The next step on the path to true greatness

For the Indian test team, it is time to look forward and aim for the sky.

Do you remember the last time test victories were met with a shrug and a nod, as if the result of the match was decided before the captains even walked out for the toss? Australia, between the late 1990s to the mid-2000s? For the generation before ours, the West Indies team of the ‘70s and ‘80s? It says a lot about Indian cricket that winning a test match at home, or in conditions not completely alien, has taken the form of a mundane job well executed more than a great triumph. There is a little to be said about the quality of recent opposition too - their opponents at home over the last 24 months have been Sri Lanka, West Indies, a South African team so broken that they were spooked by the toss, and a Bangladesh side that, sadly, just don’t belong to the same league. But if you stretch your window 12 more months further, you will find New Zealand, England, and Australia amongst the fallen adversaries.

Over the last three years, India have played and beaten every test playing country - barring Pakistan, of course - at home. In the process, they have lost just one match and drawn a mere four. This streak of invincibility now stretches back six years, seven if you consider the last time India lost a test series at home. It has gotten to a point where the team seems to break records and scale new statistical heights with every match. At Indore, Virat Kohli - already India’s most successful test captain - added the feather of India’s most successful victory-by-an-innings test captain.

Records and statistics, as much as they are a sign of scaled peaks, are also numerical reductions of times gone by. For a victorious team, it is always a good time to look back at how far they have come - and this Indian team has indeed come very, very far - but one can only hope that there are enough people in the team’s think-tank who are looking forward, casting their eyes to the next peak and charting the climb.

That this Indian team, in their current form, are near infallible at home is a foregone conclusion. The kind of numbers they are racking up rivals the greatest ever teams to have played the sport. However, they must transcend the comfort of home conditions and make a habit of winning away if they aspire to join the front seats of test cricket’s royalty. Great teams recalibrate expectations with every milestone. This Indian team should now expect to win at the toughest of conditions. Credit where due - the pitches India have dished out this season have been the fairest and most even they possibly could have. The track at Pune was so green that South Africa could’ve mistaken it for Bloemfontein, and yet, India found a way to steamroll them. This is the kind of evolution that will hold India in great stead when they travel. 

Their last cycle of tours ended up as a mixed bag with more disappointment than elation. The win in Australia was a remarkable result, but the performances in South Africa and England would've stung. The next full cycle is another 12-18 months down the road. Ravi Shastri has said, in his trademark colourful way, that he wants his team to take the pitch out of the equation. In the autumn of 2019, so far so good. For their growth to be sustainable, it is imperative that this habit continues under new captains and coaches, and extends to domestic cricket. 

BCCI has the resources and the framework to build a conveyor belt of test-ready talents, equipped to handle conditions anywhere in the world. They have one of the great minds of Indian cricket in Rahul Dravid running the National Cricket Academy. The India A and Under-19 teams have shown tremendous promise in the recent past, and it may be time to build a culture of success. 

India have a test series in New Zealand coming up in a few months, and like any team of such strength, they will be expected to win the series. One would expect Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri to be ruthless and aim to dominate across the two tests. New Zealand are a seriously gifted team, but great teams find a way to look very good teams in the eye and run them over. If the aspiration is to take conditions out of the equation, the performances in one should ideally mirror those in others, and that holds true for series’ in England and Australia too.

While it might seem like too much expectation or burden on one team, it is also a sign of just how good this Indian team is, and it will be near unforgivable if men of character and strength like Virat Kohli, Ravi Shastri, and by extension of his position, Sourav Ganguly, don’t aim higher than we think they can. Execution is only a function of what you seek to do, and while losses and failures are but a part of any sport and must be gracefully accepted, the chances of failure can be controlled.

You never wish for test cricket to turn predictable, but forgive this generation, and even the previous one, for yearning for the taste of domination. Never has world cricket tilted more towards India, and never has an Indian team felt more equipped to travel outside the subcontinent and plant their flags.

Cricket will one day even out again and India, too, will have a period of indifferent form. Like it is expected of the best athletes, the best teams ought to use a purple patch like this and maximise. Indian test cricket is on the cusp of greatness, and the only way forward is to push the envelope.