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.
