Maybe not playing international cricket for half a year and the ‘retro’ outfits have made our cricket team a bit rusty

The excitement of winning the third and final One-Day International should not divert us from the fact that the Indian men’s cricket team has been caught out by a well-drilled Australian squad. What is also telling is that the men in yellow are playing far better in their international colours than they did in franchise T20 cricket. The Indian team, on the other hand, with its uniforms harking back to the 1992 Cricket World Cup, seems to have been inspired by its predecessors. The sharpness and competitive attitude forged over the last years have been replaced by, as many have joked on social media, the Spirit of 1992, which let us not forget was the nadir of competitive cricket for the modern Indian team in the post-1983 environment. No matter how classic the outfits might have been, our 1991-92 tour of Australia was an unmitigated disaster.

However, one must realise that it is extremely difficult for athletes to stay at their peak performance levels after months of inactivity even if there were two months of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in between. Getting into shape takes weeks if not months and India was very fortunate to walk home with a win after two successive blowouts. One can only hope that the rest of the tour does not become a repeat of the 1991-92 tour of Australia and the Indian players can bring home not just a few wins but the Border-Gavaskar trophy as well. Hopefully now with a victory under their belt, our boys  can go from success to success. After several months of no cricket, the Indian cricket fan has expectations. Of course, we should be proud of an individual milestone as captain Virat Kohli became the fastest cricketer to score 12,000 ODI runs, breaking a record held by legendary compatriot Sachin Tendulkar.