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India finally play 21st century cricket!

Six summers ago, when the Indian team was touring England, a very close friend of mine called in the middle of the night and left a message on the answering machine that the manner in which two young batsmen had performed that afternoon had given him the very clear feeling that Indian cricket was in safe hands. The venue was Lord’s, and the two batsmen were two Test match debutants, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.

Last night, it was time to return that call.

Indian cricket may yet not be 100 per cent safe in the hands of Mohammed Kaif and Yuvraj Singh, but, boy, does it look promising! For all we care, this may be a flash-in-the-pan show and they may never, ever bring the grace and solidity that Ganguly and Dravid did. But that’s okay. This performance will rank alongside V V S Laxman’s 281 for the manner in which two young boys showed an entire nation that you can if you think you can.

Was it pure coincidence that Shankar Mahadevan was singing Come on India Dikha do around the same time on another channel?

It is difficult to like Indian cricket commentary these days with Navjot Sidhu starring in the ‘Massacre of the Metaphors’ and the Sachin Tendulkar PR machinery whirring in overdrive in the ESPN box. But, in a spot of inspired commentating, Harsha Bhogle hit the nail on the head before the team set out to chase 326. Harsha said the team needed to tell itself that if records could be rewritten in every other sport every other day, it can be in cricket, too.

In retrospect, this may seem like a lousy cliche, but that is the whole essence of what happened at Lord’s. We never seem to go into the middle 'believing' it is possible till the last ball is bowled; we go into the middle believing it is possible only if Sachin Tendulkar clicks. First Laxman, and now Kaif and Yuvraj, have exposed the fallacy of that drivel that has been subconsciously driven into every Indian’s mind by the marketeers.

Sachin Tendulkar, the batsman, does not figure in contemporary India’s finest Test match win and in its finest one-day victory. Why?

Because even the world’s greatest batsman cannot carry the burden of a billion people every day much as the television companies and their paid pipers want him to do. Because, after all the certificates have been handed out from Don Bradman downwards, cricket finally is a team game; it takes ten others to tango. And, most importantly, because it ain’t over till Navjot Sidhu’s Fat Lady does the bhangra in Bulandshahr.

After 13/7, the fearlessness of youth and the value of young legs and young lungs are lines that will be sung till the ’go-maata’ comes home. But what we are witnessing in Indian cricket just now is a generational change. The old baggage has been contemptuously cast aside. A side which was saddled with antiquated tactics and temperament; a side which was easily overwhelmed by the opponent, the target, has realised its own potential.

Unfazed by the event, unfazed by the final jinx, unfazed by the enormity of the task ahead of them, an entire nation has been delivered the simple message: never turn off the television sets because Sachin is out.

For Kaif and Yuvraj, and others of their ilk, the reputation of Lord’s has as much (or as little) importance as any other cricket centre anywhere on the planet. For Kaif and Yuvraj, and others of their ilk, the fact that Sachin has failed is not reason enough to bury their head under the towel in the dressing-room; it’s time to go out and show what they are worth. That’s a metamorphosis of a medieval mindset.

As the target appeared within reach, Harsha rightly remarked that regardless of which way the match went, he had seen India play 21st century cricket.

On one level, Saturday’s victory is a tribute to the much-reviled Mandalisation of Indian cricket that Jagmohan Dalmiya (thank him for a change) embarked upon. Unlike Ganguly and Dravid, both products of metropolitan cities, Kaif (## Allahabad) and Yuvraj (## Patiala) are small town boys with none of the hangups of the big city products.

And, on another, more important, level, the victory is the strongest reminder yet of the abiding secularism of sport. When we were shy of the target by well over a 100 runs, with Yuvraj still in, as a fully paid-up leftover liberal I told my wife that I hoped that Kaif would be there through to the very end with Zaheer Khan at the other. And that, after receiving the Man of the Match award, Kaif would dedicate it to Narendra Modi and Pravin Togadiya.

The former happened as predicted.

How I wish everybody who meets Mr Modi and Mr Togadiya and their sponsors and patrons and goons over the next few days will remind them and taunt them and tease them about just who was responsible for this sudden, spontaneous and welcome spurt of Bharatiya asmita this Sunday afternoon.

Krishna Prasad