Sweet dreams are made of these....

 There's a reason why some of the best victories, even in the longer format, are termed as flukes, because the same results remain elusive given the same set of situations and conditions at any other points of time. When Bangladesh scored its first ever victory over Australia in a world cup game, and Kenya repeated the same antics against West Indies, and similar such David Goliath upsets happened throughout history, the cricketing world acknowledged such glorious uncertainties as a part and parcel of the game, that too in the shorter format, and that those wins are credited more to the fantastical nature of the sport itself than to the teams themselves that actually pull the proverbial rabbits off the magical hats. 

"On their day" is a phrase that is often used in sport, when a not so brilliant sportsman turns in an amazing performance on a day and the commentators (condescendingly) build him up with that phrase for all his future arrivals at the crease... "on his day, he can be quite a handful", "on his day, he can turn the fortunes of his town on his own". That itself indicates how "his days" are so few and far between. In any given sport, on his day, any player of a reasonable repute can achieve the near impossible. And unfortunately that performance becomes the yardstick he would be adjudged his subsequent assignments against, allowing the faint flicker of his career to sustain on the prospect of an encore. It is reasonable to assume that he can seldom come close to it again, leave alone topping it. That is why Bangladesh's record against the Aussies in the shorter format remains steadfast on that solitary win, Kenya has never put past the Windies (even in its current form) again. 

That flukes can occur even in test matches is also a known fact, when a lowly ranked team invites an upper crust one to its soil, rigs the conditions in its favor (usually with rank turner pitches), loads up its roster with tweakers of all ilk and inflicts crushing loss upon the unwitting opponent. It gets filed under a different kind of fluke, where the win is accorded to the inhospitable conditions and the inability of the tourists to quickly get acclimatized to it. "The house always wins", goes a gambling saying, meaning, on a protracted timeline, there is no beating someone with deep pockets full of rich resources. In Test cricket, and more in a test series, that saying really rings true, for, even if the stronger side is mauled by a stroke of misfortune in a test, the chances that it is going to quickly rebound and reclaim its place in the sun are much more. But what of a series, where flukes happen thrice in a row, the house doesn't always win, with everyone in the team, the 11 of them, having his own "on his day" moment, and 11 days combined somehow wrests the series from the iron grip of traditional favorites? Is it still a fluke? Nope, it becomes an "Arc".

Arcs in a test series are so rare, and even more are ones that offer a 180 degree transformation. Arcs are what make stories interesting and exciting. If pundits presage the proceedings, and the plot moves along the same predicted lines with victory inevitably beckoning upon the pre-destined, it might make the case for the conventional wisdom but it might not make an interesting story. But, sometimes, through some inexplicable tear in the fabric of time, a team that is beaten down and counted out suddenly rises and does the unthinkable, run by run, wicket by wicket, session by session, day after day, test after test and week after week, then the story is considered to have a strong arc, with the once vanquished turning into the eventual victor, riding on the dormant valor, latent courage and hidden talent. That's about it. That is the extent of the story. The story completes at the end of the arc. 

The just concluded series had that perfect arc, where the underdog, and a beaten one at that, rises through the ashes, and triumphs in the end against all odds. Sports movies and documentaries would die (and kill) for such kind of resurgence stories. Though India produced a similar result a couple of decades ago, that time also against an even mightier Australians, in 2001, that it happened at home on turning tracks in favorable conditions in front of a raucous home crowds and more importantly with a team that was packed with record holders and hall of famers, would take sheen a bit away as against the current win in a polar opposite way - on foreign soil, in hostile conditions, overcoming  mental, physical, medical and psychological barriers, and all that with a side that could be regarded at best as warm-up act to the original headliners - all making a very strong case for the coveted title "THE GREATEST EVER", in the Indian context. 

While the first world cup win in 1983 was just as stupefying (and electrifying) with a ragtag band of merry men riding their good fortunes on the back of strong performances all the way to the pinnacle of glory, it was still in limited overs, even when up against formidable sides and impossible odds. The arduous task of having to pull off those kind of limited over heroics session after session over 5 days and then over 3 tests, coming off a career worst performance, with an even ragger-tag band of wide eyed men, many of whom were making their bones in the longer format for the first time, is the stuff fairytales are made of. It doesn't happen often, in fact, it almost never happens. And the kicker is, like it is with a fluke, impossible to recreate it again.

Can this be a transformative moment for the team, to take the leap from being strong side to being an outright invincible one? Hard to say, as there is no preparing for such moments, wins as these just happen and when they do, they are to be savored, and never to be wished for again. Can this be a teachable moment otherwise? May be, of courage and conviction, of grit and gumption, of belief and motivation. "The game" doesn't get to keep the credit for series as these, "the spirit" does.