It’s not only the best Indian team ever, it has the potential to become world’s best.
Let us not let the euphoria of India's win over Pakistan cloud our sense of proportion and judgement. It has been a great win in more than one sense. It is a historic first, and given the intense rivalry between the two sides, it is a victory that has, understandably so, evoked a kind of reaction from the people and the players as if India have been crowned world champions.
Let us be clear about one thing. Given the strengths of the two teams, it is not a huge surprise that India have won. Still, what is heartening is the manner of the team's win and the way it has handled the pressure of immense expectations.
That this team did not wilt under the weight of expectations of a frighteningly demanding nation gives great credit to the players. No matter how much we shout from the roof tops that Pakistanis are terrible losers, the images of some of the Indian players' houses being attacked by hoodlums after their loss to Australia in the World Cup are still fresh in our minds.
Imagine what would have happened had India lost to Pakistan in the World Cup and even in this series. So, let us cut out the sanctimonious claptrap of the jingoistic kind, and try to judge this Indian team on its cricketing merits alone.
The team's win in Pakistan will without doubt get laced with romanticism of the kind reserved for any major achievement. Tradition and history may not mean much to a generation of compulsive consumers (of the IT Technology and MTV channel kind), but it may still not be out of place to remind the young generation that when India won its first Test match -- against England in 1952 in Madras -- the whole nation beamed with pride, even though there were no corporate sponsors to remind us how great a nation we had become.
{{/usCountry}}The team's win in Pakistan will without doubt get laced with romanticism of the kind reserved for any major achievement. Tradition and history may not mean much to a generation of compulsive consumers (of the IT Technology and MTV channel kind), but it may still not be out of place to remind the young generation that when India won its first Test match -- against England in 1952 in Madras -- the whole nation beamed with pride, even though there were no corporate sponsors to remind us how great a nation we had become.
{{/usCountry}}In the near seven-decade history of India's Test cricket, the year 1971 will rank as one of the greatest. It was a year when Ajit Wadekar and his men won a series in the West Indies and then went on to beat England in England.
Who can forget BS Chandrasekhar's spell of 6 for 38 at the Oval that helped India win on the England soil for the first time ever. In fact, to most of us that achievement still ranks as one of the finest moments of Indian cricket and that team itself as one of the best India has ever had.
Move on to eighties, the 1983 World Cup win and the demolition of England in England in 1986. That we have still to win a series outside the sub-continent after that makes the 2-0 victory of Kapil Dev's team even more amazing and creditable.
Just imagine! The Indian side of the eighties had Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth as openers and had a batting line-up that figured the likes of GR Vishwanath, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Md Azaharuddin, followed by the all-round skills of Kapil Dev.
It was as formidable a batting line-up as you can imagine and if that team had the support of a Javagal Srinath and the spin quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra and Venkat, it would to safe to assume that India would have been Test cricket's world champions at that time. Of course, we still would have needed a John Wright to be around.
In the nineties, India under Mohammed Azharuddin became the undisputed world champions in home conditions but their record away from home was so abysmal that it led to the team being dubbed as 'lions at home, lambs abroad'.
That history is being changed and reshaped by Sourav Ganguly's unorthodox but very effective leadership and the great skills of his men. The last three years have seen the seeds of professionalism being sown in the team with Wright playing a phenomenal role in helping this side acquire that cutting edge which teams of the past lacked.
India now has a team that has played wonderfully joyous cricket in the past couple of years. It did not lose a series away from home against England and most importantly, in Australia. And now, it has won in Pakistan, its first away series win since 1993.
It will be always be debatable to say which Indian team has been the best ever, though one can safely take the risk and say that if ever there was a team hard to beat, it has to be this one. Coupled with a batting line-up that must be surely giving nightmares to any opposition, is the emergence of two outstanding swing bowlers in L Balaji and Irfan Pathan. And then there is Anil Kumble who has now shown that if he has the back-up of runs and quality seam bowlers, he is a match-winner even in alien conditions.
The team's support system of Wright, Andrew Leipus and trainer Gregory King (continuing with the training revolution started by Adrian Le Roux) has knitted together a bunch of extremely talented players into a formidable professional set-up.
Though they lack a genuine all-rounder, an accomplished wicketkeeper and suffer from self-created problems of a settled opening pair, it may still be safe to say that not only is this the best Indian team ever, it has the makings of the best team in the world.
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