Contrast this with
Australia's away Test record. Since 1967-68 (when a
subcontinental team first won a series overseas - India
winning in New Zealand), Australia have triumphed in
an imposing 19 Test series encounters (not counting
Zimbabwe or Bangladesh), conquering every cricket territory
in the world. During the same period, India have managed
only four more away series wins (two in England, two
in West Indies), Pakistan have managed seven (three
in England, four in New Zealand), and Sri Lanka just
one in New Zealand (apart from their one-off Test win
in England in 1998).
It's something of a puzzle, because
South Asia has certainly contributed its share of
legends and heroes to the game. Yet for all the Tendulkars
and Kumbles, Inzamams and Akrams, Jayasurias and Muralitharans,
Test cricket success outside the subcontinent has
been very hard to come by.
What explains this history of underachievement
in the face of iconic international star power? Poorly
organized national cricket set-ups and an erratic
mental attitude are commonly invoked, but it may be
worth looking at the issue from a different angle.
Test cricket has been the canonical
medium for cricketing excellence, but perhaps it is
time to recognize that the cricketing canon has diversified.
The record suggests that ODI cricket, rather than
Test cricket, is the subcontinent's natural game.
Consider: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have each
won the World Cup at some point even though some key
teams - England, New Zealand, and South Africa - have
yet to do so. Indeed, each of the last four World
Cup finals has included a team from the subcontinent
(Pakistan in 1992 and 1999, Sri Lanka in 1996 and
India in 2003).
Subcontinental teams have also excelled
in other ODI tournaments that have included all the
Test-playing nations. India won the Benson and Hedges
World Championship of Cricket (with Pakistan as finalists)
held in Australia in 1984-85, and India and Sri Lanka
shared the ICC Champions Trophy title in 2002. India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka have also each recorded ODI
series wins in West Indies. Even Bangladesh, the subcontinent's
stragglers, achieved the audacious distinction of
beating Australia on neutral ground two summers ago.
Pakistan have even won the top prize
of a limited-overs series victory on Australian soil
- not just once, but twice. In 1996-97 they outplayed
both Australia and West Indies in the Carlton and
United triangular, and in the Australian winter of
2002 they beat Australia in a best-of-three Super
Challenge ODI series. South Africa remains the only
ODI territory unconquered by Pakistan, or indeed any
subcontinental team. (You can't have everything.)
Many of the major ODI records - most
runs; most wickets; highest individual innings; best
bowling analysis; most hundreds; highest partnerships;
fastest century; fastest fifty - are also held by
players from the subcontinent.
Clearly, for subcontinental teams,
success in the ODI arena has been far easier to come
by, which may reflect something intrinsic to the South
Asian cricket temperament. Analysts frequently point
out that teams from the subcontinent tend to be weak
on the basics - a deficiency for which Pakistan is
the archetypal example. Yet the fundamental flaws
that compromise Test performance - playing through
the line, slogging and reverse-sweeping, audaciously
running between the wickets, and experimenting with
the bowling - are the very qualities that work to
your advantage in the limited-overs version.
Javed Miandad, who excelled at both
forms of the game, says that the subcontinent's -
and especially Pakistan's - relative adeptness at
ODI cricket is an unintended consequence of the region's
disorganised state of grassroots cricket. The earliest
and often formative exposure for most children is
with a kind of rag-tag cricket, played in makeshift
surroundings with a taped-up tennis ball, limited
overs, fielding restrictions, and instant results.
Even at the level of schools and colleges, the effort
and diligence required for three-day cricket is shunned
in favor of one-day cricket. "By comparison, when
a child picks up cricket in England or Australia,
his very first exposure is with an organized form
of the game, with proper equipment and arrangements,"
says Miandad.
There are other forces at work. Foremost,
one-day cricket is what the South Asian fan base craves.
Sikander Bakht, Pakistan's former seam bowler who
now hosts a hardnosed cricket show on cable television,
believes it is this ravenous public appetite that
has pushed subcontinental sides to excel in limited-overs
cricket.
He makes a compelling point. Unlike
in Australia and England, Test match crowds in India
and Sri Lanka have sharply dwindled, and in Pakistan
they have become almost non-existent. Yet ODI matches
are routine sell-outs throughout the region. In response
to this rapacious demand, South Asian teams have ended
up playing a good deal more ODI cricket than anyone
else. Of the 8 players with 300 or more ODI appearances,
for example, 7 are from the subcontinent (Steve Waugh
is the only exception). And Sharjah, a certified subcontinental
preserve, remains by some distance the venue that
has hosted the most ODI games.
One upshot of all this, of course,
is that a subcontinental team could well take the
World Cup that begins today. If cricket history has
a quarter-century cycle, then we can see the outlines
of a tantalizing parallel. In 1983, West Indies was
everybody's team to beat and they had marched into
their third straight World Cup final on the back of
two consecutive titles, only to be thwarted by India.
This time around Australia come as outright favorites,
fueled by the momentum of two titles in a row. Might
there be a dragon slayer from the subcontinent lying
in wait yet again?
