Teamwork should be second nature

"The advent of big money into cricket will ruin team spirit," some oldfashioned critics said years ago. Everyone pooh-poohed them, especially the young cricketers who were about to benefit from such a trend. They put it down to a bad attack of the `sour grapes' syndrome.

Be that as it may, I tend to believe that successful teams enjoy better team spirit than unsuccessful teams, even though it may mean my scoffing the popular view that team spirit brings success.

I remember the buzz that went round cricket circles, when Ajit Wadekar and his men beat West Indies in the West Indies and England in England in the same season, an unprecedented feat and one that has not been repeated since. Everyone was suddenly discovering the new team spirit in the Indian team, an assertion that was met by hearty, if somewhat derisive, laughter from some former Indian greats, who thought success did not automatically mean team spirit, nor indeed failure the lack of it. (Bangladesh may have the best team spirit in the world, but can they beat South Africa, given current team strengths)? And, true enough, more or less the same personnel toured England again three years later, and bit the dust ingloriously. Whatever happened to the team spirit then?

There is much talk of the lack of team spirit in the Indian team these days, and adverse comparisons are made with happy, united teams like Sri Lanka. Not being a visitor to the Indian dressing room, I don't pretend to know the atmosphere there. But as an intelligent observer who has played the game at first class level, I venture to suggest it is as good as any anywhere. Admittedly, some teams function better as teams than others, and I am sure there are a few lessons India can learn. It is a question of learning to play as a team, of retaining your individuality, that priceless quality which makes each player so valuable to the team, yet submerging that very individuality to serve the team's interests.

Let us deal with a purely hypothetical case, based on the kind of scenarios we in Indian cricket are quite familiar with. Let's say Rahul Dravid is batting well and India needs his continued presence at the crease to save the match. There's a runout chance and all of us expect his young partner to sacrifice his wicket in the team's interests. Now, there are two factors involved here. The young batsman must realize the importance of Dravid's innings, and sacrifice his wicket. Equally vital is for Rahul Dravid to overcome his natural reservations and actually demand that his partner run himself out, because it is in the team's interests for Dravid to be selfish, and for the younger man to be unselfish.

How often do you see this sort of thing happen in Indian cricket? The answer, regretfully, is very, very seldom. It is not that Indian cricketers are selfish or lacking in team spirit. It is that they sometimes don't know how to play as a team. And this is not something someone can learn at the highest level. It is something that has to be dinned into the head of every young cricketer in India. By the time he graduates to Test cricket, playing for the team should become second nature.