Victory or Loss - Under Dhoni it's Fine

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

27 September, 2009

What is the Indian cricket fan currently thinking or saying after yesterday's loss to Pakistan? It's not as if this scenario is new. At other times, Dhoni has especially revelled in a Pakistan game and turned things around with either his batting (who can forget his 2004 arrival in big cricket) or captaincy.

Truth is while we all want victories, especially against our arch rivals Pakistan, the Indian fan now can't seem wash the team's dirty linen in public. It's like they've acccepted that in a game, someone's got to lose and they seem fine knowing that it's happening under a capable head like Dhoni's. Look back over ten years and somehow it seems there had been troubled postings by Indian fans when the team underperformed under Sachin or Rahul or Azhar. Talk shows on TV, seemed to have so much to discuss or criticise.

Under Dhoni, the Indian team fan has known true . His abilities have also been appreciated in the IPL where his Chennai team were pipped to second position by a mere whisker in 2008.

The Indian fan's larger acquiscence is also probably from statements by Ajit Wadekar that "Dhoni is the best captain India ever had." The average Indian fan, like that in neighbouring Pakistan may be a fanatic in blinders but the audience tends to listen to a doyen of a captain like that. A more informed cricket follower would also know that Bombay cricketer may praise some skills in players from other states but has rarely gone all out.

Undoubtedly, it would have seemed until that point Bombayite would have conceded only two skills as better among an outside state - pace bowling, exemplified by the hardy jaat Kapil Dev and his Haryana (read northern) tribe, and spin, craftsmen of which hailed largely from the southern states of Karnataka. But many of them are now conceding batting, and even captaincy skills.

Coming back to Dhoni and the after match effects, although at press conferences the captain offers an explanation, as he is bound to, and the press colours things as "mistakes that shouldn't have been committed," the public knows that victories cannot come all the time. Failings are better acceptable if one has tried one's best.

Right now, there's good sense prevailing among the Indian fans at large. People must go back to their nine-to-five jobs Monday to Friday and let India Inc jog along. For would we be in this era of cricket professionalism if it wasn't for India Inc which garnered in all these software imports and pumped in the money? That money funded our 'professional cricket' (read a structure that allows individuals to play cricket for a living through the year).

So, if anybody questions my writing this article on the Indian cricket 'fan,' as opposed to the afficiandos, or those like Gavaskar, Amarnath, Srikanth whose say matters to the team, the answer is that the fan funds 'India Inc' which is indirectly funding our cricket team. Their mood needs to be captured. For now, the Indian fan seems to be saying "Let it be. Let's hope for things to be better."