Team India: Pathetic Is An Understatement

We came, we saw, had our backs to the wall and as expected lost pathetically would might just sum up our painful crusade of the Caribbeans. More than the results, it is the way we performed is disturbing and brings back the age old question: Whom these bunch of cricketers are playing for? Is it the game or the country or the millions of fans? The answer is none of the above. It is money and only money that these set of national representatives are playing for.

Losing is part of the game, and I would be the last person denying this funny attribute of the thing called sports. Having said that, won't you think even to lose you need to play at the first place. Now I guess you got where I am coming from. I am not disturbed that we again booted out quite unceremoniously from yet another ICC event, but the nature, attitude and vigour we participated in the event. The very question that if we ever looked like a team participating not just to fill the numbers but to leave a mark there is disturbing. Even a team full with refuges from Afghanistan seemed more interested to leave a mark than our own so called one of the best teams in the world. Like justice, effort also not just be put in but should appear to be put in. In either way we were never there as we never put the desired effort to begin with let alone make it appear so.

How does this happen? The answer is we didn't batted well, bowled well or fielded well. Is there anything other than these three aspect left in the game? Oh yes we partied well and had a good session of beach volleyball with bikini babes. We started with sending an awfully wrong team and if that was not enough we continued playing the wrong eleven in almost every match. Like our government offices our captain suffering from a sudden bout of superiority complex continued showering his favors to all the non performers in the team. I don't have a clue: how in earth, Dinesh Karthik always gets a slot in the team as the stand-in keeper and almost always end up opening the innings at some point of the tour. Even if there is nothing much to write back home for this guy, our selectors continue loving him giving seasoned opener like Manish Panday or for that matter even Robbin Utthapa to cool their heels. Poor Pragyan Ojha might be doing rounds to a Jyotishi to figure out the reason of he being axed from the team after being the highest wicket takers in the last IPL. He dearly needs some Grah Shanti hawan in a hurry.

Other than Suresh Raina and Asish Nehra others look like a bunch of school kids out there to have some fun. When people back home were awake till 2 in the morning, fans flying down to St.Lucia from far off places like USA for this miracle match and seeing their team going down, without even giving a fight is disappointing. I am not a player myself but still struggling to equate the reason behind Mahendra Sing Dhoni promoting himself up the order leaving hitters like Yuvraj, Rohit Sharma and Yusuf Pathan baking in the dugout. At some point of the match I felt as if Dhoni need to be reminded, it is a 20-20 match not the Test cricket where some say we are topping the ICC list. Scoring only 35 runs from your last 5 overs when you are only two down with big hitters in your rank later is criminal. As soon as Raina gave some glimmer of hope that we might just reach 180+ and give the miracle a chance to help us our captain seemed to have some other ideas. Thanks to his ideas we fell well short of 180 mark and gave ourselves only 143 to defend for the miracle to take over.

I was sure of we losing badly as bowlers haven't won us a match in last decade or so and this wasn't going to be any special day either. Two quick wickets did sparked some hope but only to be shot lived when Dilshan hit Turbunator for 13 runs in his first over. Harbajan is another selection which baffles me a lot. Here is this bowler who is playing international cricket for a dozen year end up taking 0 wickets in whole of super 8 stage. Need some serious introspection before we tout him to be a world class stuff.

Now we are back at the same question: has IPL got anything to do with this pathetic performance for two consecutive years? We would get advocates supporting both sides but as of Dhoni goes, he admitted the after effects of IPL partially. Well my sympathy is with him as he has to please his bosses in BCCI at the same time taking up the blame and furnishing few excuses. The moment I start believing the IPL to be the demon in disguise I see Jayawardhane, Malinga, Shaun Tait, Dev Warner, Shane Watson performing exceptionally while they have played equal amount of cricket in IPL if not more where in Ravindra Jadeja who seemed out of place and ideas haven't played a single match of IPL.

Im whichever way, another ICC event passed by with we searching for answers and busy packing our bags too early. IPL or no IPL, I feel we continue to do glaring mistakes: starting from team selection to deciding the playing 11. Somehow we are not still sure of our strengths and weaknesses. Honestly before even thinking of winning any ICC event we first have to set straight all the disjoints in our basics. Kris Shrikanth are you listening?