From Ganguly’s t-shirt act at Lord’s, India have learnt to give it back.... !!

Sourav Ganguly, at the very famous Lord’s balcony, gave it back in style, by rolling out and waving off his jersey, after the winning runs were scored at the Natwest trophy final in 2002. Needless to say, he had retaliated in his unmatched way to Andrew Flintoff. Scores were settled and drama was avenged. India had just begun to answer back and aggression in the nerves had started to creep in.

India have come a long way, now. From being a timid test-playing nation who would be subdued and suppressed by the on-ground antics of the opposition, they had come a really long way. As India traditionally belonged to a defensive state of affairs, Andrew Flintoff’s t-shirt lifting act at Wankhede , Mumbai in 2002, bewildering momentarily. Until then India weren’t the ones who took notice of such display of emotions. They wouldn’t give much a thought, to get involved. And, there was an advent of new era in Indian cricket which introduced to the world, a much poised, very well calculated, smart and tactical aggression.

Before the early 2000s, there was incidents undoubtedly when India answered back dynamically. As I recall Venkatesh Prasad uprooting Aamir Sohail’s stumps and answering with no words, but with action. There were few other sporadic occurrences too. However, when the opposition sledged, ridiculed, planned a tactical verbal bout; and India decided to counter, that breed of cricketers were groomed post 2000, and its due credit should somewhere go to Ganguly.

In the recently concluded Test series in India, against Australia  in March 2017, there were many incidents where the two playing nations got involved. Australia were traditionally so much known for their verbal encounters. This time around, India were not the ones who were going to be just listening. The brand equity of India cricket had evolved. The face now belonged to Virat Kohli, which in a way, was trademarked by aggression. India played in style, whenever demanded answered back, got involved and gave a fight. The Australians would have got stunned by India’s change of stance and by the verbal retaliations. That is perhaps how the frustrations came out. The series ended 2-1 in India’s favour.

This again reminds me of Ganguly and the 2002 Natwest trophy final. And this goes without saying, India has learnt to give it back.