Captain comes of age

‘West Indies are a difficult side to beat at home.’ This statement has recently been ascribed to Indian skipper Rahul Dravid. If he has really made the statement, he has come of age as an urbane wordsmith worthy of the demands of international cricket diplomacy. Since C K Nayudu’s days, visiting captains of every colour and creed have made condescending remarks about how India are a tough team to beat in India. Even lowly New Zealand and Sri Lanka of those days glibly assumed the role of patronizing visitor with a Big Brother attitude. The irony of it is that very few of these superior visiting teams actually won anything outside their own native soil.

Particularly pathetic used to be the attempts by English captains to pretend that they led such good sides they had the right to be condescending. Remember how Graham Gooch’s men were thrashed by Azharuddin’s men in the early nineties? Barring a few exceptions most English teams visiting India either lost the rubber or drew the series, yet one British critic had the audacity to call the Indians ‘dull dogs’ after five Tests between Mike Smith’s MCC and Pataudi’s India were drawn. In fact, after 1974, when Ajit Wadekar’s Indians were trounced by England, Indian teams have never fared really poorly in England, and even won 2-0 in 1986, under Kapil Dev’s captaincy.

Australia did not win in India for three decades, a period during which India did not fare too badly in Australia, losing 2-3 to Bobby Simpson’s Australia, 1-2 on the next visit down under, drawing 0-0 and 1-1 on two more occasions, but it never occurred to an Indian captain to declare that Australia was a difficult side to beat in Australia.

Of all contemporary teams, New Zealand is probably the strongest opponent in home conditions, which favour seam bowling to an unnatural degree, and even there, Indian teams have rarely said the home team was hard to beat there.

Rahul Dravid was recently criticised by Graham Gooch for providing insipid copy for the media, ever hungry for sound bytes. He called on the Indian captain to be more forthcoming, more honest in his comments to the press. It seems now that his words have catalysed Dravid into action. He has started to sound like his counterparts of the developed world, adopting a big brotherly tone before the start of the West Indies tour. It is a new phase in Indian cricket, the brave new Chappell-Dravid era, no doubt. It is a small detail, however, that India has not won in the West Indies since 1971.