Happy days are over again

<div class="section1"><div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="0" width="35.6%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/880121.cms" alt="/photo/880121.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Team India</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">If the first four days of the Bangalore Test are any indication, the Indian team can well forget challenging Australia’s hegemony at the top of the cricket table.<br /><br />It has veered from the supreme to the banal in just a matter of three months. Just a little while ago, in Australia and Pakistan, the players had looked young, confident and united; today, suddenly, they seem jaded, fragile and almost scared. <br /><br />Quite a few are, of course, blaming the new contract system for the apparent cracks within the squad; some argue that the blatant preference for certain boys is hurting team-spirit even more; many others feel that the prolonged absence of Tendulkar is finally taking a toll on the players’ psyche. <br /><br />The more generous are, however, living on hope: they believe that the players are simply going through a rough patch and that they will start flying soon. <br /><br />Maybe, the team will jump out of this crisis and still protect its final frontier; maybe, the shocking decline is just the dark, long night that follows a bright, sunny day. Maybe, there’s no need to panic. <br /><br />Alas! Between The Lines would go to the extent of declaring the spectacular run in Australia and Pakistan last season as a beautiful dream; it is even tempted to pronounce that the team will not ride a similar crest in the near future. <br /><br />After all, how often can you see virtually every player on song at the same time? How often has each batsman looked better than the earlier one? Sehwag. Laxman. Dravid. Ganguly. Tendulkar. Yuvraj. Kaif. Even Aakash. Almost everybody was on top of his form during those glorious three months. <br /><br />It’s almost impossible for all of them to regain that sublime touch and bat like kings; maybe, it’s time to stop living in that dream and come back to reality. <br /><br />Similarly, it’s high time that we stop expecting Laxman to produce another masterpiece every time he goes out to bat against the Aussies, or indeed, every time he walks into a crisis. Eden Gardens was also another beautiful dream come true; in fact, it was so beautiful that it even had all the traces of a miracle. <br /><br />But sadly, miracles happen only once in a lifetime. <br /><br />India’s cricketers will soon learn (if they already haven’t) that they are condemned to live on the edge. One day, they are loved, admired and chased; the next day, they are hated, abused and chased out. There is no respite for them, either way. <br /><br />Maybe, all this has something to do with the kind of people that we are, the kind of fears and insecurities that enmesh us on a daily basis. We expect our heroes to play or achieve everything that we ourselves can’t; when they show signs of faltering, we treat them as our own villains. And we go after them with a vengeance. <br /><br />The cricketers, however, play a significant role in this paradox. They look at the adulation and feel that they have conquered the world; they look at their own advertisements on television and think that they are infallible. Instead of trying to get better, they start believing that they are Gods; instead of getting closer and nicer to the fans, they treat them like dirt and unavoidable evils. <br /><br />It’s just a matter of time after that to fall. <br /><br />The Indian cricket board has to accept responsibility on this count: it’s brave enough to pick youngsters on talent and potential; but it doesn’t have the wisdom to shield them from the big, bad world of money, glamour and mass hysteria. <br /><br />The players are simply not trained to cope with all their fans, the media and the transient nature of success. Inevitably, most of them fade out well before fulfilling their promise; worse, they spend the rest of their lives repenting those lost moments. In the end, there’s only one sufferer: Indian cricket. <br /><br />The first Test in Bangalore is just the beginning.</div> </div>