it's 10.50 PM and this is it, today finally the anger spills over...just finished watching the 5th ODI between Australia and India and if you didn't watch it, don't read this, you just won't get it...in India, we treat cricket as religion but is it really our fault?
How can you not when you have people like Sachin who perform acts that are nothing short of miraculous, to keep playing for 20 years and still have the insatiable thirst for runs? When a man who is 36, considered normally the fag end of a batsman's career (specially when you've been playing since 16) turns up on the day and scores 170+ at a rate normally reserved for the young guns of cricket, drags the whole team one 6 away from the finish line, against all odds, can you really blame us for the emotional highs and lows that govern the life of every Indian cricket follower?
But this is not an ode to Sachin, it's an outburst against Indian cricket and the mentality of the players...
'Australianism': a single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. (a quote by John Arlott made in the golden years of Bradman)
'Indianism': To inspire 1.1 billion people with their acts but at the end of the day, with the exception of a few greats, play for personal glory and not for the greater good.
It's 5 matches down in the series and you have to wonder, Australia have lost half their first XI to injuries and yet they manage to win. Are we really that bad?
India almost lost the first match but came back splendidly thanks to a memorable knock by Bhajji and Praveen Kumar but when it came to the crunch, 9 runs off the last over, the team buckled under pressure. We won the 2nd and 3rd but then again in the 4th, on a belter of a track, bowled splendidly to get Aus out for 250. What happened that time? Why did we lose then? Because complacency is an Indian mentality, 250 runs on a pure batting track and everybody took it lightly, it was up to Bhajji and Praveen Kumar again to try and drag the team across but we fell short yet again.
And then today, how can you describe a match that gives you immeasurable pride in being called an Indian and yet utter disgust at the same time. We've got Aus well roped in, 160 at the end of 30 overs and they end up scoring 190 in the last 20 overs. WHY?? We chase, the top-order loses its way, Sehwag does his blitzkreig, flash-in-the-pan 30-odd run routine and gets out, time to take some accountability buddy. Sachin and Raina almost pull off a miracle, scoring at a constant 7 runs an over, throughout the middle overs but then, in one moment of glory, all is lost. Raina goes out to a shot that had no business being there, Bhajji after showing the great temperament and skill in the past 4 matches, acts stupid on the one day the team needs him, not just for India but to justify Sachin's epic knock. Jadeja has no business playing in international cricket, he can't handle the pressure, the past 4 matches have shown it, he either can't score or if he ends up scoring, he gets into the 'personal glory' mode and gets run out because he's so eager to be in the spotlight. I mean which player, commentator, spectator can justify the two times he's got run out?? Was there ever a run in there? But no, we play for ourselves. How can you? After watching one of the most memorable knocks to be played by any batsman, with odds stacked heavily against, how can you forget the big picture and live for yourself??
If the Indian team management doesn't have the sense to throw this kid out and get somebody like one of the Pathan brothers or Kaif or anybody who can handle pressure, then you know what, we deserve it, we deserve to come so close and yet lose everytime.
And then come the glorious two, the no. 10 and no. 11 of indian batting. Don't they feel humiliated by the way they bat? To watch Bhajji come across the years and improve his batting the way he has, doesn't it inspire them to do something about it? But no, they feel that if they've come out to bat, the match is over, let's just have some fun, hit a coupla shots, if they connect, our batting avg will jump from 4.5 to 7.5 and if they don't, it doesn't matter, nobody expects anything of us anyways. This is where the difference between world runners-up and the world champions comes in.
They fight, they fight, and they don't let go till the last run is made or the last wicket is gone. They believe, they believe that they can come back from any situation, it's what makes them world champions. To be defending 350, have the opposition 4 wickets down for a paltry sum and still show the kind of determination in the field that they do, can we really say that they don't deserve to win? To be playing a half second-bench team means nothing to them, because they all believe that they all belong to the first XI.
And who suffers the most in this extraordinarily volatile epic?? The Indian fan, they believe, to have 1.1 billion people believe and be treated this way is not fair. The fans who switched off the match when 4 wickets went down were deprived of one of the greatest moments in world cricket and yet spared one of the biggest heartbreaks in Indian cricket. Because for those of us who watched, we were in the lows, Raina and Sachin pulled us out of the abyss, made us believe, took us to an emotional high we didn't know we had and then we fell, fell hard. The saying holds true... "the higher you go, the harder you fall." Today exemplified it brilliantly, nothing could be truer. To watch two players play hard, play with heart, play with a single-minded determination to win and then see the rest come out and emit a vibe of purposelessness, hurts like nobody can tell. This kind of emotional upheaval shows some unseen things, the quiet and reserved fan showing fury, anger at the loss...the aggressive fan showing absolute and utter despair, the medical teams should be put on high alert everytime India gets into a close match because you know it's war, and there's gonna be collateral damage. People might ask, why, why do you behave this way, who asks you to take cricket so seriously. I have one answer for them.
How can you not when you have people like Sachin who perform acts that are nothing short of miraculous, to keep playing for 20 years and still have the insatiable thirst for runs? When a man who is 36, considered normally the fag end of a batsman's career (specially when you've been playing since 16) turns up on the day and scores 170+ at a rate normally reserved for the young guns of cricket, drags the whole team one 6 away from the finish line, against all odds, can you really blame us for the emotional highs and lows that govern the life of every Indian cricket follower?
But this is not an ode to Sachin, it's an outburst against Indian cricket and the mentality of the players...
'Australianism': a single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. (a quote by John Arlott made in the golden years of Bradman)
'Indianism': To inspire 1.1 billion people with their acts but at the end of the day, with the exception of a few greats, play for personal glory and not for the greater good.
It's 5 matches down in the series and you have to wonder, Australia have lost half their first XI to injuries and yet they manage to win. Are we really that bad?
India almost lost the first match but came back splendidly thanks to a memorable knock by Bhajji and Praveen Kumar but when it came to the crunch, 9 runs off the last over, the team buckled under pressure. We won the 2nd and 3rd but then again in the 4th, on a belter of a track, bowled splendidly to get Aus out for 250. What happened that time? Why did we lose then? Because complacency is an Indian mentality, 250 runs on a pure batting track and everybody took it lightly, it was up to Bhajji and Praveen Kumar again to try and drag the team across but we fell short yet again.
And then today, how can you describe a match that gives you immeasurable pride in being called an Indian and yet utter disgust at the same time. We've got Aus well roped in, 160 at the end of 30 overs and they end up scoring 190 in the last 20 overs. WHY?? We chase, the top-order loses its way, Sehwag does his blitzkreig, flash-in-the-pan 30-odd run routine and gets out, time to take some accountability buddy. Sachin and Raina almost pull off a miracle, scoring at a constant 7 runs an over, throughout the middle overs but then, in one moment of glory, all is lost. Raina goes out to a shot that had no business being there, Bhajji after showing the great temperament and skill in the past 4 matches, acts stupid on the one day the team needs him, not just for India but to justify Sachin's epic knock. Jadeja has no business playing in international cricket, he can't handle the pressure, the past 4 matches have shown it, he either can't score or if he ends up scoring, he gets into the 'personal glory' mode and gets run out because he's so eager to be in the spotlight. I mean which player, commentator, spectator can justify the two times he's got run out?? Was there ever a run in there? But no, we play for ourselves. How can you? After watching one of the most memorable knocks to be played by any batsman, with odds stacked heavily against, how can you forget the big picture and live for yourself??
If the Indian team management doesn't have the sense to throw this kid out and get somebody like one of the Pathan brothers or Kaif or anybody who can handle pressure, then you know what, we deserve it, we deserve to come so close and yet lose everytime.
And then come the glorious two, the no. 10 and no. 11 of indian batting. Don't they feel humiliated by the way they bat? To watch Bhajji come across the years and improve his batting the way he has, doesn't it inspire them to do something about it? But no, they feel that if they've come out to bat, the match is over, let's just have some fun, hit a coupla shots, if they connect, our batting avg will jump from 4.5 to 7.5 and if they don't, it doesn't matter, nobody expects anything of us anyways. This is where the difference between world runners-up and the world champions comes in.
They fight, they fight, and they don't let go till the last run is made or the last wicket is gone. They believe, they believe that they can come back from any situation, it's what makes them world champions. To be defending 350, have the opposition 4 wickets down for a paltry sum and still show the kind of determination in the field that they do, can we really say that they don't deserve to win? To be playing a half second-bench team means nothing to them, because they all believe that they all belong to the first XI.
And who suffers the most in this extraordinarily volatile epic?? The Indian fan, they believe, to have 1.1 billion people believe and be treated this way is not fair. The fans who switched off the match when 4 wickets went down were deprived of one of the greatest moments in world cricket and yet spared one of the biggest heartbreaks in Indian cricket. Because for those of us who watched, we were in the lows, Raina and Sachin pulled us out of the abyss, made us believe, took us to an emotional high we didn't know we had and then we fell, fell hard. The saying holds true... "the higher you go, the harder you fall." Today exemplified it brilliantly, nothing could be truer. To watch two players play hard, play with heart, play with a single-minded determination to win and then see the rest come out and emit a vibe of purposelessness, hurts like nobody can tell. This kind of emotional upheaval shows some unseen things, the quiet and reserved fan showing fury, anger at the loss...the aggressive fan showing absolute and utter despair, the medical teams should be put on high alert everytime India gets into a close match because you know it's war, and there's gonna be collateral damage. People might ask, why, why do you behave this way, who asks you to take cricket so seriously. I have one answer for them.
BECAUSE THOSE 11 MEN IN BLUE OUT THERE, MAKE US BELIEVE.
Just an outburst of frustration by another ordinary Indian cricket fan.
Peace
gRiNcH <3 the MEN IN BLUE (irrespective of whatever happens)







