JOIN USPiece of history beckons Dhoni's comeback kings
Thrice this year, they have found themselves 0-1 down after the first match of a Test series.
On each occasion, they have bounced back almost immediately, and never more emphatically than at Kingsmead over the last four days.
India needed the 87-run win in the second Test against South Africa for more reasons than one.
For starters, it helped them keep their dream of a first ever series win on Protean soil alive; for another, it reiterated to themselves, as much as to the rest of the cricketing world, that they are not just tigers at home and lambs abroad.
In a performance befitting their status as the number one Test team, India roused themselves from the debilitating innings loss in Centurion.
Perhaps, South Africa were a touch complacent after the one-way traffic that the first Test was, but India showed tremendous character and resilience in Durban, where they had lost their last two Tests comprehensively.
While Dhoni and his boys might not openly acknowledge it, this victory will be their sweetest in a year of eight wins, three draws and three losses. They again had the worst of the batting conditions on day one when the captain’s disastrous luck with the toss continued, yet they kept plugging away, always believing that they possessed the skills and the wherewithal to put it past South Africa.
India had appeared to have bucked the trend of starting series, especially overseas, slowly, but this year, their old failing resurfaced. At home in February, they lost the first Test to South Africa, then recovered to pull off a gripping innings win in Kolkata to square the two-match series.
In Sri Lanka in July-August, they made light of an innings loss in Galle in the first Test to earn a respectable draw in the second and a series-levelling six-wicket win in the third. The Durban triumph sealed a hat-trick of come-from-behind wins, its import and magnitude amplified by the circumstances under which it transpired.
For the second straight calendar year, India have gone undefeated in a Test series. Indeed, they haven’t been vanquished in a series since August 2008, when Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan lured them to their doom. It’s an extraordinary record under the Dhoni-Kirsten management group, a record that owes itself to the resolve of the team which somehow discovers a silver lining in every cloud.
It’s an accepted truism that as hard as it might be to scale the summit, to stay on top is even more difficult. India’s ascension to the number one ranking was the offshoot of a vision that the team collectively bought in September 2008. Fourteen months later, the dream had been realised; victory over Sri Lanka at the Brabourne stadium had catapulted the Indians to the very top.
To maintain that ranking made huge demands, necessitating veterans and tyros alike to pitch in and pull their weight. There were several flash points in 2010; every single time, India unearthed a hero. The common thread between the three comeback triumphs this year has been VVS Laxman, the man with not just wrists but also nerves of steel.
In Kolkata as well as at the P Sara Oval, in series-squaring victories, Laxman made a hundred apiece. In Durban, the three-figure mark eluded him, but not unlike his masterly unbeaten 73 in Mohali against Australia, his 96 was easily worth many more. Laxman has best exemplified the fierce determination of this team – he hasn’t always got due recognition, but like his team, he has never lost sight of the ultimate goal.
This outfit is heavily reliant on peer respect. They are not averse to praise from all quarters, but the reverence and admiration from within the team set-up is what they covet the most.
Gary Kirsten’s role in impressing upon his wards the need to set aside the pursuit of individual glory and focus on team goals has been most influential, and when team members speak these days about enjoying each others’ success, you are convinced they aren’t just paying lip service.
India will have their fair share of defeats, for such is the nature of competitive sport. The true character of a team shines through in adversity; its strength of will and mind is tested when the odds are stacked against it. India have provided enough evidence that they have what it takes to be a very, very good unit. The immediate challenge is to go a step further, and make a genuine pitch for greatness.