By Gaurang - 22 March 2003
March 22 2003

A followup to Harsha Bhogle's excellent article talks about the colors that teams like India, New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka, as well as the various "minnows" of cricket, brought to the 2003 World Cup. The minnows of cricket, Canada, Netherlands, Namibia and Bangladesh (yes, Bangladesh -- they deserve to be called nothing else) added a color all their own to World Cup 2003.

The one Canadian that surprised everyone, including himself, was John Davison. This journeyman cricketer from Australia, who plays domestic first class cricket there, but couldn't get a regular place in his state ODI side (although that may change) was a revelation. Davison savaged first the West Indians, and then the New Zealanders, to end up with 100+ and 75 against them respectively. The 100 against West Indies was the fastest century in World Cup history, and he placed his name on top of a list that includes legends like Vivian Richards, Kapil Dev, Clive Lloyd and Sunil Gavaskar, as scorers of the fastest 100s in World Cup history. Aside from him the Canadians were a motley crew, who nonetheless provided some good memories. The opening bowling partnership of the skinny and tall Codrington and the comfortably proportioned Thirugasingam was really a Laurel and Hardy act, though only in appearance and not performance, as the Bangladeshis would attest.

What can one say of the Bangladeshis? They were frankly pathetic. The saddest aspect was that despite their repeated humiliations, nobody seemed much bothered, least of all their fans, who were resigned to the inevitable. The only spark of light at the end of their tunnel is the relative youth of their side. Nineteen year old Alok Kapali is a true talent and will contribute much with bat and ball. Talha Jubair, the teenage fast bowler, is also a real talent and with some more experience he could be a handful. Maybe a stint at the MRF pace academy could be arranged by his board. Other than that, not much to write or remember about the men in dark green and red.

The Holland team with their orange uniforms added a dash of bright color to the tournament. They notched up their first World Cup win by soundly defeating fellow minnows Namibia, with two of their batsmen scoring big hundreds. They troubled an out-of-form and low-on-confidence Indian team in their opening match as well. They acquitted themselves well against all the Test teams they played. After the tournament, these players return to their day jobs with much to be proud of.

The Namibians were the "nearly" men. Formerly known as South West Africa, Namibia has a tradition of elites playing the game. Their team reflected this: almost the entire team of an African nation was white. They played their game with the efficiency associated with fellow mostly-white African teams, Zimbabwe and South Africa. They excelled in the field and were efficient with the ball, but clearly lacked the batting talent of the other two. Yet, all considered, it was a good tournament for the fourth and forgotten African team in the cup. The scare they gave the English team who were, for many overs at a time, behind them on the Duckworth/Lewis calculations in their rain-threatened match, would be a highlight they won't forget. With a bit more assistance from the rain gods, they may well have shocked and humiliated the inventors of the game!

Another token "African" team that would have liked a little more cooperation from the rain gods would be the West Indies. The men in maroon must have indeed felt marooned by circumstances. They played exciting cricket, and yet were cruelly kept out of the super sixes by a combination of a couple of poor pieces of cricket and incredible bad luck. Their first win against South Africa to raise the curtain on the tournament had promised much. Yet the culprit in their eventual fate was also the hero of that first game, Brian Lara, who had played with sublime touch despite a long layoff. He may have brought his batting form along, but forgot the basics and failed to run an easy third run hard in the next key match against the Kiwis. This led to a run-out that eventually ran West Indies right out of the tournament, despite brave displays by the likes of Ramnaresh Sarwan. If the West Indies had won that crucial game, the rain gods could have done nothing to prevent them from going through..

Ironically, the team they let off the hook in that game was the one team on which the rain gods showered their beneficence, allowing them to eke through by one measly run. The poor math skills of the host country captain Shaun Pollock contributed hugely. The truly undeserving Kiwis rode their luck and the skill of their only consistent batsman, their captain, into the Super Sixes. In January the Kiwi captain was photographed holding a trophy for an ODI series win over the visiting Indian team, which by the size of it must have been three times as important to New Zealand as the World Cup!

In reality, it was a win of very little value as it was premised on woefully underprepared, green, seaming and bouncing ODI wickets that gave artificial lift and padded the bowling figures of the Kiwi trundlers to such an extent that they fully deserved the tag of "Wonder-bra" wickets! Such unsporting tracks compromised the one area in which the Kiwis lacked most leading up to the World Cup: their notoriously brittle batting at the top, and in the middle. Their inablity to score more than 150 runs on a batsman's paradise at Centurion -- where earlier John Davison, the rookie Canadian, had feasted on the fastest century against the likes of Vasbert Drakes and Mervyn Dillon -- showed the ultimate folly and short-sightedness of their entire cricket establishment. They should hang their heads in shame.

Thus the color the Black Caps brought to the tournament was distinctly black. Black like the bottom of the hole they placed themselves in by forfeiting their game to Kenya, black like the mood that followed their sophomoric shenannigans at a South African night club, where one of their key players was supposedly hit on the back of the head but ended up with a cut lip after blacking out. Black like the darkness that gripped their minds after allowing Australia to bounce back from the abyss, and black like the void they were unceremoniously dumped into by the Indian team. The only light the Kiwis saw in this disastrous campaign was shone by their fast bowling ex-cop, who in similar situations must have been shining his police-issue flashlight in the gloom of the night, answering an emergency call, not knowing what to expect. But even he couldn't prevent his team from getting mugged.

The team that did the mugging was the Indian team. They brought a breath of fresh air and indomitable team spirit to their campaign, culminating in a summary ouster of the Kiwis from the Cup. It must have felt good for the Indians to repay in spades their unsporting hosts, who had gloated that they were happy to send the Indians into the World Cup in a negative state of mind and with a confidence dented from playing on strips which were for the most part totally unsuited to any form of cricket, let alone One-Day International cricket.

The Indian batsmen, including the greatest batsman of his generation if not of all time, had then been reduced to fighting for survival on batting minefields after losing the toss consistently and being inserted. Yes, even the mighty Tendulkar was dismissed thrice for 2 runs at an average of 0.66! The Kiwis had tempted fate by humiliating the master this way. Not just the Kiwis but all other teams in the tournament have paid a heavy price for such hubris.

The Indian batsmen were certainly subdued and "sorted out" by the conditions (even if they had an opposite effect on the bowlers) and were desperately low on confidence as they went into their second game against the Australians -- clearly the most powerful team in the competition -- and were annihilated by them. This led to such powerful resentment against the team that a few fickle and cowardly "fans", aided and abetted by shockingly bitter and thoughtless comments by some ex-India players from the press box, took matters into their own hands and destroyed cars and defaced homes of the players. This is the sort of self-inflicted shock that few teams can quickly recover from.

But the captain of the team is a man of amazing intestinal fortitude and steely nerves. Sourav Ganguly dropped himself down the order in the interest of the team, kept faith with his players, refused to chop and change, and exhorted and guided the team back, phoenix-like, from the ashes of that defeat. He led them to 8 straight wins, none of which was even remotely close in the end.

A silver lining to the New Zealand tour fiasco was one of the key players in this revival. Javagal Srinath, the battle-scarred veteran, thoroughly enjoyed his New Zealand tour. A few months prior to the tour he had announced his retirement from international cricket and retired to the green and pleasant pastures of English county cricket, bowling alongside elder statesmen like Devon Malcolm and Philip DeFreitas. However, he was convinced by the Indian captain in a master stroke of long term strategic thinking to return to the Indian team. He was pulled from the idyllic environs of late summer England into the steamy cauldron called Sri Lanka, as he huffed and puffed to regain form in the ICC knock out tournament.

For Srinath, travelling to the Antipodes had been like discovering the fountain of youth. And he drank at it deeply, capturing 18 wickets for next to nothing and in the process, rediscovering his zest for the game. This allowed him to return as the leader of the pack of a marauding trio of fast bowlers, who in 10 matches so far have prevented the opposition from reaching double digits before losing a wicket on 5 occasions.

One opposition team who felt the full brunt of the Indian wolf pack were the hapless Lankans, who after being slaughtered for nearly 300 runs by the Indian batting, were cut down to 78-9 by the wolfish trio. Sri Lanka were the most up-and-down team of the tournament. In the end, what did them in was a lack of balance. They had individually talented players who were getting long in the tooth, like Captain Sanath Jayasuriya, the wily old fox, Aravinda DeSilva, and the never-say-die Chaminda Vaas. However their bowling was too shallow for cricket outside subcontinental conditions. Muthiah Muralitharan was his devastating self, but his support crew, except for Vaas, was half-baked. Yet the Lankans played some superb cricket, defeating New Zealand in their first game, blowing away the Canadians for 36, the lowest score in World Cup history, and nearly winning their game against South Africa. This was balanced by very poor cricket against Kenya resulting in a shock upset, and against Australia twice, who appeared to have a psychological grip over them. Nonetheless the men from the Emerald Isle fully deserved their spot in the semi-final and brought a nice touch of color to the Cup.

In the final twist which color will prevail: yellow or blue? We will find out in less than 48 hours. Regardless of the outcome, what is certain is that the mixture of yellow and blue will generate much green for the organizers of the tournament.

Part 1: Cricket throws up so many colours, by Harsha Bhogle