IT WASN’T a surprise really when India made its inglorious exit from the Champions Trophy (to me at least). But it made quite an impact on quite a few people. The proprietor of a prominent Mumbai afternoon paper, who goes on almost every cricket tour, suggested in his article, after Pakistan had lost to Australia, that the match had been fixed. That Pakistan had not tried hard enough. That the ICC should institute a probe into the whole murky affair. And that Pakistan had deliberately lost the game to ensure that India could not qualify.
(Subsequently, now even one Pakistan MP has demanded that the team be called into the parliament to explain because they had lost the match purposely).
Well, most of our troubles (both real and imagined) as a nation, emanate from Pakistan. But now to blame Pakistan for India’s Champions Trophy exit also, is perhaps going a little too far. Why in the first place did Dhoni’s men put themselves in this piquant position of being at the mercy of Pakistan? And to the Pakistan MP, one can only ask that isn’t a team entitled to lose at all? Pakistan at least made it to the semi-final stage and earlier in the year, when nobody gave them any chance, they won the T20 World Cup in England. And all along they were supposed to be short of international cricket.
Not only this, there were other extraneous issues obfuscating the real loss. There was a media frenzy, in which every reporter was trying to figure out who exactly had leaked the team’s four-page, sex-related document. Some very senior journalists were of the opinion that it was the work of the Indian team’s bowling coach. Because it is common knowledge that he does not get along too well with Gary Kirsten, they said. And that Kirtsen had all along wanted Fanie de Villiers as the bowling coach and was not too happy to have Venkatesh Prasad. So Prasad wanted to show Gary in a poor light and so he leaked that document (completely unfounded, of course).
Away from all this masala of the Champions Trophy, there were some cricket stories and theories as well. The experts were saying that India had been knocked out only because of one bad performance and that losing Yuvraj, Sehwag and Zaheer before the tournament had been a big blow.
Sadly that is not true. It was not one bad performance but three. India landed in South Africa and were beaten hollow by New Zealand in the warm-up game. The signs were there for all to see. They were beaten squarely (by 54 runs) by Pakistan in the next match. In the third match, against Australia, the bowling was inept and India would have had to chase down in excess of 300 had the rain not come in time to rescue them from slaughter. So, that makes it three poor games on the trot. Not one.
There were also strong suggestions in sections of the media indicating that perhaps captain Dhoni had lost his Midas touch. That cracks were beginning to appear in his captaincy. How he had made so many captaincy blunders in the match against Pakistan. The media will not spare you at all!
It is a vicious circle. Ten days before the start of the Champions Trophy, the team had won the triseries in Sri Lanka and Dhoni’s touch was intact. But ten days later, he was being crucified.
And perhaps Dhoni has to understand this. When India won the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa, I was there covering the event as one of the reporters. And immediately after the win against Pakistan in the final, Dhoni put a blanket ban on the team players and debarred them from speaking to the media. Why? Because earlier that very year (2007) when India lost to Bangladesh in the one-day World Cup in the West Indies (I was there too), the media had been very severe and harsh on them. So, now the Indian players wouldn’t talk.
In England during the T20 World Cup, Dhoni led a revolt by parading his team members in front of the media in a show of solidarity (how did the media have the guts to report that all was not well between him and Sehwag). Apparently, BCCI Secretary Srinivasan wanted him to act in this manner. But such a show of muscles does not endear you with the media.
So if Dhoni does not cut out this bluster, the media will ensure that his Midas touch deserts him. In this regard, perhaps Dhoni would do well to pull a leaf out of Sourav Ganguly’s book. Here was this media savvy skipper. You could criticize him, you could say he could not play the short ball, but he was sure to greet you with a smile and was always willing and ready to give you an interview.
Sulking won’t help Dhoni at all. He has to get media savvy. If he wants to retain his Midas touch, that is.
