DOWNFALL OF INDIAN CRICKET

It can be boldly said that the glory days of Indian cricket was in the two years that followed the World Cup victory in 1983. The whole scenario changed after winning the World Series in Australia in 1985. It turned out to be the last memorable, successful tournament for a long time to come. In the late 70’s and the early 80’s. as the West Indies had an all conquering team, except Australia there was no other country who could give these two teams a run for their money. The 1983 victory of India in the world cup was indeed a team effort rather than any extraordinary talent. The Indian team of the 1983 world cup consisted of three – four players of average skills who were helped by the English conditions in their bowling. But the same team on their return home were beaten 5-0 by the same West Indies team in India. After that the tournament victory in Australia in 1985………was last major victory for India before the downslide started.
Though a star was born in 1989 by the name of Sachin Tendulkar, with most of the batting stalwarts aging, there was no one to fill up the vacuum. It was not until the champions trophy in 2000, that India reached the finals of a major tournament.
The golden era of the Indian spin quartet was over. Sunil Gavaskar who was the best opening batsman of that era was nearing the end of his career. The mainstays of batting like the Vengsarkars, amaranths were at the end of their careers. With the retirement of Kapil Dev in 1994, the bowling department looked woefully inadequate. For many years India struggled to find the right opening combination in both batting as well as bowling.
Sachin was very young and inexperienced and Srinath, who was to be the spearhead of the bowling attack was just settling down. The two new youngsters who made their debut in 1996 at Lords –Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly were too raw to take over the mantle from the seniors. Moreover, the Indian team was traditionally coached by an Indian coach who unfortunately were not professionals enough. At the same time, the standard of cricket in other countries was improving rapidly. With the enormous popularity of cricket in India, BCCI was making huge money but they were finding it difficult to get the right results on the field. During the same time, the West Indies cricket had declined unbelievably, the south Africans who came into mainstream cricket in 1992 had built a formidable team with some outstanding fielders but the Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh lead Australian team was going from strength to strength with no real competition from any cricket playing countries of the world.
The BCCI in its wisdom finally thought of a foreign coach to coach the Indian team and the former New Zealand opening batsman, John Wright was roped in to coach the national side and the rest as they say is history, may not be a fairy tale but a turnaround all the same with India reaching the world cup finals in 2003.