On the Indians’ lack of killer instinct

A lot has been written about India's poor record away from home with most of the analyst arriving at the prognosis that we lack talent and...

A lot has been written about India’s poor record away from home with most of the analyst arriving at the prognosis that we lack talent and fail in adjusting to wickets which are very different than the ones at home. Whereas in India the players get to play on slow, bounceless tracks, outside the wickets are harder, bouncier and seam a lot.

Another reason touted is lack of aggression or what most like to call lack of killer’s instinct. If one understands the term well, this killer’s instinct probably means that the Indians are soft, given to mercy and if they get the opponent pinned to the rope, they take pity on him and ease the pressure. This, it is said, is a manifestation of their innate non-violent instinct. Well, this is a debatable issue, especially in a country where violence is endemic and insensitivity to one’s surrounding is appalling.

Even the outside world is puzzled at Indian cricket team’s inability to cope with pressures away from home, especially when they are almost unbeatable at home. Onthe eve of the Adelaide Test match, the Australian press core put these questions to Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar. “Why are Indians bad travellers? Why, despite wonderful talent, they can’t win more often abroad? What pressures away from home which makes them buckle so easily?”

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Kapil, whose earthy instincts and a wonderful grasp of things worldly have earned him a lot of respect, fame and money, was quick to respond and say: “This team is different. We have come here to win.” This, obviously was said for good effect, not that one is saying that this Indian team is not keen to do well on this tour. Far from it, this is a team which is strongly motivated, more than any team which has left the Indian shores in recent past. With more and more money coming into the game and a successful cricketers’ status in India rivalling even that of the `god’s’, the players are trying their best not to lose this wonderful opportunity having come their way.

Yet the motivation of money and fame can’t easily overcomethis long-ingrained mental block, the roots of which possibly lie in our socio-economic-cultural development vis-a-vis the outside world. To an Indian mind, the Western world opens a door into the world of `senses’ and in the absence of any mental training, he gets confused.

The cricketer, like any average Indian traveller, find the opulence, the food, the life-style and the extrovert nature of this outside world very formidable and daunting. Not only does he fail to establish any contact with this world, he also withdraws into a shell. The search for Indianness in an alien land becomes a self-defeating process.

Maybe the globalised world, where things are changing and the world is shrinking may have a very positive effect on the Indian cricket team as well.