Day 1 – The date is 19th January 2008. Day is Saturday. There were two teams going into the fourth day of a test match, two teams on the verge of doing some thing which no team has ever done. One team needed to make record score of 413. Another team needed to take 8 more wickets. The day turned out to be a perfect day of test match cricket. There was incisive bowling, good catching, great captaincy, and some thing Indian teams from the past have hardly produced, great team work. Both the team gave there best shot in the middle. But some how I felt India had more fire, fight & most importantly wanted to prove there mettle. It was evident from the way Indians were fighting it out there. They were bowling good spells and made the batsmen play as much as possible. 117 for 3 became 253 for 8. The end seemed very near. Some smart slogging by Michelle Johnson and Stuart Clarke, delayed the end for some time. But final nail in the coffin was hit after 340 runs were scored on the final innings and RP Singh got one to swing back into the stumps.
Day 2 – The date is 20th December 2008. Day is Sunday. The whole country was basking in the glory of match won the last day. T V channels as always were getting great mileage out of this game by showing analysis and cricket talk shows left right & centre. Every talk show wanted to portray how great the team spirit & the team bonding were during the match. In the course of the same day the same team bonding was about to be broken and the senior junior divide which was some how not making news was about to resurface again. The team for ODI’s was selected the next day after the test match. The selectors came out with a team which might more or less put an end to ODI career of 2 pillars of Indian batting. Youngsters like Robin Uthapa, Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir were preferred over Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly.
First day showed us a wonderful picture of team India. It showed how every team member had gelled together beautifully for the team’s cause. The batsmen the bowlers and the wicket keeper, every body had some role to play in this victory. Most importantly it showed us how united Indian Cricket team is.
But some how second day showed us some thing very different. There were reports that Dhoni and Yuvi didn’t want the seniors. There were also reports that the selectors didn’t want the seniors in the team. As usual there were angry protests over Streets, Television chat shows & internet. The junior senior divide which had last surfaced after the world cup was making its presence felt again.
What really interests me in these diametrically opposite two days is how easy it is for opinions to change. How the united picture of our team, come absolutely crashing down the next day? How the same BCCI which was lauded for staying with Bhajji and the team few days back, is criticized now for conspiring to bring down seniors and run cricket there own way. Some questions really are unanswered here. Is this Indian team so good to challenge the Aussies or it’s just media hype. Is there really unity in this team or is senior junior mafia a reality. Is BCCI really bothered about team or does it want to run cricket in its own way. I am sure I will get the answer to my first question during the course of this series and further India Australia series. But most of my questions will be unanswered. But for the betterment of Indian cricket I really do hope they are answered.