Thursday, April 05, 2007

Cricket...what else!

When I wrote this in May 2005, I hoped for 'beginning of golden period' of Indian Cricket, thing looked bright to begin with, but somehow script changed dramatically right after WI tour, DLF cup and Champions Trophy, and WC 07 turned out to be last nail in the coffin.

Though, it was on cards even before start of WC, and now with Tendulkar's outburst has delivered a final verdict.

Everything is in big mess; our board seems to be seriously competing with PCB in terms of generating controversies and creating uglier mess.
Every other day, one member or another is passing stupid comments and directly or indirectly blaming Chappell for WC debacle.

It all started with Ganguly's outburst against Chappell right in middle of a test-match, and Ganguly played his cards right after scoring a ton against Zimbabwe, taking cue from him Laxman also said few things, and in the end both were dropped. (But in current scene, Tendulkar's reaction to Chappell's 'alleged' resulted in opposite outcome, which clearly shows how big he is.)

Ganguly made a comeback without doing anything worth-deserving a place, he was recalled only coz Rainas/Kaifs/Raos/Mongias failed, and Yuvi got injured. Once back in team, he clearly played for himself, not for team.
If you ask me, we lost the World Cup during the phase when 'Ganguly-Tendulkar' played too defensively against Bangladesh, and set the pace and momentum of whole inning. In case of Ganguly, he played worst even against Bermuda, his inning included 70 dot balls, yes 70 i.e. almost 12 overs.

Sometimes, seems that media is driving India Cricket,

- first they published excerpts from Chappell's WC report which he'll present to BCCI in next meeting,
- and in 'leaked' report he blamed senior players for showing bad-attitude etc etc,
- in response to that Sachin made some emotional statements,
- then Chappell called all that media's imagination, and vehemently denied having written anything against anybody.
- then Chappell decides enough is enough and resign,
- now media is blaming BCCI for WC debacle.

All they care for is breaking-news or new controversy, though they are right this time but their 'timing' is as always ‘bad’.

Now question is, who is next?
No sensible foreigner will come forward, and even if one comes forward in lure of big money, let’s say King Richards, will never ever open his mouth and will end-up like a puppet in hands of BCCI.

Though dice is heavily loaded in favor of Sandip Patil as interim coach for next month's B'desh tour, anyways he is much better than Joker Amarnath the other contender.

I don't even want to talk about Rice-dealer's proposed league; he is a businessman to the core and just wants to exploit the current cricketing situation.

Bad timing everyone ‘Media/Chappell/Sachin/BCCI/Subhash Chandra’!!

After all cricket and life are all about timing.