July 4, 2006: Those of you who read the last column must be wondering whether I’m eating my words. For those who came in late, I had written that if you were not watching cricket lately, preferring to enjoy “the beautiful game” instead, you didn’t miss much. To be frank, I did squirm a bit witnessing all those scenes of celebrations by Indian cricketers.

It was a well-deserved victory for Rahul Dravid and co. The stats say it all. A series victory in West Indies after 35 years and a series victory outside the subcontinent after two decades. Every cricket fan of this country will feel happy for Rahul the skipper who led from the front by scoring 68 invaluable runs while wickets just kept falling. What I still don’t agree is with his words after lifting the cup. “It was a great series.” Well, well, well. I think we can let that one go, just like the Indian captain patiently leaves the deliveries outside the offstump. He may have been overcome slightly by the moment and the emotions that are but natural.

These days, whenever I see Anil Kumble toil hard and bowl India to victory, I have mixed emotions. While I admire the old warhorse and his determination, I can’t but feel the absence of any other able spinner in the country. In the days of the spin quartet, and even after their time, there was always that talented spinner waiting eternally in the wings but could never make it to the team. Now the story is that Kumble were to announce his retirement today –God forbid such a decision – there is nobody equally good to replace him. Harbhajan Singh and Murli Karthik are still there but while the latter has never proved himself as a matchwinner in the class of Kumble, Harbhajan could never reach his potential after his superlative feats against Australia some years ago in a home series.

It is when newcomers or relative new entrants bat and bowl the team to victory that it announces the arrival of a world-beating team. This is also the reason why people these days are not so unduly worried about the absence of Sachin Tendulkar or Sourav Ganguly in the team. Precisely because of this reason, the performances of Sreesanth and Munaf Patel gives me even greater pleasure than the performances of the Dravid-Kumble duo.

While any series victory is a morale-booster, West Indies team now at the bottom of the table and we should have produced a better scoreline than 1-0. Now, we need to also think about Brian Lara’s bitter criticism of the pitch which he thinks, for some strange reason, was prepared to the suit the visitors. Yes, seeing the final moments of the match, it did seem as thoug we were watching a Test match in Chennai, Delhi or Kolkata. Lara’s comment that the pitch was not worth playing a Test match in can’t be dismissed as a case of sour grapes. Especially since Lara, as everyone knows, doesn’t say things for effect. While Indians can thank for the fine gesture by the hosts in providing a pitch that turned squarely on the last day, they need to realistically assess their performance and not get carried away by the “victory after 35 years”.

Lara also had some very critical things about the way West Indies cricket was run including the fact he was told that he was one of the selectors only towards the end of the tour, which meant that he never got the team he wanted. And hinted at his imminent resignation.