The dark won't be there for eternity, the Sun will break out eventually... but i won't wait till infinity, all i see is the sunrise on dark horizons, in one moment, one sight...
Are we celebrating the glories of cricket? What would have been our reaction had we lost – all is hypothetical of course but booing the Srilankan team, obscene chest thumping and the needless aggression does beg the question do we actually deserve this calm and composed champion team?
Starting off with a disclaimer – I for one posted on facebook “Srl can just suck it” – what I meant to allude was that their historical ritual against India of pre-match build-up and boasting and post-match over analysis with tons of excuses esp. from Sangakara, they don’t deserve any of my compassion. Even though Sanga sung praises post-match, I am not easily swayed by such sarcastic rubbish. Also they are not the second best in the world; they are just toothless outside Srilanka and are historically mere average against India at home. At least I wasn't being mindlessly aggressive and cocky consciously.
On the win though- It bodes well for the future of Indian cricket that the next generation won us the final but can we the same for our culture? Of course these are more aggressive times compared the 80s when we first won the cup. As cricket pundits point out that was a team which beat much better teams time and again leaving more to cherish and remember. With this world-cup I for one like to believe it was more predictable and pure rationale that lead me among many to guess the journey and the final outcome; barring of course the upset by New Zealand over South Africa(not completely unexpected though).
The "faithfuls"
Coming back to the disgusting Indian fans venting their frustration publically and projecting it on others as their born right somehow I believe all the talk of India becoming a superpower, the shift in gravity towards India and China, the focus on greed and money and of course the tasteless excess of Bollywood has lead to this cultural shift from grace, dignity in the 80s to eve teasing, racism, aggression bordering on the lines of narcissism so ubiquitous nowadays.
In the end were we a long way from the stone peddlers in Bangaladesh – my guess merely a loss away. The fragile sense of self-esteem, greater sense of entitlement and the ill buffoonery – oscillating between switching off television at the slightest indication of defeat to boasting their belongingness to others are not good signs toward the wellbeing of national psyche, apparently the next superpower.
The other end of the spectrum - with frequent mood swings
Celebrating success like wins in the football worldcup is one thing, but belittling and disgracing those same “heroes” in defeat and the opposition is not way off from the rot that plagues us from within. A metaphor is celebrating Ganesh immersion or a Durga puja with all sorts of gimmicks to inhumane riots when there is a slightest bit of disconnect.
I am writing this post after a rather comforting though anxious win in first ODI over WI in the Caribbean. It has been quite a while, and no point digging old graves but let me keep up with this Indian tradition and do my bit. I have been etching to write something on this, but sometimes there are more important matters on hand than a mere game. So what went wrong and what could have avoided this?
First nothing kills like overkill: BCCI never cares for the players or the love for the game when it is up against the Gandhi backed notes. So the IPL went ahead although there was not much gap between the finals and the bigger, more important WC. I don’t know how big a factor fatigue was because Australians as they themselves claimed were all charged up and raring to go but fizzled out in very first round. And then there were teams like SA who too have played without a hiatus for long and their games were lot more competitive and demanding because all the times they squared up with Australia (Some 10 ODIs, 6 tests, 4 Twenty-20s), there was some no.1 ranking on the line. But what differentiates India is how IPL is theirs and not SA’s (13 of the 15 SA players for WC squad did participate full time in the IPL), how they carry a lot more burden with their representation and how these petty games also gained the stature of life and death in this cricket crazy, bizarre nation. Did I emphasize crazy enough? Nope ok again, a really crazy nation.
What IPL does but never tells: It divides the players into leagues, who succeed at the cost of one-another. Harbhajan is now a Mumbaikar, Sreesanth’s dosa comes all the way from Punjab, Gilli is leading at the cost of Laxman and much more. Suddenly the all united men in Blue, don’t seem to be united at all. The team had no special camp to gel together after they were made to go after each other in gay madness for a month and half. From slap-gate to the things which don’t make into the news a lot goes down in these silly games. Calling press conferences to show off the united front just shows the differences.
Half-fit side: Too much cricket and too little rest made Zaheer, Riana, Sehwag, Yuvi and all not give their best. I hope it rhymes! Whatever, If poor fielding was in anyway associated with that, then we know why we lost more than we won.
Sehwag: well you may say India has a lot of fire power, but only Yuvraj comes anywhere close to the sultan of Multan when it comes to instilling fear and intimidation in the minds of the bowlers. His one-off match-winnning innings and otherwise brisk starts were missed. More than anything, i guess Gambhir misses him.
Leaving till very late: Well we can get out of any hole and all players are capable has been the mantra that has gone down well, but there should be a lot of hunger to go along with talent to achieve that. This team lacked the bite that they had in the first WC. Losing to England, the mother of all chokers that too in twenty-20 just goes to show how awful it was.
The world has caught up: Now the bowlers around the world know how to put the breaks on scoring, we saw that in all the matches. They all have come up with an ace up their sleeves but ours still lack the bite, over-reliance on batting did cost us dearly. The SA, Pak, Sri, Ban spin attacks are better than ours and what to say about the pace battery! More so the bowlers have learnt how to bowl to India's big hitters.
Jadega: Oh man! He couldn’t have scripted a worse start to his career, could he? To his credit bowled well and if he had just batted at run a ball, his selection would have turned out to be a masterstroke. As a bowler as good as Ojha and a batter now we could have an all-rounder. But the much-touted Warne prodigy just went down and took the team with him. We can’t burden the loss on his young shoulders alone though, Dhoni played an ace too.
The Captain cool: coming to the point of Dhoni, well he is all captain-cool and has won us many matches, his record as captain has been very good till date but how do you measure coolness in Cricket? Does it mean playing safe? Does it mean no worries; there is plenty of time still left to win the game? Instead of fastening the seatbelts and driving he sometimes prefer a walk, against NZ, 3rd test this season and then against England at home in the 2nd test he showed how he was too defensive for his own good. Being defensive and waiting for things to happen in twenty-20 is not very different from digging one’s own grave and with this attitude one can never ever become a world-beater.
Twenty-20: This format is the most unpredictable in Cricket and one should not hinge a lot of thought into what goes down as the result.
TO SUM UP: India is too talented a side especially for shorter formats of the game to go down like this, the faster bowlers do have a lot to learn and without Zaheer or with unfit Zaheer we do have a lot of problems. But most probably this would only be one tiny black blemish on otherwise good record of the men in blue and this Windies tour will kick the blue out of the Men in blue. Ironic!
IPL is a great investment to nurture talent and bring out names that could have gone into oblivion or taken a considerable more time to make their mark. It puts them in scenarios where they played shoulder-to-shoulder with the legends of the game and grew in tight matches. But 14 games/team for that is just outright madness and greed! And nothing, just nothing kills like overkill!
Delhi to Lahore via POK:
This is not the first time we(or the esoteric leadership of ours) have decided to sacrifice the cricket ties with Pakis at altar of "tough talk". Theirony, though is where we(again...) were holding fragile Pakis(and subsequent concern for security of players) as prima facie for calling off the scheduled cricket series; post 26/11 we scrapped it because of carnage that followed in Bombay(our intel, leadership lapses, our pathetic internal security that is just not able to keep pace with the economic boom and attention we seem to allure) . Actually our intelligence, our internal security lapses and of course the democracy have lead to the 26/11, and revoking cricket ties will do little if at all; the terrorist organizations don't give two hoots about the game, let alone stop pulling the crap.
(What do you want Cricketers to be? Symonds was (is) one! Not an angel and certainly not a fiend! )
Chennai has got Mumabi's back:
About the historic win that we were able garner against the really admirable English unit, i think will be anything but anesthetic. Cricket or for that matter any other game is just where some highly talented individuals take the center stage to showcase their talents and it has without a doubt some good entertainment value, but they are not the heroes, the saviors of life. Its at our behest to tackle the proceedings outside the arena.
"The Beauty of the game is in the glorious uncertainties", the statement, the prophecy which we so desperately want to unsettle. The recently promulgated 3rd umpire review system for all kinds of decision is one such effort. The system which is under heavy scrutiny, in its very early days has depicted some flaws.
It seems that the logic behind reviews has not been established clearly. The cleanest one would be to have the on-field umpire give the decision first. Clear evidence should be required to overturn 'that decision', whatever it is. The assumption is that the on-field umpire is correct unless the technology INCONTROVERTIBLY proves the decision was wrong. It can't be that you need clear video evidence to give someone out. The batsman can always stand and hope that the cameras didn't catch something clearly. What if the umpire saw it clearly? If the umpire gave the batsman out, and if the replays are not clear, the on field decision would stand. Otherwise, the rule becomes "not out unless you can prove it on replay". Not fair to the fielding side. With the method above, decisions will never be worse than what they would have been without the replays. It will also be a blow to an umpire's self confidence & belief if he has to overturn his decision despite lack of damning evidence. With the method they are using now, decisions can indeed be worse when the cameras are not clear.The conspiracy theorist would be wondering whether ICC deliberately nobbled the review process, in order to ensure its failure and preserve the sanctity of the on-field umpire...
But like on so many other issues in recent times, the ICC just can't seem to do anything right. Technology is introduced, but only half-hearted and more likely than not as an alibi. Why not go the whole hog and allow the best available technology even though it may not be perfect at this stage? It probably is better than the human eye anyway and is void of any human perception or bias. Hawk-eye, the snick-o-meter and the hot spot are all tangible technologies, which, in any case, eliminate any ambiguity and have a much higher degree of acceptability between the teams involved and the public at large. How can a batsman (Dilshan) be first perceived and given out and then the decision be rescinded although the applied technology is non conclusive? Maybe Richardson should try explaining that away instead of giving lectures on how the umpires are "in any case" 94% correct in their decisions without stating the mathematical analysis upon which that conclusion was made? Are we that gullible? All but the most biased fan can accept an umpire giving a batsman not out if Hawk-eye says 0.5mm of the ball will hit 0.5mm of the top of leg stump, but few can stomach the clear-cut shockers we saw in Sydney. The review process, if properly implemented, removes these.
Another interesting twist in the tail occurred on Day 2 of the Colombo Test. Zaheer Khan had a marginal no-ball called, but there can be no referral because, as, "the batsman might well have changed his shot selection upon seeing the no-ball signal." That tilts things back toward the bat over the ball rather heavily! A simple solution: Let the 3rd umpire make all no-ball decisions based on the perfect camera. He can radio the result to the 1st umpire who can make the signal 'after' any shot has been played. This would virtually eliminate incorrect no-ball calls, and release the 1st umpire to focus attention solely on what is happening 22 yards away at the other end.
