one-sided

 

 

THOUGH India’s record in home-Test series is truly amazing in the last 12 years, registering wins in as many as 18 series against different visitors, the one-sided win in the first Test against West Indies at Ahmedabad cannot be taken as a measure of the team’s virtuosity. For, such matches takes place only occasionally -- with team just refusing to offer even a semblance of fight. So, the Indian win by an innings and 140 runs over the visitors needs to be taken as a rare feat that does happen once in a blue moon.

 

Otherwise, every team outs up as tough a fight as possible to redeem its honour. The West Indies team appears to have not been left with even the courage to dig its heels and fight back honourably. But such one-sided matches cannot be measures of the winning side’s strengths -- strictly speaking. On the contrary, such outcomes may give a team an entirely wrong and illusive idea of its strengths or weaknesses. True, the current West Indies team is very feeble in its cricketing skills or even on team parameters. It wilted easily as the Indians mounted pressure in each department of the game and finished off the game in just three days. However, this stunning victory should not give the Indian players a wrong idea of their prowess that has seen some tough challenges in recent times on away tours. In other words, what is required for the Indian team under its new but successful captain Shubman Gill is a continuous introspection on its plus and minus points and a continuous endeavour to keep plugging holes in its overall showing in different departments.

 

Its great showing in home games over the past 12 years should give the team a great push of confidence, all right. But the team and its management as well as selectors should keep in mind that international cricket appears set to evolve unimaginably differently. For, most cricket-laying countries are adopting -- more or less successfully -- the organisational model of countries such as India where cricket establishment has set an entirely new set of standards. In due course of time, such efforts would start paying reasonable dividends and the overall standard of cricket will show promise of genuine growth. In such an atmosphere, Indian cricket cannot afford to rest on its laurels and take things for granted. This is the message from Ahmedabad.

 

There is no doubt that India’s record in home series is truly amazing. Yet it also must not forget that the visiting New Zealand team had handed its down a 0-3 defeat in a home series. True, the lords of Indian cricket did not take that defeat casually and learned good lessons from that experience. But time it is now for them also to learn equally potent lessons to build a still stronger team following a one-sided win against West Indies. For, many times, seeds of decline, too, are concealed in easy victories that have all the propensities to give the team a wrong impression of itself.