Blues Billion

It is official now. Indian cricket team is the second test playing nation, which was expected to win, is now knocked out of the WC in the first round itself.

Bermuda could not save India. All weekend 'blue billion' prayers for its victory went into drains. Rumours are on that a group of people handpicked from various parts of the country who have perfected their skills in self-molestation, last-rites performance, abuse have sought visas to visit Bermuda just to publicly (read amidst media glare) liquidate Bermuda cricket team players' effigy for their inability to make India reach Super-8. Everyone is trying to find fault with every associated persons (especially the players) and want to put their heads under guillotine. Every Tom, Dick and Harry (TD&H) has perfected his/her skill of what that or this player should have done. Being in India and my name serves the thamizh equivalent of TD&H, I too found moral right to give my expert comments. As a one who fately stumbled upon this link, you are destined to read my comments. Bear with them as you did with the Indian team's performance. Here is my mandatory overs. Sarcasm is at its peak, as a solace. Let us see bit objectively here.

What made Indians lose so cheap?

If the conspiracy theory that bookies-cum-mafias have threated and/or bribed the players is true, then nothing in the team's performance that we need to worry. It now falls in the hands of our CBI who would take it up only after they successfully allow Mr.Q to slip through their nose once again and after looking for the disproportionate amassing of wealth by every ward councillor. A Mark Shields would hail suddenly and media will give importance to him a la Brooke Shields. If the case is not that then, as a true Indian and a cricket fan I have to give my esteemed opinion on the team and its performance. So let us take that it the consipiracy theory is not true.

I do not subscribe to the general people's belief that Indian team has the potential and did not deliver. For the past one year or so I have been feeling that Indian team does not have potential to win any series, any more. Whatever potential it had it seized. They have proved it through their performance. In fact in a few matches in home they have even trashed the tagline lords of local. Indian fans have been wrongly setting their expectations based on a few players who were delivering half a decade ago. Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly are rather were real heroes upto last WC. They started showing that they are aging then on. Aging is not merely due to biological clock but also based on number of matches played. If Gavaskar and his period players were able to play till they reached 40s it was because they played less number of matches and hence were less injured (wear & tear). So ideally the board should have looked for slowly phasing them out after this WC. Maintaining two of this trio in the matches and relying less on them to win the match and expecting only their support is what the board should have done and fans should have prioritised. But what has happened is time and again the dependency on the trio did not diminish. Once in a blue moon, that too in local conditions, a person from the "new generation" won match for the team. But there never was consistency shown by them. This too probably could have made the board and fans to further rely only on the trio to deliver. But again its wrong priority. It is purely these "new generation" players and their mentors in the board have failed the team. These players do not have the potential to be of international calibre (to term it blatant) or have not played to their potential (to still give them their undue credit). Persisting with these dhonis, yuvarajs, harbajans, zaheers, agarkars, robins and shewags has what shown the early doors to the team in the WC, deservingly. I do not naively blame these players's non-cricketing revenue generation stream to be the reason for their failure. Fans and those who blame on these player's time in ad is missing a point here. Ad films of the players have been repeatedly telecasted but they are shooted only once. Players however, on an average, do not appear in more than three ads in a year. That might, at a max take one week effort of those players. For spending a week time if they get millions then its their luck. Those who blame them for this luck are blaming them more out of jelousy and/or deviating purposefully from the cause of the failure.

If these new-gen players have not delivered then whose problem for having them "perpetually" in the team?           B-O-A-R-D is what I would blame. All wings (selection, administration, including the coach, manager and captain) of board have failed the team. There is no transparency to show why repeatedly failing new-gen batsmen or bowlers were thrusted into the team. Politicians and board executives who have vested interest in this slotting machine, are quick enough to give press comments, so as to divert the attention from the real cause (themselves) and make fingers to point only players. Who knows these politicians and vested interest board members could have even sponsored some goons here and there in the name of "fans" to first create hype and then behave badly once the team failed in WC matches. I even doubt media and bookies/mafia hand in this nefarious link. A press release like "(Still) I dont understand the actual reason why I am dropped from the team" by likes of Kaif whose doesn't see his blatant failure as reason (a total of a score runs in 10 matches) is unwilling to accept the truth means there is something serious behind the scene happening in chosing a player the criterion is not potential and consistency which kaif was lacking and still adamant not to admit that in public. The parameter of selection could been anything other than potential and consistency.

The real problem could be anything between the-board-didnt-go-for-actual-talent-hunt-due-to-vested-interest to there-is-absolute-dearth-of-talents-in-the-country. Either case there is no transparancy which is what matters here. This organisation lacks accountability abosolutely.

Befitting to the thamizh proverb sattiyil irundhaa thaanE agappayil varum (meaning spoon can get content in it only if the vessel contains any) the team's potential is exposed way before the super 8. Looking from a new angle now, I guess, Dravid was the one who first wanted every one (read fans) to realise it. His repeated uninspiring press statements like "we will deliver our maximum; we will do our best" had their early hint. He wanted the fans to understand that the team lacks potential and cannot deliver. But due to polarised mindset, thanks to hyper hyping media, the fans failed to see the truth. Once the truth out we are unable to bear it. He would have very well guessed that India could not make to Semis. But even he could not have imagined such a thrashing exit.

If the board withers its vested interest and actually looks for improvement, instead of trying to roll others head (already dravid hatao campaign has started!), they have to do a lot of introspection, come-up with a comprehensive plan to unearth real talent that shows potential and consistency from the new set of new-gens and make India a candidate that could reach next WC semis.

Will it happen?

Jittery Judiciary

Month of march seems to be unsettling for higher judiciary in this part of the world. Pakistan's Chief justice is overthrown by its military president for alleged misuse of his power and in India couple of supreme court (SC) benches' observations/statements were reflecting that of cinematic 'punch' dialogues and stupid sentiments. In fodder scam case, the bench observed, while passing a judgement on the convicted executive of Bihar state, that "persons of their (corrupt people) ilk have to be hanged in lamp-post in busy roads intersection in front of people" much in line with certain middle-east countries punishment. The bench added "the laws dont permit us to do so" (Note the quotes in italics are not verbatim. However the statements made are similar to the one given in the above italicised statements). Circa 1AD a king of southern india broke down and died of guilty conciousness because he wrongly convicted a guy and got him killed. More recently a SC judge as one of the two-member commission who was hearing a disproportionate wealth case against a state CM broke down in his court amidst his co-bench judge, attorneys of either sides, special attorneys. The reason is this judge received a letter allegedly casting aspersions on the non-partisan nature of the judge in the commission.

I am lost her. With all due respect to the learned judges I feel these observations and incidents are not suting to their diginity and high-strature. Its like acts of gimmick to gain some attention/mileage from the happenings than anything worth of a judiciary functioning. Agreed, judges and judiciary are not interpreters of law/constitution merely per book but by spirit. Still they cannot term or act or observe something that is of redundant or useless in nature and are added just for the sake of it. In the former case the observation could have been merely stating something like corruption has become omnipotent and this court observes that the action taken against it does not seem to alleviate or eliminate it. it is a serious cancer to the society and nation. Such a statement would have very well sent the message across. But observing it in different way serves little purpose as it serves as food for digression (of this blog nature) at various levels. We have the legislatures (and their chairs) waiting for opportunity to pound on judiciary at any time and this becomes a fodder to them. In later case break down merely makes one to feel that a very senior, highly experienced judge can succumb to cheap threats and this badly projects that the judiciary is very weak. The 1AD king's name figures in history in positive sides ofcourse because he was unable to bear the pointing figures (to be). It was less in the capacity of a judge and more in the capacity of a failed ruler. A ruler cannot make gross injustice to his subjects (per his constitution). A ruler is a visionary. He has to think of his subjects' welfare and has to act accordingly. Any wrong step in it would bring bloat to his rule and more would lead the nation to weakness and anarchy.

Judges are not visionary, in the sense they cannot do something that gives fruit in long run (or even short run) for people governance. It is nothing to belittle their capability but to merely state their position. They have to always review & validate an event in conjunction with law/constitution and pass orders accordingly. Their capacity does not allow anything beyond that. Knowing this fully the legislature is often unnecessarily passes comments on judiciary. Judiciary has to just swollow these comments, brush them aside and have to move forward in their single-pointed agenda. Given such a situation these kind of acts by the learned judges would definitely add fuel to the digression resulting in improper functioning of democracy.

So let the judges be not turn themselves to point of mockery by these kind of cheap acts.

Aaya Raam Gayaa Raam

I paid the penalty twice for not sleeping on Saturday night (IST) - watching Indian team to perform pathetically (I had seldom used such highly toned down refined word to express my extreme anger) all-round in the match, and a good round of verbal beating from my mom for spoiling her health as well mine, as I was all along disturbing her sleep by inadvertently smuttering angry words and waking her up now and then.

What had let down the team? In one word its the conceit. The conceit that was running high in the heads of everyone in the Indian cricket team. I felt that conceit was very evident during the Indian fielding inning. On the one hand you perform poorly with ball right from over one, and on the other hand you are totally lethargic and assume that you can control a better team at the last over? I don't want to add any suffixes like "-of-the-day" to "better team". Bangladesh is indeed a better team in this WC than India. With their performance, if they maintain it, Bangla team sure can reach the semis.

In the beginning of the match, based on the history, Dravid and/or coach might have rated the Bangladesh team to be very inferior and hence, perhaps as a learning step (or should I use their word and say experimentation?) chose to bat even after winning the toss in such a pitch. It was a gamble. One can argue for either case -- support the risk taken by Dravid (or) say that you have not played a single match hence it is unworthy to take such a risk at that juncture. But now that the risk is taken and India batted first and battered well by a disciplined TEAM. To me I don't blame much on the overall team score. I have my share of abusive words for Shewag, Dhoni et al. Still it is a competitive score especially against lesser experienced Banglas. I don't believe the worthless-justifying-statement (sappakkattu) by dravid that we fell short of about 30 runs. Boy! with such a pathetic performance with ball (bowling as well as fielding) you would have squarely lost the match even if it were 300+ scored by the bat. If India cannot contain a team, which is perceived inferior, within 190 runs (given the fact that the trend of 220 being a very competitve score to defend so far in the WC) how can you expect to be qualified for playing WC league matches? It is very sad to note that even after this thumping defeat the team was not honest in identifying/admiting its weakness with ball as the culprit.

I feel very sorry for Pakistani bowlers, for, if their batsmen had scored the same 190+ the current pakistani bowlers would have brought their team to victory in defending that score on that same day. Probably their fielding would have undone in such case a hypothetic case. But still Pakistan was looking a better team with the ball on that day.

Jaya tv had started a pre-match and post-match one hour each show with the veteran Venkataraghavan. The sad part is that this show is deviced only during the matches that India play (not even considered for Semi-finals and finals if India doesn't play). I was very much looking forward to see that show and its analysis and prefer it to any other channels's frill-filled diatribes. So the life of this show is going to be only 2 more days thats all. I liked the no frill, simple, straight-forward at the same time measured way of talking of Shri. Venkataraghavan. Really I am going to miss this series. To listen to Venkat's analyses and statements I can very much stand blabbers of Abhisheik. Abhisheik, the "anchor" of this Jaya TV show, needs to do a lot of home work otherwise its better he stick to his homeground -- mega serials. Abhisheik doesn't seem to be knowing the difference between billey bowden and tuffnel and more pathetic was the way he tried to cover it up like a loser. On the otherhand, Mohan Ram yet another TV actor who was the guest on that show shared a lot of information about Venkat.

So, I have to say the third loss is not-going-to-see-Venkat. hmm...lemme wipe off my running nose.

Now let us get back the "aayaraam gayaaraam" title from Indian coalation political parties and hand it to a more able body, Indian cricket team.

uh..aah India...Aayaaa Aayaaa India...vaapas aayaa Indiaaaa...