Indians still think wisdom flows from the British

Last year when England was walloping India in the Test series in England, the media there, both electronic and print were questioning how India could ever have been the number one team with the record that they had outside India.

It was the ICC which had devised the points system and if it was accepted by everybody when it was to be implemented, then there is no reason for anybody to question it now, was what the Indian media contingent tried to explain but not with much success. India had attained the number one ranking in November 2009 and lost it with those heavy defeats in England in August 2011.

England leapfrogged over India to get the number one ranking and since then it has been a hard time for them. They lost all the one-day matches they played in India in October which has made it 11 one-day matches in a row in India and only last week they suffered the ignominy of losing all three Test matches to Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.

Even as England were about to lose the third Test, it was quite amusing to hear the very same people who were questioning India's ranking as number one saying that whatever the results, England were still the number one team because that was how the ICC rankings panned out.

Ashwin's ice cool temperament saved the day

These double standards are not new to those who have followed sports and the way the British media deals with it. Take the case of Caroline Wozniacki, who was till the just concluded Australian Open tennis tournament, the number one ranked womens player in the world.

The media just would not accept her as the number one simply because she had not won a major title though her record in other tournaments was mighty impressive and which is what won her the points that got her the number one ranking. She had the ranking for quite some time and so it showed that she was a good player. Yet she was not accepted as number one.

Then sometime last year, the one and only Tiger Woods lost his number one ranking in golf because he was unable to play a tournament for a long time because of his injuries. His place at the top of the rankings was taken by Luke Donald and sometime later by Lee Westwood, both Britishers.

Both have never won a major title but with consistent performances and good finishes garnered the points to be number one. Did the British media crib about them as number one because they had not won a major? No sir, they did not and instead talked about how consistent these players were in all the tournaments and so deserved their number one ranking.

Unfortunately, despite being independent now for over 60 years, we in India still think that wisdom flows from these biased, one-eyed people. More is the pity.

The Pakistanis played extremely well in the three Tests despite their batting not clicking, however Rob Nicol the New Zealander with consistent all round performances against minnows Zimbabwe in the one-dayers is the CEAT International Cricketer of the Week.

Professional Management Group