Jayadev Calamur

India has a poor overseas record. The last two test series is proof of that. The Indian fan is angry and the World Cup victory seems like a long time ago.

However, despite being number one in test cricket, we’ve never proved that we are a number one side. A series that could have been won was drawn and series that could have been saved were lost.

But then, this is the story of Indian cricket.

In the last 10 years, India has had away victories in England, West Indies and New Zealand. All these teams at that point were in the lower half of the ICC rankings. Not that it matters. Rankings never did, but it doesn’t have much to say about India. We could have won the 2003 series in Australia. After the Adelaide victory, India and its fans acted as if the series was won. India was 1-0 up and we looked like we could have won in Melbourne when Virender Sehwag made 195, but then we imploded and lost. We had Sydney in our pocket, but defensive cricket by not allowing Australia to follow-on did us there.

We had a chance of winning in South Africa at the beginning of 2011. We came back well to win the second test match. We had a chance of winning the third, but got too defensive at the end.

Where India goes wrong (and I’m not just talking about the team here) is that a single test win makes us believe that we won the series. We are an inconsistent side with inconsistent fans. After losing the first two tests during the ‘Monkeygate’ series, we acted as if we won the series after the third test in Perth. Interestingly, we could have lost that as well, had Mitchell Johnson continued batting.

Indian cricketers are defensive by nature. They have always played for the draw rather than the win, while playing abroad. Saurav Ganguly, for all his faults as a batsman, made the team believe that they could win abroad, but unfortunately after he stepped down as captain, things came back to how they were, barring the victory in England. Strangely although we won that series, there was no big deal about it in the media back home. The media only has huge stories for victories in Australia and South Africa because they are the best sides in the world, irrespective of the ICC cricket rankings.

So what does the BCCI do to make our players more adept to playing in alien conditions? Ideally, they should sign a deal with the ECB, CA and the SACB to have foreign players being part of Ranji Teams and our players going abroad to adapt to faster wickets. Not only will it hone the skills of the players, but will make test cricket more exciting.

Exchanging players will also increase the competition at the domestic levels. It will make bench strength stronger. The options are limitless. It could be good for the game, as players will fight more for their position. There will be intense competition and maybe India could slowly make that transition from a good to a great side. And hopefully, the fan will be more appreciative of test cricket.