India vs Australia: Waiting for legends

It’s difficult to direct one’s attention nowadays to a single goal. On one hand you have the cash-rich Indian Premier League characteristically being embroiled in controversies, and on the other there’s the steady and silent build up to the India-Australia series. The question of where the players’ attention would be directed still hangs uncomfortably low but for now, we take the news as it comes.

The last time Australia toured India, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey and VVS Laxman graced the field together, along with Sachin Tendulkar; a battle of stalwarts trying to outdo each other, itching to get their names penned in history books before anybody else. Before that, along with them, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Brett Lee, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble were involved. A series of greats. A series of legends. India and Australia have manufactured the best cricketers of this generation, and an encounter between the two would produce nothing but a firework of prodigious cricket.

This year though, it’s different. This year, India versus Australia is about potential. Barring Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Michael Clarke, the rest of the cricketers are yet to convince the world of their ability in the white kit. This series could be where we could see the emergence of the next marvel to behold. It’s not only pride at stake here, but the future and what, or rather who, cricket revolves around.

India have always been thorns in Australia’s back, constantly making them sweat even in their glory days. The last time around though, in Australia, India were bullied into a whitewash, thus beginning the apparent dip in Indian cricket. The funny thing is that nobody is billing this as a ‘revenge series’. When the English came to town, papers had the seven letters splashed everywhere, begging you to question if India were planning on avenging the series loss or their years of suppression under the Raj. Expect the media to turn mountains into molehills, but there is a certain sense of civility amongst them with regards to this series, with most of their time spent on ministers’ notorious deeds and in trying to keep up with the ever-enterprising IPL.

An India-Australia series usually garners a whole lot more coverage than it is getting right now, but the lack of it is not necessarily a bad thing. By not giving the series its own title and tagline, the players would feel a lot less pressure than to live up to the expectations of a ‘Vengeance’ series.

We’re always looking for ‘the new Dravid’ or ‘the new Laxman’. Instead, we should be looking at these crop of players as their own selves, trying to carve their own niche to impress upon the world. There will never be another Rahul Dravid, so why expect there to be one? Let Pujara be Pujara and Kohli be Kohli. If we keep at that, there’s a lot else to come out of this series than just pride and glory.