The Indian cricket team - A legacy of the legends

If an Indian cricket team goes into a major ICC tournament and is termed as the best fielding side, traditional followers of Indian cricket would not believe it. Yes, the young Indian team has been a revelation in the fielding department.

And is that the only difference between the young Indian team and the team of 2000 that had most of the modern Indian greats. You would like to believe so, because the team of 2000 had batting greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, and bowling greats like Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan.

Most of these would find their name in the list of top Indian batsmen and bowlers. So, the only dimension of game in which the young Indian team can be better than the team of 2000 is in the fielding department. But one look at the margin of victories that the young Indian team has achieved will make it clear that such margin cannot be achieved only by the supremacy in field.

There can only be two things which can justify this huge margin of victories. One can be the lack of quality oppositions, and second can be the overall supremacy of the young Indian team over the team of 2000. The ICC Champions Trophy is the only ICC tournament where the minnows do not feature. So, the theory of lack of quality opposition can be rejected straight away, which leaves us with the theory of overall supremacy of the young Indian team over the team of 2000.

Comparing the team members individually gives an emphatic victory to the team of 2000 with the kind of greats that team had. So, the point to ponder here is – What is that thing which makes the current young Indian team better than the team of 2000. The difference, one has to say, lies in their attitude. There is no fear in their mind and they believe in themselves and that nobody can defeat them. Now,  the question is why the team of 2000 did not have this sort of  attitude.

Attitude is developed over a period of time. When the cricketers in the team of 2000 were growing up in their younger days, they saw the Indian cricket team struggling in away conditions. Managing a draw was considered an achievement. So, they were brought up on a legacy in which the only thing one had to focus on was “not to lose”. So, the basic instinct of these cricketers was to avoid defeat. In their time, however, India started tasting overseas victories on a regular basis. The current members of the Indian cricket team were brought up on this legacy.

The cricketers started thinking more about winning than fear losing. These cricketers had seen Sachin Tendulkar blasting away the opposition bowling line up and Anil Kumble going through the opposition batting line up. They knew that an Indian could be the world’s best batsman. So, taking all this into account, comparing the achievements of the current Indian team with that of 2000 will not be a good idea. After all, the current Indian team is the legacy of the team of 2000.