SHARED history sometimes produces shared values and England, like India, travel badly. With England, as with India, I am not sure it is a question of whether they can travel well as much as whether they want to. And with both teams, history has been a very poor teacher.
The teams that travel best are not only those that adapt best, that is obvious, but those that try to enjoy the experience of travelling to newer lands; those that look upon different conditions as a challenge not as drudgery. India seem convinced they cannot win overseas and that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy but with England, I sometimes sense a pre-occupation, almost a passion, with searching for discomfort.
Unlike their ancestors who looked upon India as a land of opportunity, more recent Englishmen have shown a stronger inclination to stay at home than to seek adventure. For a long time England didn't send full-strength teams to India. Then, they didn't send any at all! And those Englishmen that did come here to play cricket took stories of squalor and filth and poverty and such other third world stereotypes back with them.
By choosing to do so, those early travellers betrayed the generation that followed. And so India became this vast, difficult, impossible country that the next generation knew very little of. It is no surprise that they travel badly for they have been presented the sadder half of the picture that travelling here produces. I remember growing up reading stories of English cricket writers making fun of, even rubbishing, India. It hurt me then as it does now. Why, even supposedly sophisticated, open-minded Englishmen wrote what they thought were funny stories in which the bumbling, funny-accented Indian was the centre-piece. The fact that someone was making the effort to speak to a visitor in his language, something that deserved applause, was rarely captured.
I thought times would have changed but I fear they haven't. It pains me that there are still the same stories about India going back. Admittedly, each person has a right to paint a picture the way he sees it but by painting it all in one colour, they are ensuring that succeeding generations too will look upon India as a problem rather than as an opportunity. And in such a mindset, one that prevents them from enjoying a new land, they will never win. Travelling well is about a largeness of mind, about the ability to soak in new experiences and the moment teams start doing that, they feel good. That is the first step towards winning.
That is what Australia did when they came here in 1998 and again in 2001. Earlier this year they had their best chance of winning and even though the series went against them 2-1, they could take comfort in the fact that they won more days than they lost. The series was close and the last two Tests could well have gone their way. But, having spoken to many of them, I could sense that they were ready to soak in a new way of life. They were receptive, they were out to make friends and they knew India better than most.
Two factors were responsible for that. Through the eighties and early nineties, Australia toured the sub-continent quite frequently and the more they played here, the more they learnt to make up their own minds rather than believe what had been written and told. There were progressive writers there, sensitive people like Peter Roebuck and Mike Coward, who made a huge effort to understand the sub-continent and its people. I saw the difference when I was in Australia in 1991 and again in 1999 and the awareness was far greater.
Indeed, just before they left Australia for the tour here in March, they asked an Indian who had settled there to speak to them about modern India, about its customs, about what would endear them to people and what would lead to antagonism. Justin Langer's first column, for example, talked about how he was surprised to know that India was the software capital of the world. Australia were good tourists and succeeding teams from there will play better cricket because they will understand their environment better. Even New Zealand will because they have been sending their young players here every year.
By contrast, after David Gower's side of 1984, only one England side toured India, in 1993. That means seventeen years separate Gower's team from Hussain's with only one series in between. It is no surprise that this England team has no player with any playing experience in India. It is no coincidence either that when England were touring India more frequently they were playing well. They won a series in 1976 and again in 1984 but nine years later were comprehensively outplayed on square turners.
My thesis is that they will continue to struggle till such time as they begin to look forward to touring India. For that to happen, the mood has to be created in the next generation, or the next set of travellers. They must believe that travelling to India is an enriching experience, just as Indian cricketers must believe that going to South Africa will make them better cricketers. But that will not happen if they continue to be fed stories of grime and dust. I almost fell off my chair when I read articles about how Ahmedabad has no right to be called the Manchester of India (is it?); and about how India has little to be proud of other than the bomb and Tendulkar.
It is funny isn't it, and desperately sad, how the past and the present capitals of world cricket are sitting back and letting the world pass them by!
Comments
SHARE