'If England are forced to return, and come without some of their top players, we will understand' © Getty Images

Either England return to India to play two Test matches and show the terrorists that sport is eternal and sportsmen, nay, a country cannot be bullied into submission or they stay back in England because the situation is fluid, safety is paramount and motivation is low. For most, it is a black-and-white situation. Ranged against human emotions and the futility of sport in times of danger are the symbolism of regained strength and the power of sport in times of danger.

What happened in 1984 when Mrs Gandhi was assassinated or in 2005 after the London bombings (both times a cricket tour went ahead) is irrelevant because in neither case was a specific group of people targeted. Any reassurance from security agencies can only sound hollow after what they failed to do to prevent the Mumbai attacks in the first place.

I am not so sure that terrorists are particularly impressed by a show of normalcy - it is the consolation of those who have been attacked to believe that by carrying on as before they are thumbing a nose at those who would disrupt their lives. Terrorists don’t deal in symbols, they deal in death, their own and that of as many people as they can kill. It is not as if they or their leaders sitting far away say, “Our Mumbai mission has been a failure because England and India are playing a Test match anyway.”

Sport does have the power to unite people especially in times of disaster. By the same argument, it has the power to make people forget. And therein lies the danger. We ought not to forget. We ought not to pretend that things are honky-dory when they aren’t. Also, a Test series in which the players’ hearts and minds are not involved is no good for the game.

There is something to be said for the morale-boosting effects of normalcy on the public, of course. But at what cost?

Those who have made the argument for England returning for the Tests - a surprisingly large number of Englishmen have said they should - feel they owe it to the Indian people who have suffered. This is a noble sentiment, but irrelevant in a larger sense. A nation has suffered, and the national debates cannot be sidetracked by issues of whether India should play three seamers or two. Cricket has the power to make us forget, but we ought not to forget. Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.

The Indian board’s fear of losing its primacy in world cricket is a real one. That is the only way to understand some of the more insensitive comments made by its vice-president, Lalit Modi. Millions of dollars are at stake, especially in the Twenty20 versions like the Champions League and the IPL, and when he says “we shouldn’t allow such attacks to disrupt our determination”, it is not difficult to read between the lines.

Depending on which side your bread is buttered you can see a resumption of the series as a way of expressing solidarity with the people of India or telling them that in their hour of need we shall continue to laugh and play as usual. Luckily, in recent years, the views of players are being sought before a cricket board makes a decision. The England and Wales Cricket Board has been bullied by the Indian board of late, but not even Modi can tell them which players to pick. If England are forced to return, and come without some of their top players, we will understand.

Only the other day an official was screaming on TV that India should not tour Pakistan because he could not conceive of the consequences “if a single hair on Tendulkar’s head” was touched. Kevin Pietersen’s hair deserves the same consideration.

	Sourav Ganguly: big on killer instinct, and backed players regardless of where they came from © AFP

It is possible that we are witnessing the erasure of some of the cliches associated with Indian cricket. The lack of a killer instinct - for so long a catch-all phrase used as excuse for defeats - is not heard any more. Both the Test series against Australia and the one-day series against England have shown that whatever instincts the Indian team might lack, killer instinct isn’t one of them.

But there is a wider, happier trend emerging. For years, what many considered a bane of Indian cricket was the “quota” system. Five selectors, one from each geographical region, each with his own compulsions, each with limited knowledge of players in the other zones, picked teams that paid a tribute to the quota system. Many players from weaker zones were accommodated in the national side merely to keep that section of the country happy. Often a better player from another zone was overlooked because there were already too many players from his zone in the team.

The cry to delink geography from cricket went unheeded. Appoint three selectors (regardless of their zones), said those unhappy with the system, and give them the job. But it never happened.

While watching the Bangalore match against England, someone pointed out that there was no home boy to cheer for - no Dravid, no Kumble, no Uthappa. But it went further. There was no player from the South in the Indian team. So why should this be a good sign, you ask?

It is a good sign because it means no player has been sacrificed for the quota. Globalisation in one sphere seems to have inspired true nationalism in another (although it would be more correct to call it professionalism). The best team, regardless of zonal affiliations - the dream of the objective cricket watcher has finally come to pass. India have played four matches against England without a single player from the south. S Badrinath was south’s last representative (and doubtless he will come into the side now) to have played. That was against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

What makes all this very significant, and cause for rejoicing is that the chairman of the selectors, Kris Srikkanth is from the south. The killer instinct and the quota instinct - the lack of one and the existence of the other - have been analysed threadbare. Now, gradually, Indian cricket seems to have ingested the one and eliminated the other.

Former captain Sourav Ganguly should take some of the credit for bringing about this twin revolution. He was big on killer instinct, and backed players regardless of where they came from. Success strengthened the captain’s hands - as Dhoni who reportedly had reservations about a recent selection or two - will discover with every passing success.

Then came the common-sense call - regularise or perish. Soon the ICC stepped in, and the rules were standardised. Now it didn’t matter if you were playing in England or Australia or India or Sri Lanka. The same rules applied. This was good for television, no one was confused (except those trying to figure out D/L, but that was seen early as an occupational hazard).

Then came the lights, and it was assumed the one-day game had overcome one of the natural handicaps of the game, its dependence on natural light. Test cricket would be played in varied conditions, the differences in the venues, clay content in the soil, latitude and so on being part of its charm; true champions triumphed whatever the conditions. The shorter game meanwhile moved towards greater homogeneity, and for a while there was some thought given to drop-in pitches which would take away yet another imponderable from the game.

It is natural to assume that it is the duty of those who rule the game a) to ensure that a full game is played as far as possible b) to give the paying public a full game c) to use whatever is available to ensure both of the above – eg: lights, retractable roof in case of rain.

And yet the third one-dayer in Kanpur, played to a full house, left a bad taste in the mouth because neither the game nor the paying spectator was taken into consideration. Time was wasted in the morning, and lights were not switched on in the afternoon to finish the game because the teams had not reached such an agreement.

When rules go against common sense, they ought to be ditched. The paying public is gradually moving out of the frame where cricket is concerned, and that is not good for the game. Boards no longer think the public is important, because their money comes from television rights and corporate deals. But this is the same public that buys the toothpastes and the cars and the shoes that advertisers try to sell through cricket. To forget that is dangerous.

India won (they probably would have anyway); it was a well-planned victory (captain Dhoni knew from the start that D/L would make the difference and played accordingly), but in the end it was unsatisfying because a full game was not played when it could have been. It is time to tweak the rules again. Lights, roofs, water absorbers, whatever it takes to have a full game must be pressed into service. As the popular message on a t-shirt has it: If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

	Some Indian players will go from playing a ODI to a Twenty20 tournament to Test cricket in about ten days © AFP

India might have started well in the England series, but soon it will be time to set this aside, change hats as it were, and wear the Twenty20 garb. Whether switching the mindset is as easy as changing clothes is something we will have to wait and see. Some players will go from playing a one-day international to a Twenty20 tournament to Test cricket in about ten days.

Between the one-day series against England and before the Test series, some of the Indian players and most of the spectators will change channels - for on December 3, a few hours after the end of the seventh one-dayer, the Champions League is set to commence.

The final of that tournament is scheduled for December 10 in Chennai; a few hours later, India take on England in the first Test at Ahmedabad. Already there is talk of postponing the start of the Test by a day to give everybody time to get to the venue. Some genius in the cricket board obviously didn’t realise that 11 follows 10, and the fixtures were drawn up thus.

The Indian board, currently negotiating (that’s the polite word) with their counterparts in the English board to change the dates of the start of the English season next year so Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen (among others, one presumes) will be free to take part in the IPL, has been paying lip service to Test cricket but has shown little interest in supporting it.

In India, the home of cricket, the rule seems to be: the fewer the overs, greater the crowd support for the game. Thus we have Twenty20 at the top of the pyramid, attracting upwards of 50,000 in the major centres, one-day cricket in the middle capable of attracting around 30,000 spectators but mainly outside the major centres, and Test cricket which, if Nagpur was anything to go by, attracts about ten people. The board’s reaction, as the governing body is curious: throw more energies into Twenty20, and prepare for Test cricket’s funeral.

And it is not just the board. India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni - whose cricketing skill is matched only by his PR skill - takes time out in the middle of an important series, between the first and second one-dayers to inaugurate a stadium in Bhandara in Maharashtra. Well, he (and two others) cannot say ‘No’ to civil aviation minister Praful Patel (the stadium is named after his father). Air India went out of its way to give the players goodies after the World Twenty20 victory, and this is payback time.

There is a touching innocence about a board busybody’s attempt to pass it all off as being in aid of charity. And never mind the dangers of physical injury as the crowd rushed onto the field to swarm the players, or the security risk involved.

And this is the same Dhoni who pulled out of a Test series in Sri Lanka because he was tired of too much cricket.

But who has the moral authority to crack the whip and tell the players that they cannot do certain things in the middle of a series? Imagine the board telling Dhoni he cannot play in Bhandara during a series. He will (or his agent will) merely turn around and ask the board how the governing body can hold an international tournament in the middle of a bilateral series.

Love does make the world go round. Love of money, that is.

	A natural timer, a natural striker, a naturally aggressive player, Yuvraj Singh is one of the leading one-day players in the world © AFP

I think it was Steve Waugh who called Michael Bevan the ‘Bradman of one-day cricket’. It is both flattering and limiting, suggesting, as it does, that whatever his gifts - and these were considerable, giving him a career average of 53.58 from 232 matches in the shorter game - there would always be an asterisk against Bevan’s name. And the footnote would read: “A great finisher of the one-day game (unbeaten 67 times), he failed to impress in his 18 Tests; he couldn’t manage a single century.”

There is a similar asterisk beginning to take shape over the name of Yuvraj Singh, but he is young enough to erase the mark before it is fully formed. He turns 27 next month, and has played 23 Tests. Yet it is his 218 one-day matches and 6000-plus runs that define him now. Can he throw a bridge across the two cultures?

Test players adapt to the one-day game, but the traffic in the reverse direction is thinner. A Rahul Dravid adapted so well that he has over ten thousand runs in both forms; in recent years Krishnamachari Srikkanth broke into the Test squad on the basis of his one-day prowess, and remained there. Men like Ajay Jadeja, Shahid Afridi, Jonty Rhodes stayed one-dimensional (purely cricket-wise, of course).

When you see Yuvraj bring his bat down in an arc, check himself and merely jab at the ball to send it sailing over long off, and that too against Andrew Flintoff, you may be forgiven for asking the obvious question: why is this man not a regular in all forms of the game? A natural timer, a natural striker, a naturally aggressive player, he is one of the leading one-day players in the world. Of that there is no doubt. So what prevents such a natural talent from carving out a permanent place in the Test side?

Yuvraj looked overweight in Rajkot, but he made batting look ridiculously easy too. Have the planets begun to fall into the right alignment at last? He is in form, there is a vacancy following the retirement of Sourav Ganguly, and the series is at home where his last two scores have been 32 and 169.

Yuvraj served notice before he was 19 with a stunning one-day innings in Nairobi against Australia. That was eight years ago, and when he was dropped from the Irani squad this year it seemed he was in the curious position of being neither senior enough to be protected, nor young enough to be given another chance.

So what went wrong? Those who will reduce everything to technique will point to his weaknesses against the moving as well as the turning ball - it is a double whammy. Others will put it down to his temperament, his lifestyle.

That he is talented, there is no doubt. But sometimes talent rewarded early can be a curse. It leaves the talented without the equipment to handle failure; sometimes future success is taken for granted. Seldom is success an accident and the precocious talent often discovers this too late. There is even a school which holds that talent is over-rated, and success comes to those whose commitment outweighs mere talent. Perhaps technique is over-rated too. A big heart often trumps quick feet or the straight backlift.

In Tests, teams know how to bowl at Yuvraj and play on his self-esteem. He can swing his bat with rare extravagance in one-day cricket; in the longer game, he will need to understand the virtues of patience. And of swallowing the ego. The Rajkot innings can be a stepping stone; it could be a millstone too if Yuvraj feels forced to repeat it every time he goes out to bat.

	I can see Rahul Dravid asking himself over and over if bowlers have managed to find a technical flaw in his game © AFP

I thought chairman of selectors Kris Srikkanth dropped a hint when he said Rahul Dravid was “just one innings away from regaining his form.” Then he was quoted in another newspaper as saying, “I am sure Dravid will play some extraordinary innings against England.” If I were Dravid, I would sleep peacefully knowing I had the chairman’s backing.

But I am not Dravid, and I doubt if he has been sleeping peacefully of late. The very qualities that make Dravid the great player he is - the intensity, the obsession with getting things right, the habit of introspection - take him down a slippery slope when things are not going well. In my mind’s eye, I can see Dravid asking himself over and over if bowlers have managed to find a technical flaw in his game. Is his elbow high enough in defence? Are his feet moving correctly? Should he play at fewer deliveries, should he play at more?

Dravid would worry about these things even if he were playing a casual game in his backyard with his son Samit. That is the kind of person he is. There has to be an intellectual solution to the problem - he cannot, like, Sourav Ganguly trust his eye and his natural game to see him through. Ganguly came out of a bad phase by becoming more Ganguly-like, putting his faith in his strengths on the off side. Dravid has made so many tiny changes to his game over the years, working each out beforehand in his mind, that there is no single Dravid-like batsmanship.

It is an existential dilemma: which Dravid should he choose to throw all his energies into at this stage? The debutant who was considered not good enough for the one-day game? The fluent striker who tended to hit straight to the fielder in his early series? The batsman who clinically took Allan Donald apart in South Africa? The player who finished with the most runs in a World Cup? Around the turn of the century, Dravid achieved the great synthesis, becoming an all-round batsman indispensable in either form of the game. Now he is no longer required for the shorter version. And there haven’t been enough runs in Tests to make him an automatic choice.

Dravid has two Ranji Trophy games before the first Test on December 11. Karnataka play Andhra on November 16 and Baroda a week later. Dravid’s confidence right now is so low that he has virtually cut out shots square of the wicket. When you see him square-cut the fast bowler to the boundary you will know that he has come to terms with the devils in his mind.

In Bangalore and in Mohali he batted long enough for his 51 and 39 to indicate the problem was not in his feet but in his head. Sunil Gavaskar once went through a series in Australia getting caught behind in identical fashion. It has happened to Greg Chappell, and if you go back, even the great Wally Hammond has struggled. But these have usually lasted one series. Dravid’s struggle has gone on for a couple of seasons now, and he has been treated with kid gloves in that period.

This is partly because either the rest of the batting has been in the same boat (as in Sri Lanka) or it has been doing exceptionally well (as in the recent series against Australia). The pressure on Dravid therefore has been mainly from himself. Ganguly, who made his Test debut alongside him in 1996, has retired in style. Karnataka mate Anil Kumble was carried off the field in his last Test. Dravid would like to go out in triumph, but self-doubt is a cancer that can eat through a sportsman’s mind.

Should he bargain with the selectors and promise to leave at the end of the England series in return for a guaranteed place in the team to sort himself out? That would be un-Dravidlike. And there are two important away series to follow. In Pakistan (or the UAE, if that falls through, for security reasons) and then in New Zealand. No Indian has a better record outside the country. Dravid is most at home away from home.

	Amit Mishra is a worthy successor of Anil Kumble © AFP

In Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Amit Mishra, both Anil Kumble the captain and Anil Kumble the bowler have worthy successors. M Vijay showed he is ready for a long stint either as opener or No. 3. Gautam Gambhir might have finished as Man of the Series had it not been for the rush of blood which led to his suspension from the final Test. Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan are well-entrenched - but in any case, there is a bunch comprising Munaf Patel, RP Singh and Sreesanth which is at the ready. Harbhajan Singh has rediscovered the knack of picking up wickets.

Ganguly is gone (and he left in style), but Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman have returned to form, leaving only Rahul Dravid to get back his magic touch. Indian cricket has not been in such good health for a long time.

Contrast that with Australia. Brad Haddin apart (and he too, only as wicketkeeper), there has not been a worthy replacement for their recent retirements from Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and others. While the Indian fast men, especially Ishant Sharma rose above the conditions to trouble the batsmen, Brett Lee actually took a couple of steps backwards as the spearhead of the attack, and till Jason Krejza came along in the final match, there was no one who looked capable of taking wickets by the bagful.

Australia have not looked so rudderless for a long time. Ricky Ponting’s run-out in the final innings was the final straw on a woeful tour where a combination of a poor bowling attack and his own inept handling of it meant that his team seldom threatened.

The No. 1 team in the world did not look the part psychologically, and the captain must bear the major share of the blame. True, he lost three of the four tosses, but he was outwitted by a captain who had both the luck and the pluck to make use of that luck.

Victory is the final justification. And by winning, Dhoni ensured that some of his negative tactics, like bowling with eight on the off side on the third day, or slowing down the bowling rate on the final day, appeared like necessary strategy. Ponting’s decision to let India off the hook after tea on the fourth day when he didn’t bring his fast bowlers on now appears selfish and downright ridiculous. Dhoni gambled on dismissing Australia before the final hour in which case the over-rate would not become an issue to hang him on, while Ponting refused to gamble, erring on the side of excessive caution. In the end, Australia did not deserve to win if only because the No. 1team should be made of sterner stuff.

Despite the 2-0 result, this wasn’t the greatest series played by India. The home side were clearly superior despite their annoying habit of sometimes letting things drift on the field. But it has been a great start for Dhoni, the spiritual heir to India’s most successful captain, Ganguly.

	A strange debut for Jason Krejza © Getty Images

Perhaps it was this arrogance that enabled Krejza to pick up eight wickets. After all, had not the second string team in Hyderabad hit him out of sight? It wasn’t enough to merely score runs against him, the batsman had to show him who was boss, and in the words of Amitabh Bachchan in a Bollywood movie - Usko apni naani yaad dila do (make him remember his grandmother – that’s a literal translation; it means roughly, beat him to a pulp).

There is a sporting dictum that Indian batsmen forgot: thou shalt not underestimate an opponent. A bad ball can get you out, an ordinary ball can hasten the end as Rahul Dravid found out. Thou shalt not show disrespect on the field. Dhoni too tried something cute and was bowled.

To lose five wickets for 19 runs to a bowler no one took seriously must mean that the original assessment was wrong. It was, finally, Harbhajan Singh who put Krejza’s performance in perspective. Harbhajan must have been licking his lips in anticipation while his counterpart was taking all those wickets but hewas a little too fast, a little too eager, and seemed to be prematurely counting his chickens.

He is the No. 1 spinner in the side now, and needs to take the lead. But first he must cut down his pace, and take heart from the humility of a debutant who kept at it without compromising on either his trajectory or his pace. Perhaps the third day’s play will restore reason to its throne.

This has been a strange series. Australia’s strength was meant to be the fast bowling, yet Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma have displayed greater skill and taught the Lees and Johnsons a thing or two. India’s traditional strength has been spin, yet here is a debutant showing a 300-wicket man how to bowl to take wickets.

	Gambhir [right] was handed a one-Test ban for elbowing Shane Watson © AFP

The Indian cricket board’s muscle-flexing is getting tiresome. Like the schoolyard bully, it threatens anyone who touches one of its own with or without reason. In the case of Gautam Gambhir, there was good reason for the ICC to take the action it did, banning him for one Test. That Gambhir elbowed Shane Watson cannot be denied - millions saw it on television. That he has done it before, to Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi is a matter of record too. He was fined then, he is banned now. Open and shut, as lawyers say.

And yet the BCCI wants to defend the indefensible. It has used its enormous financial clout for the good of the game, spreading it across borders, lifting other boards in need of funds, and generally keeping the sport alive and kicking. It has also misused that power, rushing to defend players who have transgressed, and often behaving as if the ICC is part of the BCCI and not the other way around.

Gambhir is no spring chicken. He turned 27 last month, and has emerged as India’s most successful batsman in the current series. He was the star of the IPL tournament, and at the moment is the only certainty in all three forms of the game apart from Mahendra Singh Dhoni and perhaps Virender Sehwag. It is good for players to have the confidence that their Board will support them in a tight situation - skipper Anil Kumble had its backing in Australia during the fracas in Sydney, for example (the Board then went overboard, but that’s another story).

But to imagine that the Board will support you even when you are in the wrong is not good for the game. There is an argument for punishing both the one who reacts to a provocation just as much as the provocateur himself. But the law goes by action, not by intent, and by reacting physically in a non-contact sport Gambhir has brought it into disrepute. He is young, and will learn, but only if he is forced to pay the price for crossing the line. If the Board allows him (and others like him who react in the heat of battle) to get away, it would merely be planting a seed for worse to follow.

Gambhir need not look beyond his former skipper Kumble for an example of someone who was tough without getting physical, and gave as good as he got without bringing the game into disrepute. If the example set by men such as Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar has to influence the next generation, it is necessary for the Board to play its role. It exists for the players, but it also serves a higher purpose, to preserve the purity of the game itself.

By reducing every engagement into a battle of egos, by striving desperately to show that whatever happens the BCCI is boss, the governing body appears immature and driven by short-term populism. If the BCCI is genuinely concerned about the Code of Conduct, it should take it up with the ICC at the right forum and not react every time an Indian is hauled up. It hasn’t used the race card this time, so that is probably progress of sorts.

Some day the other boards and the ICC will learn that the best way to handle a bully is to stand up to him. If the BCCI gets isolated, it will be the players who suffer, and the game itself - the officials can always go back to their regular office jobs.