I just wrote this. Comments, feedback welcome.
Facing adversity
The English cricket team is at crossroads right now. There is no question that the team is number two in the world. Series win versus the Kiwis, South Africans, the Windies and Australia recently have shown England to be the unquestionable number two.
The thing is a few teams have claimed that spot over the past decade. South Africa was the unquestionable number 2. But they could not match up to Australia and went into decline post 2003.
India was the team to watch a year and a half back. At that point of time they had a home series victory versus the Australians, had drawn the series down under and had just beaten Pakistan in Pakistan. But then the party was over. A home series loss to Australia and again like South Africa failing to raise that level meant they did not reach much higher.
Kiwi fans had the firm belief that they had the rightful place at number 2. A session of havoc caused by Shoaib Akhtar meant they lost a series to Pakistan at home. Then they had the injury prone tour of England where England were the convincing winners. And with that the talk of Kiwis posing a challenge disappeared into thin air.
England is at the same stage right now. When the going gets tough, the champion teams get going. England have lost the first test to Pakistan by a close margin. They are also in a crisis of sorts with not having their full strength team. However when we look back at the current series and the one to be played in India in the future, those aspects will not be looked at.
The team England is challenging right now for the top spot has an superb record in the subcontinent. This is in sharp contrast to Australia the world champions in the late 90s. If England was to challenge for the number 1 spot maybe 5 years earlier, they could have been hailed as world champions just by beating Australia in Australia in a little more than 12 months.
The current situation, however, requires England to at least draw one of the two series and win the other. Can England do it despite having a pace centric attack rather than a spin centric attack? Australia did it in India only when they relied on their strength and opted not to change too many things. South Africa, which was the first team to break the jinx of away teams losing in India did it with a rather weak spin attack. The Windies team won every where with their pace battery. So the key is to focus on the strengths rather than change too many things.
England faces a challenge as would any team eyeing for a top spot. The team has shown that they will not give up without a fight. One thing is for sure, cricket fans and not just the English supporters will be tracking England’s progress.
