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Business News/ Opinion / Did India turn the corner at Lord’s?
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Did India turn the corner at Lord’s?

India has won a landmark Test, but the series is still open. There is much hard work ahead still

India ended a 28-year drought at Lord’s with 95-run win over England in the second Test. Photo: Ian Kington/AFPPremium
India ended a 28-year drought at Lord’s with 95-run win over England in the second Test. Photo: Ian Kington/AFP

When Clive Lloyd’s West Indians arrived in England for a five-match Test series in 1976, Tony Greig promised to make them grovel. To those who knew him, the gregarious English captain was not averse to either bombast or gamesmanship.

But the West Indians were not amused. They thought Greig’s contempt had a racial overtone. “Grovel" is an unkind word in most situations and suggests inferiority—more so when directed at proud and racially sensitive peoples.

Just what effect Greig’s words had on the West Indies team became known from the first Test itself as every member exploded into action that bespoke not just extraordinary skill, but perhaps an even stronger desire for retribution.

By the end of the series, Greig’s nose had been rubbed into the ground—repeatedly, match after match. Two drawn Tests did not portend the havoc that was to follow as the West Indians kept coming back revitalized, stronger, more determined.

England lost the three remaining Tests by whopping margins against spectacular batting by Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks and Lloyd and fearsome fast bowling by Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Vanburn Holder and Wayne Daniel. The great West Indies team of the 1970s and 1980s, which was to rule the cricket world, had emerged.

I’ve got into an extended preamble to explore if there is some such similar trigger in India’s terrific 95-run victory in the recently concluded Test at Lord’s in the UK and if so, what its ramifications could be.

Cause and effect, action and reaction, pride and prejudice have dimensions outside classrooms of philosophy and physics, in sport—sometimes in celluloid classics like Lagaan, but none more fascinating than when this is expressed on the actual field of play.

What role did the James Anderson-Ravindra Jadeja altercation in the first Test at Trent Bridge earlier this month play in India’s big win? On the face of it, an incident that seemed no more than an overflow of adrenalin—not unusual in sport—snowballed into a major controversy with India filing Level 3 charges (Level 4 is the highest in the International Cricket Council, or ICC, Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel) against Anderson and England entering into a tit-for-tat situation by filing Level 2 charges against Jadeja.

What still intrigues me though is why Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni took such a recalcitrant position. The Indian captain is not known to lose his composure easily. He is keenly competitive and knows that sometimes bust-ups happen in the heat of the moment.

Interestingly, in 2011, with his team on the back-foot, Dhoni had also recalled Ian Bell in a Test after the England batsman had been run out by his fielder—it did not contravene any rule but it challenged the “spirit of cricket".

Given this background, Dhoni’s rigid position is unusual and interesting. He was obviously cut up by Anderson—and deep enough not to withdraw the charges despite protests and petitions by several people around the event.

It is not anybody’s case that Anderson was in the wrong and Jadeja blameless. Who said what and did what to whom, who was right and who wrong, should be known by 1 August as the ICC’s judicial commission, headed by Gordon Lewis, hears the players concerned and others over the next week.

But I would venture to say that this incident riled the Indian team into raising their performance a couple of notches at Lord’s: The objective was not just playing a Test match hard, but teaching the opposition a lesson. This was manifest through an outstanding team effort in the second Test.

Apart from brilliant individual flourishes—from Ajinkya Rahane’s effervescent, counterattacking century, Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s superb all-round show, Murali Vijay’s immaculate technique and unending powers of concentration, and Jadeja’s game-changing knock, to Ishant Sharma’s destructive pace bowling on the final afternoon—what was tellingly evident was the tenacity, the passion, the never-say-die attitude of the entire team.

At Lord’s (as indeed in the first Test), there were several phases and situations when the Indians had their backs to the wall. Each time, the crisis was averted: sometimes by the top order, sometimes by tail-enders, sometimes by the bowlers, sometimes by brilliant work in the field.

Sitting atop and directing this concerted, concentrated effort has been captain Dhoni, aiming at national and personal redemption. In many ways his position was the most fragile given his abysmal overseas record—as batsman and, particularly, captain.

So what does this astonishing, against the run-of-play victory at Lord’s portend for Indian cricket? It would be clutching at straws to say that Dhoni’s young team could do what Lloyd’s side did after their crushing win in 1976.

The West Indies of the 1970s and 1980s boasted of players with spectacular flair and ability. Only a peculiar planetary configuration can make the assembly of such gifted players at the same time in the same team possible.

One must also put the current series in context. England have never looked so vulnerable. Whitewashed by Australia and beaten by Sri Lanka a few weeks ago, English cricket is clearly in the doldrums. Perhaps the unseemly show of aggression by Anderson and Co. was just so much bluster, and was badly exposed at Lord’s.

Yet this is also a young India team. At 33, Dhoni is the oldest and most experienced. Most players are in their mid-20s and weren’t even born when India last won at Lord’s 28 years ago.

From a cricketing point of view, this side now seems to have balance and depth in batting and bowling. It is significant that the dependence on batsmen in this series does not show the skew of old; the bowlers have had an equal, if not bigger, role in the first two Tests.

Overall, the performance has been inspiring enough to suggest that India may have turned the corner, finally, and that a new era has begun. But there is no scope for premature celebration. Dhoni will remember 2012, when India beat England at Ahmedabad then went on to lose at Mumbai and Kolkata.

A landmark Test has been won, the series is still open. The wholesome sweetness of revenge still has to be gained. There is much hard work ahead still.

Ayaz Memon is a senior columnist who writes on sports and other matters.

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Published: 23 Jul 2014, 07:40 PM IST
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