Monday, March 26, 2007

Things that could have been!

During the India-SL match, when the outcome had become pretty much obvious me and my friends were discussing about what all could be done to salvage Indian pride at the last moment.

The unimaginative me came up with the solution that we all should contribute little to a fund which should be offered to the bangladeshi team for throwing away their match against bermuda.

Another one said maybe the Indian team should train the bermuda team for some time. We all dismissed it saying that they themselves could not beat Bangladesh - how can they teach the Bermudans to do the same?

Maybe India should send some players they had not selected to bermuda to play for their team. But this is not feasible.

And then when we thought we have exhausted all options, the genius in one of my friends , Muthu, awoke.

"India should attack and capture Bangladesh tonite. No matter what happens India would be playing in the super 8 then."

Sunday, March 25, 2007

March Madness

I hate March. It always makes me mad and sad!

This month was supposed to be exciting. World cup will start. I was thinking of how to get time off work to be able to watch matches. I am sure there were millions around the world who had made plans to have all nighters to watch the games and somehow still be productive the next day at work.

The "Men in Blue" made it all too simple for all of us. They got out in the first round itself so that Indians wont lose that much sleep and continue to work with as much zeal and enthusiasm as possible.

It is not that they lost but the way in which they surrendered which dissapointed me. I recently read an article about how in a match that was all but lost Brett Lee gave it all into his feilding making englishmen work for runs in a match which they had almost won. And this makes you feel Australia is not just number 1 for no reason. Those guys try that much harder to be where they are. I always feel a team's dedication is shown in the field. Indians fielded like zombies and the team spirit was clearly missing. I am not a big Ganguly fan but one thing that is clearly missing in this team and that of the team when Ganguly initially took over is this zeal. Seeing Dravid field at long on in the 48th over was torture when he gave up a chase where two runs were there for saving. He did not even try. He had cramps - yeah then go to pavalion and sit it out man or field in the inner circle but please dont be fielding in logon in the death overs.

The less said about our batting the better it is. I am just so tired of listening to the cliched line that this is the most powerful batting line up after Australia. No it is not. Tendulkar is not what he used to be. He is a great player for what he has already achieved but not because of the way he is playing. There are so many other player who on current form are better than Tendulkar. Sehwag is lottery - I think Dravid's decision to back him up when he has shown so less potential in 2 years was a bad bad thing for india. Dravid is a good player but not destructive. Ganguly played well but never looked assured or dominating. The only hope in the batting order was Yuvi getting into the form of last year which made him so dangerous. He was there but got run out against SL. Dhoni, I dont know where to put him yet. He looks like Sehwag. The day he loses his form he most probably cant come back.

I was slowly losing my enthusiam in cricket and I should thank this performance on Indian team which has definitely pushed me over the line and I dont think I will an as avid follower of cricket as I was.

Also before ending I would like to express my pitty for Barbados which was supposed to get a lot of revenue coz of the exciting India matches being played there. I still dont know whether its worth it to go to carribean and watch bangladesh vs ireland for which I have tickets.

This much for the mad month of March.