A historic day

The atmosphere will be poignant, sombre and pretty emotional when Virat Kohli and Ken Williamson go for the toss at Green Park in Kanpur on Thursday. It will be a sentiment-driven nostalgic trip down memory lane for all those yesteryear Indian cricketers who will be among the audience for what is a historic day in the annals in Indian Test cricket history.

On that day, India will join the big league of England (976 Tests), Australia (791) and West Indies (517) as the only nations to have played 500 Tests, which is quite a significant achievement for a team that came into existence only in 1932.

As one looks back into the years since its Test baptism what becomes glaringly evident is that as a team, the performances have been varied between outstandingly brilliant to outright condemnable. Perhaps, this holds true for all Test-playing nations, although the fact is that win-loss-draw ratio puts India in a poor light. It is not exactly awe-inspiring, like it exists in the case of Australia and England.

India’s journey has been eventful although in terms of extraordinary results there are not many to write about, despite it being part of a historic tied match at Madras. As a team it never could boast of a ‘winnable’ quotient outfit, till perhaps a decade or two back. However, some individual players have been exemplary and talent – the envy of the opponents.

It is somewhat dubious that despite pulling off a sensational win against West Indies as only the second team to successfully chase a 400-plus target; featuring in a tied game; having a long hold over the world record for highest first wicket partnership (413), Team India was never a feared outfit and always an underdog, particularly against the big guns.

Charismatic skippers like Lala Amarnath and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, and the odd win here and there, notwithstanding, it was only first under Mohammad Azharuddin and the subsequent consolation by Saurav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni that Team India was looked up to as a unit that could unnerve the best of the lot, a combination that saw the team actually occupy the top Test slot.

It is only in the past decade and half that Team India has knitted winning combinations, unlike in the past when it boasted of a handful of world-class players who could earn individual glory and nothing beyond that.

The fortunes swung one way or the other, most notably because of the administrators at Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and their machinations, not all of which were in the country’s interests. The advent of newer versions like One-Day International (ODIs) and T20s have cut into the popularity of Test matches in India.

But none can deny the fact that the romance of the longer version has more than vintage value, even without experiments like floodlit Test match. It is almost like old wine that gets better and more refreshing as it ages. In India it is now 500 Tests old, which is reason enough to celebrate.