For Team India, the winning attitude matters

With the advent of T20, cricket is no longer a gentleman’s game and that is something our team doesn’t seem to have comprehended. These are times when even the red cherry is pulverised ball after ball. Well, at least that is the intention. Gone are the days when teams played out draws in Tests, and took pride in the (under) achievement. Nowadays most longest-format combats, may we say, in keeping with the aggression with which the sport is played, end in favour of either team.

That requires quick scoring, and bowling unplayable deliveries. Indecisiveness is dogging the team on all fronts, and causing it a lot of damage. During times when even crystal clarity is not enough, we are a team going through the motions a trance-like state induces. Is the team composition clear? No. Have you heard of a key member – Rishabh Pant in this case – requested team management to be released from Bangladesh ODIs. Doesn’t this sound fishy? Is the batter definite about his shot selection?

Certainly not! Mate, if you have been selected for a limited-overs contest, you are expected to go out there and belt the ball. Or bowl a toe crusher every delivery. Not pick and choose. It can’t get worse than losing a limited-overs series to Bangladesh, can it? Bang in the middle of two World Cup tournaments at that. Victory-starved cricket-crazy Indians would have used a win in the ongoing three-ODI series in the neighbouring nation as a balm for the recently-concluded T20 heartbreak, and a timely hope booster for the upcoming 50-over challenge. But that wasn’t to be, not even as a consolation.

When we saw the end of the calmest cricketer the country’s had, and the best cricketing brain the world has, we had our task cut out. A team that developed into a world beater under Mahendra Singh Dhoni, has but a few bilateral series victories to show as its accomplishments after he hung up his cricket spikes. That was bound to happen, for nobody can go on and on. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Yes, but they must be wise ones.

Making a scapegoat out of, maybe Rahul Dravid, would be akin to shooting oneself in the foot. If the coach was good enough to push the under-21 team to World Cup glory a few seasons ago, sacking him now would only amount to a needless knee-jerk reaction. An exercise that is sure to further down the team morale. It is time to develop a strong winning attitude in the team. That comes with ruthlessness, not by testing the bench strength or trying a new player every time we play a dead rubber. And, nobody gets an extended run in the team, however good he may have once been – even if he goes by the name Virat Kohli.