Some things do not change. For winning a world cup, be it any sport, a team needs an inspiration. It can be the captain, coach/manager, a key player. This phenomenon can be tracked to major victories. If we take cricket, it was Kapil Dev in 1983, Allan Border in 1987, Imran Khan in 1992, Ranatunga and De Silva in 1996, Steve Waugh in 2000 (Klusener was also close), Warne in 2004.
Unfortunately, Indian cricket team lacks one such inspiration. Every player just wants to cling on to the team, now the entire team dreams of clinging on the world cup by praying for Bermuda to bring out a surprise against Bangladesh.
Whether or not Bangladesh or Ireland deserve a place in the Super 8 stage, India and Pakistan do not deserve to be there. I personally do not attach much significance to the loss against Bangladesh - it can occur to any team, an one-off occurrence - but yesterday's dismal performance made Indian cricket team reach heights of incompetence.
Firstly, the bowling did not capitalize on the friendly conditions that were available early on. Then again the bowling did not capitalize on the mistakes done by the Lankans in batting, fielding was pathetic as always. Batting, come on, we should better stop calling ourselves even good on paper. Some of the run outs, shot selections, the entire approach towards batting and achieving the target were pathetic.
Sachin Tendulkar kept up his reputation of buckling under pressure. Dravid kept up his record of an abysmal runner between wickets. Uthappa, he only knows what he tries to do in life.
There were lots of deficiencies. All teams have this. But there was absolutely no intent to win. No sense of attacking whatsoever. If one does not want to win, he won't. Indians were a bunch of tired players who deserve to retire after ten to twenty years of service and please they should come out the perception of being matured players and better start restaurants.
Greg Chappell, what has he done to the team? Nothing. He was given the full freedom, two years ahead of this event to do whatever he wants so as to have a commendable performance in this very event. He mixed and matched and tried and we ended up having to experiment even during the world cup. What happened to Pathan - he was promising as an allrounder, all of a sudden, I guess, he ran out of talent, Sehwag was opening the batting all his life (except his first few matches), Sreesanth was preferred over Agarkar in many of the matches in the last season - what happened to him; where is Dinesh Kartik - he was selected in team ahead of Kaif et al as a batsman, he was also good at his job, what happened to him during the world cup. It's not that the Indian players are world beaters and the coach ruined them. Chappell was given the freedom - to sack even the existing captain, Ganguly - so much his capacity was trusted and nothing is achieved now. So it is only logical to remove him from the post. If he cannot do something in two years time, he would not be able to anything even if he is given twenty years.
Btw, I hope Indian players would be the first ones to be 'welcomed' at home, thanks to the Murder investigation which might be carried out with the Pakistan team.
2 comments:
'welcomed' - the way you've written that scares me, even! :)
In fact the Indian players would be happier if they reach home before their Pakistani counterparts as the Indian fans might try to replicate the more 'creative' and 'expressive' ways of welcoming ceremonies hosted by Pakistani fans...It would be fun reading the newspapers and magazines for the next month or so ;)
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