No use playing victim

The Indian cricket team is realizing that down under, the world is topsy-turvy. After the Sydney Showdown, they - and we - have seen that contrary to popular wisdom, success is an orphan, while failure has many fathers, and not the other way round.

After a world record equaling 16 Test wins on the trot, the Australian captain Ricky Ponting has discovered that ironically, he is the most hated man in the cricket world AND in Australia too (78% of his countrymen disapproved of his antics and bluster in a poll that was widely published in the Australian media).

Even more improbably, the Indian captain Anil Kumble who led a side whose ever so famed batsmen failed to play out 72 overs, that works out to a little more than two sessions, to save the Test and keep the series alive.

Yes, even a child knows by now that the umpires, Steve Bucknor and Benson batted and bowled Australia to an emphatic victory. But despite their "brilliance", Team India should have saved the Test. If it had, there would have been more bite to the Ban Bucknor campaign. Not that it doesn't, but it is also true failure is an orphan!

If only India had not boasted of the "world's best batting order", the slight of failing to save the Test would have been acceptable, nay pardonable. But if the world's best batsmen cannot survive two cricketing sessions, then the best is perhaps not good enough. You are quite simply, not the best in the business. And you are not even second best. Which proves the old adage that statistics do not tell the whole truth.

The cruel fact is Kumble's team is capable only of playing good, winning cricket for only a few sessions or a day at the most, but it just cannot sustain the fighting spirit for five full days, which is exactly the difference between Australia and the rest of the teams in the world.

So let us not forget that Australia may have won because of Bucknor and Benson, but they don't need them the day after.

The Australians surely benefited from bad umpiring, the Indians were the innocent victims, but we never really looked like winning, while the former didn't look like losing.

So while we vent our spleen on the follies of the umpires, let us not forget that we still have to go a long way before we consider ourselves as the true challengers to Australia's throne.