and contemplate what the result might be at the end of a particular tour. Something of this sort happened to me this Sunday when rain washed away the first ODI of the series b/w India and South Africa.

It reminds me of the team of the mid-90s, first under Azharuddin and then under Sachin. Capitulation without a fight or at the first sight of a green wicket was a major identity of the then Indian team. But all that had changed albeit for a short time. Sourav Ganguly and John Wright had forged a mentally strong unit which had put even the Aussies to shame in their own den. However much has gone wrong since then.

A certain Greg Chappell has come along and Dravid has been made captain. The point here is not what they achieved last year in the form of some really sweet victories. It is what the team has become of late that must be bothering the average Indian fan, especially with the World Cup almost in sight. Reeling under the “experimentation” and “process more important than result” theories, the famed and once feared Indian batting line up has again become prey to the terror of uncertainty and green tops.

But that was revealed only when the team reached South Africa and lost to not the South African A team, but a young fast bowler who didn’t believe the new notion that Indians do not fear green tops. And now the whole world knows again.

The seeds of a “forthcoming disastrous” tour were sown much before the team even left the Indian shores. No official team kit was made available and that is an apathy given the multi million dollar contracts we have with Nike and Pantaloons. Furthermore, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar were reprimanded for missing the team meetings & official photograph before the team departure. And then as we saw the famed batting line up fail, only Rahul Dravid stood up with a gritty half century. Bad omens did I hear some one say?

One would argue that not even one match has been played as yet on this tour and I am labeling it a failure. You see I have history as reference and that is the long sad history of disastrous Indian foreign tours, and three of them to South Africa. So its no wonder the way Indians smiled when rains arrived at Johannesburg, gives me a feeling of déjà vu.

All is not lost though. This is but a mere figment of imagination that India will again return empty handed from their sojourn. This is a mere peep into the future. It is still very much in the hands of the team to return as champions from this tour. The bowling will have additional zip with the return of Kumble and Zaheer. The batting given more time in the middle will find its lost nip, I am sure. The only point is their time starts now. The think tank has to make the right decisions in the absence of Yuvraj, regarding the batting order and of course, the batting position of Irfan Pathan. You can’t be serious about your World Cup prospects if he still comes out at no.3 even in South Africa. Much is in the hands of Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid with the middle order in the hands of Dhoni and Kaif.

Yes the tour is actually yet to start. But since it might not rain every time, this could soon become a very hard and long tour for our beloved cricket team.