It was another day of mediocre and gutless cricket by the Indian team which has left its fans disappointed and has thrown it on the verge of exit from the T20 world cup which is being held at West Indies. The performance of the team is reminiscent of the last T20 world cup which was held in England ten months back. While the setting has changed the actors and their performances remain the same. It seems that the Indian team has learned nothing from its past mistakes. Players have again been caught off guard against the short pitched deliveries. The team which boasts of one of the most vibrant and explosive batting line up on paper has again failed to meet the standards of international cricket.
While the players are definitely to be blamed for this dismal lackluster performance of the team, the BCCI is equally to be blamed with biggest culprit being the IPL. Many people have argued that IPL has actually helped in the development of cricket in India. While the privy purses that it has to offer has certainly helped certain individuals, on the whole it has just given India more number of second-rate players who have been handy in the minor skirmishes that IPL has to offer but have failed to fight the battles of the international cricket. One can only feel anguish by looking at the performances of Murli Vijay and Ravindra Jadeja who were very successful in the different versions of the IPL but have looked thoroughly incompetent in the world cup. The one and a half month of continuous cricket has also left players like Sehwag injured. The same was the case last year when India was not able to play with its full bench strength.
While flat batsmen friendly pitches and short boundaries have helped produce some very high scoring matches and have helped sell the brand IPL, they have left the batsmen unprepared for the higher levels of cricket. Also these wicket provide almost no assistance to the bowlers and have pushed them on the back foot. There are no incentives for the bowlers to bend their backs and generate pace. They are rather forced to cut the pace and to rely on variations like slow back-of-the-hand deliveries. Over the years many fast bowlers who had initially emerged as a good prospect ended up cutting their pace.
Though India would be playing the 2011 World Cup matches at home grounds to its advantage, there is still a necessity to produce more bowler conducive pitches for the domestic level cricket to help players develop their game in the long run. Lets hope that BCCI makes the necessary changes in the future because it would be emotionally tormenting to see Indian team perform in a similar manner in the future tournaments.
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5 comments:
A typical cricket-fanatic Indian. :P
*Thank God, I got over this in time!! ;)
I am curious whether u actually read the post or just post a comment.. :P
Do tell.
Emotionally tormenting. indeed
I DID read it.
Its just the typical Indian who lives in cricket, relates soo much to it, that it reaches the levels of being 'emotionally tormented' ;-) by their performances.
Analyses the hits and misses of cricket, more than what they do for themselves or their lives. :P
@TJ: I think its important to have some passion in your life. It brings with it joys and sorrows and I guess that is what life is all about. Now for most of the Indians, that passion is cricket. So we do live in that world at are thus affected by the victories and defeats.
And you are also right that some people are more interested in analyzing cricket than their life. I think its kind of an escape route.
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