The tag of Team India tending to travel badly like wine is old hat. The syndrome vanished in the last decade in which India won Test series in various climes — Pakistan, the West Indies, England and New Zealand besides a dominant 1-1 draw in Australia. But one country that continues to bother India in the new millennium is Sri Lanka.
Why the emerald isle, which is being seen more and more as an attractive holiday paradise around the world now, should prove inhibiting to Team India is becoming a modern cricket mystery. It is understandable if Indians felt uncomfortable in the ’80s when they crossed the Palk Straits at the height of the ethnic crisis. Sri Lankan umpires, notoriously partial and publicly labelled as the worst in the world by none other than Imran Khan, used to make Indian batsmen squirm.
The ones in form were targeted in 1985 and a Test defeat was imposed on them, even if an ambitious Sri Lankan side in that series was superior to India in most departments.
The batting was in a bit of a shambles then because Sunil Gavaskar refused to open the innings. Srikkanth, who as a Tamil must have felt the undercurrents of the ethnic crisis more, was batting with greater application that normal but he was one of those marked for special treatment by the officials.
When a better-equipped Indian team with a bowling attack to match the batting returned in the ’90s to Sri Lanka, history was beginning to weigh on the tourists. They knew they had the team that represented the best chance to win a series outside India, which they had not done for seven years since England in 1986.
In that series, Kumble bowled on like the true soldier he is. It did not matter if each top order batsman had to be dismissed twice — he would still do it. Without his courageous commitment, the win would never have materialised. A frontier had been crossed, significant because home umpires still stood in the Test world then.
Times have changed. Teams have come and won on the island, with Australia even competing a whitewash in a hard fought series. But India are beginning to show some kind of phobia to performing on the island. Since Team India won the tri-series in Sri Lanka only a month ago, there was no reason to suspect that it would still be a struggle like that of Sisyphus condemned eternally to roll a stone up the hill.
What is galling is the team are going through such a phase now after being anointed as the top Test side. There have been periods of non-performance by the bowlers, as in the early ’80s when India went through more than 20 Tests without a win. The bowling was thought to be barren then and teams played out Kapil’s opening overs knowing well that what was to follow would be fodder.
On a tour from which India’s leading bowler, Zaheer Khan, is absent seeking a series win would have been akin to asking for a miracle. But at no time was it thought the bowling would be so ineffective as to let the hosts pile on runs as freely as they have been doing.