When you think of sporting celebrations, you invariably conjure up floodlights, a big stage, a trophy and maybe even fireworks in the night sky. What you probably don’t imagine are little jigs of delight in the harsh mid-morning sun. But on December 6, 2009, that’s what India’s Test cricketers had to settle for after an innings-and-24-run victory over Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium took them to the top of the rankings for the first time.
It was the culmination of a decade of steady progress, the story of a team that had slowly risen from the ashes of a 3-0 mauling in Australia in 1999-2000. Some ordinary umpiring made headlines – remember Sachin Tendulkar and Shoulder Before Wicket? – but to focus on that was to ignore the gulf in class between Steve Waugh’s side and India. Strong at home, India’s Test cricket was the joke that kept the opposition laughing whenever they played away.
Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman had been part of that ill-fated tour. Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag would establish themselves in the side not long after. Yuvraj Singh, though not a regular, had made his Test debut more than six years before India summited the mountain. There were a lot of miles on those clocks, and fatigue in the legs. Some brothers in arms, most notably Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, had said their fond farewells a year earlier, with the team still stuck at Base Camp.
Long before the world had heard of Bazball, this was a Test match played at breakneck speed, cricket in fast forward. On the second day, for example, India batted 79 overs for a total of 443-1, a run-rate of 5.61. By the time Sehwag was dismissed just seven short of an unprecedented third triple-century, he had caned Sri Lanka to the tune of 293 from 284 balls. Of the 40 fours that he hit while humming various tunes, 11 were off the great Muttiah Muralitharan, who was also taken for two sixes down the ground.
Murali Vijay, who added 221 for the first wicket with Sehwag, had made his debut a year earlier, but was playing only because Gautam Gambhir had left the squad to attend to his sister’s wedding. He and Pragyan Ojha, who played his first Test against Sri Lanka in Kanpur, were the only new faces in the XI. MS Dhoni, though he had first donned whites for India just four years earlier, was already playing his 40th Test.
While teams like Australia and South Africa could be blasé about the ranking, it was a big deal for India. Though the country had been the game’s commercial hub for a decade or more, performances on the field had seldom been in keeping with that top-dog status. For the likes of Tendulkar, whose career had already lasted two decades and seen nadirs like 66 all out in Durban and 81 in Barbados, this was one of the great moments in a storied career.
“This is a reflection of what we have been able to achieve in the last 20 months or so,” Tendulkar would say after the game. “It is a special day for me and all the Indians. It is great to be sitting on the top.”
Despite India needing only 7.4 overs to take the four wickets they needed on the final day, a healthy crowd had assembled by the time Murali edged Harbhajan behind to give Sri Lanka the dubious distinction of losing by an innings despite totals of 393 and 309. Long after the crowd had dispersed and the awards for the series had been handed out, the player lingered at the historic old venue. There were shouts and cheers, and jokes and laughter. Some tears too. For quite a few, journey’s end was in sight, and the prospect of getting hands on the Test Championship mace the following April meant everything.
These days, with India near to or at the top of the rankings across formats, it might be hard to fathom just what that now-distant morning meant to that group of players and those watching. Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, World Cup winners in 1983, were on commentary that morning, and their smiles were as broad as the maidans on which they had learned the game’s fundamentals.
“Pain is easy to write,” wrote Graham Greene in The End of the Affair. “In pain we’re all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?”
That morning, next to the Arabian Sea, you didn’t need to write a word. It was enough to see it.