That's it ! Its curtains for India as we made the exit, rather officially, after Bangladesh beat Bermuda with few initial hiccups. What next? One thing is for sure, the World cup loses much of its viewership along with India's premature exit. More importantly it will hurt the organizers monetarily as much of sponsorship came from Indian companies, who may withdraw. In any case the World Cup which started with much hoopla, no longer will excite very many Indians,especially those in India, who have to sacrifice their sleep. At least with no stories of houses being flattened so far, I must admit that I am quite happy. But then, I am not oblivious to the fact that no such incident occured simply because people have resigned themselves to the fate.
I fail to understand what exactly spurs people to attack player's houses. I agree there are lot of expectations, but at the end of the day, it is just a game. It is okay to criticize someone, but totally another thing to bring down houses or pelt stones. I think the media should be blamed (well atleast partially) for causing so much hype. Probably it is time we rethink our philosophy. We should discontinue the National slogan,"Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God." I am not saying this because the team does not deserve it, but if this 'religion' breeds violence then I do not want to embrace it.
I understand World Cup is the biggest event in Cricket today. Preparations for next World Cup begins the day, the current WC gets over. However, I think that we should treat all tournaments and series as equally important. It is not true here that you only have to win the war and not the battles. If you allow me to compare this with exams in school, one will definitely treat all exams equally, be it Quarterly or Half-yearly exams. Annual exam is important but then if you do not prepare properly for the other exams then chances are that you will not do much better in the Final exam. I strongly feel that we should stop talking about preparations for next WC, but just think of the next series at hand. Take it very seriously even if it is against a not so important team ! This attitude, I think, is the one big difference between the top teams and India.
There are talks of changing the captain already. I think it is stupid to change captain at this juncture. I know lot of captains were sacked after the 2003 World Cup, but I think there is no reason to sack Dravid. One major reason being I do not think anyone is capable of leading the country at this point, barring Ganguly. But I do not think it is in the offing. I also feel that Greg Chappell should be allowed to continue, but I can already see the axe hanging above his neck. I hope people understand how difficult it is to build a team in just inside two years. It will be very unjust to say that Chappell failed in his mission.
Some tidbits. This just occured to me. There is a recurring pattern, a pattern which can be called as an Alternate law. It is that India has been performing well in alternate WC's, which also means that we are performing badly every other WC. Consider 1992 WC, we fared very badly, just managing to beat Zimbabwe and Pakistan. In 1996 we reached the semi finals, only to be butchered by Lankans. In 1999, again we barely made into Super Six stage, even then, we hardly made any impact. 2003 is a year etched in all the cricket loving fans from India, especially people from my generation, because I was a toddler when India lifted the Prudential cup in Lord's. So 2003 is the next best !! And yeah 2007 was a bad dream. So is it going to be 2011, then? We will have to wait for 4 years for that...........
I fail to understand what exactly spurs people to attack player's houses. I agree there are lot of expectations, but at the end of the day, it is just a game. It is okay to criticize someone, but totally another thing to bring down houses or pelt stones. I think the media should be blamed (well atleast partially) for causing so much hype. Probably it is time we rethink our philosophy. We should discontinue the National slogan,"Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God." I am not saying this because the team does not deserve it, but if this 'religion' breeds violence then I do not want to embrace it.
I understand World Cup is the biggest event in Cricket today. Preparations for next World Cup begins the day, the current WC gets over. However, I think that we should treat all tournaments and series as equally important. It is not true here that you only have to win the war and not the battles. If you allow me to compare this with exams in school, one will definitely treat all exams equally, be it Quarterly or Half-yearly exams. Annual exam is important but then if you do not prepare properly for the other exams then chances are that you will not do much better in the Final exam. I strongly feel that we should stop talking about preparations for next WC, but just think of the next series at hand. Take it very seriously even if it is against a not so important team ! This attitude, I think, is the one big difference between the top teams and India.
There are talks of changing the captain already. I think it is stupid to change captain at this juncture. I know lot of captains were sacked after the 2003 World Cup, but I think there is no reason to sack Dravid. One major reason being I do not think anyone is capable of leading the country at this point, barring Ganguly. But I do not think it is in the offing. I also feel that Greg Chappell should be allowed to continue, but I can already see the axe hanging above his neck. I hope people understand how difficult it is to build a team in just inside two years. It will be very unjust to say that Chappell failed in his mission.
Some tidbits. This just occured to me. There is a recurring pattern, a pattern which can be called as an Alternate law. It is that India has been performing well in alternate WC's, which also means that we are performing badly every other WC. Consider 1992 WC, we fared very badly, just managing to beat Zimbabwe and Pakistan. In 1996 we reached the semi finals, only to be butchered by Lankans. In 1999, again we barely made into Super Six stage, even then, we hardly made any impact. 2003 is a year etched in all the cricket loving fans from India, especially people from my generation, because I was a toddler when India lifted the Prudential cup in Lord's. So 2003 is the next best !! And yeah 2007 was a bad dream. So is it going to be 2011, then? We will have to wait for 4 years for that...........
