The World Cup was always the pinnacle of any sport. It still is, if you ask most of the sportspersons. For the Indian cricket team, the wait lasted so long that loss in the semis or the final started feeling like the pinnacle as the Indian team was reaching only that far. India lost in the final in 2023 but won in 2024. The T20 World Cup title is an achievement but still it paled in comparison to what the ODI World Cup would have been, especially after the scintillating campaign India had last year. Can anything top that?
The whole of India prayed for Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller to surrender after South Africa were cruising during the run-chase. South Africa actually did it, being South Africa. The lack of an ICC title weighed heavily on the minds and hearts that prayed on that day for an India win. India eventually won the T20 World Cup, the seniors hung their boots from the format and other such shenanigans. But why does that 3-0 Test series defeat to New Zealand pinch so deep and penetratively?
Maybe because there's still something more precious and valuable. It might sound like an apple and oranges situation because it is as you can't really compare a T20 World Cup win with Test cricket but since the team is the same and most of the playing group is the same, it feels like red-ball cricket was put on the back burner for India to get that trophy somehow. If not the ODI, it's the T20. It didn't help that the Test series defeat came at home, of all places. A record that was intact for India for 91 years shattered into pieces within three pieces one blow by another.
So why this World Cup reference? Is Test cricket bigger, or more important than World Cup? Like it was mentioned above, it is an apple and orange situation and both have their equal place and significance but there's something about overseas Test wins and series wins that smells of hard work. It has become so rare, every ounce of it is hard-earned and every sacrifice and every extra effort was put in, in order to achieve that result.
Now let's put things in context. India won the T20 World Cup, an outstanding effort. The seniors had a memorable swansong, the younger crop is flourishing and the T20 team is in good health. But the same can't be said about the Test side. There are ageing players and bodies, diminishing returns in terms of form and the rest of it does not fit into the puzzle. The two and two are making three, not four, not five. That's why Ravindra Jadeja's response of "I was scared of this. I didn't want to lose a single series in India until I played, but it has happened," showed what it meant to the players, who actually helped India attain that 18-series win streak.
Hence, this 3-0 defeat should and must sting. It was used to be India's pride. And now there is the giant. The merciless beast waiting for vengeance, Australia. India have had their share of history with two back-to-back Test series victories in Australia. Something no other Indian team was able to do in the past, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane led this group to taste that opium twice in three years. Who wouldn't get addicted?
This time around though things are different. Kohli is no longer the captain, India are missing a few of their first-choice players and even if the stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah has assured that the team is looking to start afresh and that there is no baggage from the New Zealand series, there will surely be a wound that has refused to heal. And anything less than a series win will not only end India's challenge in the ongoing World Test Championship cycle but also might end a few careers.
So what is exactly in India's favour currently? Probably the only thing is the confidence that they can take from the 2020/21 win, which realistically was implausible but despite one or other team member becoming a patient literally every day of the week, the team showed an attitude that was far stronger than the actual skill-play on the ground.
The goal is only one, win but given how embarrassing, dreary and painstaking the New Zealand series turned, a little fight, a session of domination here and another session of restraint there would suffice for an Indian fan. The Test team is set to undergo transition and if the T20 World Cup was the oldies' swansong in the format, why not celebrate the one in Tests by reminding the Australians who has the upper hand in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy?
There will be some crushed souls and bodies walking out on the first morning at the Perth Stadium on Friday. But if the conditions favour bowlers and Australia get on the wrong side of captain Bumrah, there will be some relieved faces in that camp and 7,500 kilometres away in India.
