ASHES

Indian team failed a million hopes and there is huge disappointment and dejection. But anger is not something I feel. I think the team made the one big mistake against Bangladesh and were caught on the wrong foot. Sri Lanka was always going to be tough. But there is nobody ho should be blamed for the defeat. Sure enough someone has to take the responsibility and Dravid rightly took the responsibility for the poor show. But this is not to say that there was something lacking with Dravid, its not that someone else could necessarily have produced a different result. Even the team selection was never a worry apart from the inclusion of Sehwag. But he had the support of the Captain and provided some support to his captain in return as well. India played tow good practice games and there was nothing wrong till then.

But TV channels as expected are going after the players and ofcourse the coach. People are questioning his process. I even heard an aajtak reporter say that what was the coach thinking playing khokho and kabbaddi in practice sessions. Such idiots who have probably touched a cricket ball equal to the number of hundreds greg chappel would have made. But suddenly everyone knows what’s wrong with the team. The fact that Greg Chappel is a failure can not be overlooked, but to question what he was doing not the way out.

I might not be able to put down my thoughts on this issue in a structured manner right now, but sure enough I still support the Indian team. I will stay up tonight to see if Bermuda can surprise Bangladesh and India can sneak in.

There was an interesting comment in the paper that said we expect our team to beat everyone, we end up losing to Bangladesh and this difference in expectation and reality is making our cricket suffer. As I tried to analyse some of the previous world cups I realized that in 1983 nobody expected India to win the cup, not many put their money on Australia to win in 1987 in the subcontinent. I don’t think even Pakistan would have thought they had any chance after losing to India and bowled out for 74 against England in 1992. Sri Lanka were clearly not the favourites to win in 1996 and again in 1999 Australia had their backs to the wall and had put the burden of expectations in the trash and just went out and won. Sadly something like that can never happen with India.

Even I hope India wins almost everytime they play, but I know like most of the crickets that have ever played the game that defeat is as much a part of the game as victory. So if you lose one you look forward to winning the next one.

Labels: Reality