Maybe I'm the one that's paranoid. Maybe the Indian team has genuinely become the kind of side that can take a hit and come back aggressive as you please, psyching the opposition against all odds. I am also one of the billion-plus people who would like to believe that. But I also like to feel like I have an "x-ray" sense, if you will, that sensitizes me to the subliminal energy levels of the Indian team. At the times when this energy level matches what I see on TV, I am able to believe that the Indian side has fared according to its performance. But several times, more so off late, I can't help but feel that Indian cricket has been suctioned by a politicized world.
What do I mean by that? The game of cricket has grown such a viewership and patronage that it presents itself as the perfect mascot for politicos to channel their agendas through. It would indeed seem unnatural if such a media specimen as ostentatious as the Indian cricket team were not exploited by the powers that be. In a certain liberal sense, such exploitation would not even seem wrong or immoral. A sport need not ever feel like it supersedes a self-promoting agenda. A businessman may surely use something as attention-grabbing as the Indian cricket side to help his agenda along – no incriminations leveled. Fair enough. But it does hurt the ardent follower of the game to feel that the game they are investing so much of their energies and passion on could be rigged.
(The following is seeped in conjecture that I would like to be read with an open mind – indeed with a mind wanting to be led by the words it is reading)
Let us hark back a couple of years, where I first perceived this phenomenon in operation, to the T20 World Cup in South Africa. It can't be too outrageous an accusation to say that the Indian World T20 Champion squad possessed neither the mightiest hitters nor the most balanced T20 team. Indeed bowlers like Sreesanth, RP Singh were never touted as run-scrunchers. Even to this day, I can't help but wonder how India won the tournament playing against teams that boasted relentless hitters like Hayden, Gilchrist, Gayle, Graeme Smith, Mccullum and others. This is not to detract from the intense, timely performances by Indian players, but try as I might, I can't imagine how the Australian team performed worse on the same wicket that the Indians batted on. Emerging stars and fiery competitors in the oppositions apart, Australia cannot have been as feeble as they appeared to be during that tournament.
That was the period in cricketing history when a nascent format cried for feeding. Twenty-Twenty is largely a commerce-driven sport, as indeed it caters to the masses. The Men in charge of cricket's future (I don't know for sure who these are, but there have to be them) probably saw this as a most lucrative avenue. As they scratched their bearded chins (again, I can't make any informed assessment regarding the fuzziness of their chins, but let's assume for effect), the oldest member tugged his goatee especially hard and came up with the glorious realisation that India was the melting pot of cricketing dough. What better people to comprise a viewership than the largest and most proudly passionate cricket-fanatics in the world?
The tournament’s Final was aptly scripted to showcase the ripest rivalry cricket has been blessed with – India vs. Pakistan. And as India won the T20 World Cup, the senile (or youthful, I don't know!) wise men of cricket slapped each other high fives for the successful enticement of a billion wallets.
Then the next avatar taken by the Round Table of Cricket Elders: the T20 World Cup 2009. Pakistan had been through trying times at the time, and the refreshing quality of the timely victory to the despondent nation was beset, in my mind, by the same artificial phenomenon I saw repeated. Mohammad Aameer had bowled a wicket-maiden in the first over of a T20 World Cup Final to the fearsome Dilshan, and something felt amiss.
Not that either India or Pakistan is the best team in the world in the shorter format. Indeed, several pundits will tell you that neither has the normative ingredients that make up a champion team. The volatile and short format probably made it easier by making it necessary to win only a few matches; or on the flipside, be knocked out just as easily. It feels like an untrustworthily spoon-fed case-in-point in favour of my argument, but the first two winners of T20 tournaments just happened to be the two most ardent cricketing nations.
(Thanks for coming along and holding onto your rocks and tomatoes for this long. I pray for a slight increase in broadmindedness for the following words)
Now when Test cricket faced brickbats in the face of fast emptying stands, and needed a boost to stay alive, the best thing to happen to the form that needed saving was an India-based rescuing of the damsel in distress. The ever vigilant universe saw to it that India found itself at the top of the Test-rankings and the media fell in step with much expedient sensationalizing of this event. The next act of God was that the schedule did not hold any matches for India for a while. This made for more fodder for the media in that the Indian season's final Test series against South Africa could be touted grandly as the World Championship of Cricket.
The first Test at Nagpur India lost miserably. An innings defeat is hard to bear for a Numero Uno team. How much this defeat would benefit the cause of the sensationalist media in the slightly longer run is evident now. The next match at the Eden Gardens was a must-win for India to retain its youthful berth at the top for the end of the season. India rallied mightily, delivering a like blow to the Proteas to clinch a penultimate-over victory. Harbhajan Singh duly performed his historic sprint evading clamouring teammates, making a beeline for the boundary ropes, where his Athenian exultations may be all the better displayed in the limelight. The sight of a triumphant Bhajji throwing open his chest at the roaring crowd in a feral expression of victory has to be a genuinely powerful image in sporting history books.
All this constituted a strong shot in the arm for Test cricket. Now that India is the top ranked team in a format, there is bound to be healthy respect for Test cricket, which as always Indian glory never fails to generate for its patron format.
With such glorious goals as to preserve the sport and do some Samaritanism for an ailing nation; even promote a young sport, the artifices of cricket’s powers can well be condoned. Even praised. But what price an honest game of cricket?
Here is me hoping to be trashed with convincing counter-arguments debunking all this as paranoid, irrational mental gymnastics. But watching India play has lost that much sheen for me as every time I watch them play, the puppet strings stand out from their shoulder-blades.
