Gunning For Ganguly

By Shailaja Bajpai

Of course you all know this but it bears repeating for reasons which will become abundantly clear in a moment. India beat, repeat, beat Australia in the 3-match Test series (2-1). India beat, repeat beat, the (un)official world test champions. By vanquishing the men ``who come from a land down under¿¿, India halted the Australians¿ world record winning streak (16 successive victories) at what their captain Steve Waugh called, ``the final frontier¿¿.

India lost, repeat lost, to Australia in the 5-match one-day international series (2-3). Well, you win some and you lose some and it¿s not like the scoreboard read India 0, Australia 5.

Mind you: this famous Indian test victory was achieved by a team missing two frontline bowlers, Srinath and the match-winning, Kumble, while it included players whose previous experience of kangaroos amounted to picture books, cartoons or television: S.S.Das, Sairaj Bahutale, Nilesh Kulkarni. This victory was achieved after losing the Test in Mumbai and being asked to follow-on in Kolkata. It was therefore all the more praiseworthy. They¿re saying it is one of the most famous, if not the most famous victory in the history of the game.

In the event, you¿d think we had something to shout about from the Taj Mahal; that we would shower marigolds on our team and its captain, hail it as the David who slayed Goliath, dwell, lovingly on the heroics of Laxman, Harbhajan, Dravid, Tendulkar, and the cameo performances by lesser mortals like Samir Dighe who kept his nerve to help us win at Chennai_ and welcome new young comers: Badani, Sehwag...

Yes, you would think we¿d be ecstatic, this cricket crazy country. But nah. It isn¿t enough that we beat the best team now and in some people¿s opinion, the best team ever. No, ji, no: we must find fault with something or someone. We must criticise, whip ourselves in public. It¿s an Indian characteristic, as difficult to eliminate as mosquitoes. Carp, carp, carp _ we¿re a nation of very peculiar fish.

The media, in any other country, would have composed paeons to such a team, celebrated it in sweet rhyme. You would have read only gushing praise for the team, and its captain. Ah, the captain. He would have been crowned and knighted not by a sword but by the might of the pen (well, computer, then). Well, indeed. The Indian media has been full of Saurav Ganguly¿s exploits but instead of praising, they were out to bury him. The captain of the Indian cricket team has been torched, scorched and burnt on the stake.

If you think this is excessive, read again. Alongside stories praising Laxman, Harbhajan and Tendulkar, there was a stream of stories, criticising Ganguly. The Indian media stands accused on two counts: unnecessarily attacking the Prince of Kolkata (by the time they had finished with him he was more the Pauper of Kolkata) and giving too much space to opinions from Australia.

Let¿s hear it from Sunil Gavaskar (TOI, March 21, 2001): ``Instead of taking the Australian approach to the game to task, we reproduced what the Australian media was saying about Ganguly..have any of our media person¿s pieces while on tour of Australia been produced in Australia.? So why this complex? .The Australians are the world champions but does that make their media better than ours that we have to reproduce their pieces?¿¿

Still not convinced? Let¿s help convince you. A random appraisal of 5 newspapers (Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, The Hindu and Asian Age) over 17 days between March 13-April 11 (just over four weeks), revealed there were over 30 articles which discussed Ganguly and with the exception of one or two, each was more uncomplimentary than the other. Here are some of the headlines: