Indian cricket does what it knows best – falling short…

Is patriotism in short supply among the members of the Indian cricket team? Does playing for the country seem less attractive than sham masala matches of IPL where friendly foreign players, who have licked the cream clean, go through the motions most of the times to let the desis win on their own soil? Are we now the jokers of world cricket who are allowed a grudging entry into the hallowed portals of the game from where it began and given false respect and encomiums because we control the purse strings?

Worse, are we so predictable and hackneyed in our techniques and strategies that even a rookie can take us for a ride, upset our team plans and make our players feel vindicated when they get the better of his game (as it happened in the last two test matches vs Australia when Sam Konstas took on our spearhead pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah). That too, when at the beginning of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, our team was touted to be better, man to man, against Australia who were felt to be in ‘transitory’ mode. As the series wound up 3-1 in favour of the home team, we all knew what we always knew, in our heart of hearts. We just didn’t measure up. Period.

One was face-to-face with the waving levels of commitment the players unabashedly revealed whenever they took the field all across Australian cricket pitches. We were, after all, saddled with the dead weight of a has-been star who was pumped up to sky levels by a bevy of commentators and pundits all over the world. Then there was a captain who prioritised paternal duties over the de-manding requirements of a much-awaited set of

Test matches. His actions would have not been un-der scrutiny and relentless criticism if only he had performed. That he came back, frittered away the momentum of his stand-by and went on to perform like a zombie made every cricket fan furious, not only in India but also among his fans all over the world.

For a country which loves the political garnishing in every aspect of life, the undesirable blend of pol-itics and sports in all varieties of the games played has not spared the ‘gentleman’s game’ too. Pur-poseless soul-searching and high-sounding homilies have followed after every bad cricket series that our team has played ever since one

remembers in the past five decades, as it brutally replaced all other contemporary games in sport in the country to emerge as the clear favourite of its fans.

That it happens when the home cricket team moves into an irretrievable decline into a phase of repeated defeats is a given.

From the point of view of a global diaspora following the game across continents to a record-breaking crowd attendance in the two big venues of Australia – Melbourne and Sydney- which was an achievement made after nearly 100 years, the average game lover who gave it all only wanted to see the boys take the aggressive

Aussies and tame them. Of course, they were destined to get cheat-ed, their love for the game once again brought under a ruthless check and what we saw is what we expected to see – blame-game, brazen

regional politics, allegations of discrimination and one-sided decision-making. All of this naturally letting the country down, much to the glee of our rivals who must have smirked and backslapped each other, with knowing glances, in their private spaces, the world over.