“India is a cricket crazy nation.” I commented as I flipped through the sports pages of the morning newspaper, sitting at the terrace of Prashant’s house.
Prashant, who stays next door, is renowned as the “Live Aaj Tak News Channel” amongst our friend circle, sans those irritating advertisements and is undoubtedly one of the front runners to be the voice of India. With him around, you absolutely need not waste any time reading newspaper or watching news channels; all you need to do is pass a super-obvious comment like the one I just did. For the rest, you could count on our man.
I grabbed my cup of tea, trying to make myself comfortable, fully aware that we were heading for a long session. I was now absolutely sure to be educated of the whole world’s opinion about India’s loss in the tri-series final against Pakistan, the day before.
“Very true man! Just take a look at these pages.” Prashant was aggressively waving a newspaper across my face. “Seriously! Tell me something, do our cricketers deserve this much adulation? These idiots again lost a final! Take away Sachin and this team is worth a shit! And yet we pay them a million bucks just to turn out for us.”
“Hey what happened to you? Are you all right?” I managed to say while taking evasive action from his now violently waving newspaper. “We have just lost a match, nobody died! And we were not outplayed; it was a fitting finale between two good teams. Why are you over-reacting?”
I quickly realized that I had grossly underestimated the extent of our nation’s cricket craziness.
“No man!” Prashant’s specialty was that every time he picks a word and over uses it till it sounds irritatingly boring. ‘Man’ was the word for the day.
“Look at them; they are not even ashamed of the loss! Man! This guy Dhoni grabs the media attention and credit for all the success when in reality it is due to somebody else. They said Dhoni won us the series with youth against Australia, tell me who did it? Was it not our ever dependable Sachin? Now what happened? No Sachin and they lost!”
Now Prashant had a serious personal grievance against Dhoni for dropping Dravid and Ganguly, and he was always wary of the fact that Sachin might face the same fate soon. So much so that I was almost thankful to God for not allowing Prashant and Dhoni to come face to face, else, our country might lose a good cricketer and a decent chartered accountant.
Prashant had not finished yet. “And our selectors are a bunch of jokers.” He repeated the famous Mahinder Amarnath statement of the eighties, which had costed him his place in the side. Our man had no such worries, so he continued, “They can’t just select an one day side based on IPL performances. Man! IPL was just for fun and it was 20-20 after all.”
These are the two opinions which Prashant had picked this up from a column by Mr. S Dinakar, the sports columnist for The Hindu. I’m sure the same sentiments would be reflected by a large section of our cricket loving public.
1) India can’t do without Sachin
2) India lost the finals because of the 20-20 effect on our shot selection
With due respect to Mr. Dinakar, I must say that both the opinions are a bit over the top, and just over reaction on the part of the media and public, whose face we just saw in our very own Prashant.
So far as the first statement goes, this is grossly due to the overwhelming fan following that Sachin has in our country and all over the world. They just forget the impact that our youth brigade had in Australia. They also forget the huge number of pathetic losses that we had been suffering till now in the hand of the Aussies, despite of the presence of the three big guns, Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly.
Sachin’s innings was no doubt important in the finals of the series, but the victory was more due to the mental dent that was carved out by the approach of our youngsters on the field, which had created unprecedented psychological pressure on the Aussies, something they were not used to. Our guys chose to fight fire with fire and the result was there for every body to see. As far as individual performances were concerned, Gambhir played exceptionally well and so did Ishant Sharma. Why single out Sachin, who had faired miserably throughout the series except the finals?
Coming back to the more recent opinion, I’ve to say that people are being over skeptical about the impact of Twenty-twenty on Test and One-day cricket. I’m sure the same must have been the case when One-day cricket was introduced. But today, both form of the game have not only co-existed, but prospered. Seldom people react positively to changes.
Agreed, the recently introduced shortest version of the game is more about attacking, but I’d defy any body who says its slam bang cricket. If it was, then Shahid Afridi would have emerged as the highest run getter. Instead, his Hyderabad team mate, Rohit Sharma, a purist’s delight, was one of the most successful batsmen of the whole tournament. People, who say that bowlers in Twenty-Twenty are paid to get hammered, must reconsider their stand, as we had a certain Shaun Pollock, a Glenn McGrath and a Mohd Asif who bowled in the right areas and still commanded respect even in the so called slam bang version.
I believe the successful players of the recently concluded IPL are a bunch of talented, thinking and intelligent cricketers. The series has added a new dimension to the mindset of all the players. They now are more aggressive, more agile and more energetic than ever. This is something which they will definitely carry to the other versions of the game making cricket more entertaining.
To be more specific, in the tri-series final against Pakistan, we did lose crucial wicket at crucial times, which is why we fell short by a few runs. This happens and will happen while chasing such a stiff target, with or without IPL. Suresh Raina’s wicket to a full toss, Yuvraj’s under-edge to a short delivery and Yusuf Pathan’s mis-time to a long hop can’t be overruled in the future even if they play hundred test matches. Such things are part and parcel of the game and will be seen as long as cricket is played on this planet, irrespective of it s format.
On another day, these very shots would have won India a thriller and we would be sitting in our drawing rooms appreciating the effort.
To me, we had seen a very good tournament in Bangladesh, where despite of the end result, clearly only one team has dominated throughout, and it was Team India. If we keep doing that, match after match, results are bound to follow sooner than later.
Till such time people like Prashant can have their say.
Prashant, who stays next door, is renowned as the “Live Aaj Tak News Channel” amongst our friend circle, sans those irritating advertisements and is undoubtedly one of the front runners to be the voice of India. With him around, you absolutely need not waste any time reading newspaper or watching news channels; all you need to do is pass a super-obvious comment like the one I just did. For the rest, you could count on our man.
I grabbed my cup of tea, trying to make myself comfortable, fully aware that we were heading for a long session. I was now absolutely sure to be educated of the whole world’s opinion about India’s loss in the tri-series final against Pakistan, the day before.
“Very true man! Just take a look at these pages.” Prashant was aggressively waving a newspaper across my face. “Seriously! Tell me something, do our cricketers deserve this much adulation? These idiots again lost a final! Take away Sachin and this team is worth a shit! And yet we pay them a million bucks just to turn out for us.”
“Hey what happened to you? Are you all right?” I managed to say while taking evasive action from his now violently waving newspaper. “We have just lost a match, nobody died! And we were not outplayed; it was a fitting finale between two good teams. Why are you over-reacting?”
I quickly realized that I had grossly underestimated the extent of our nation’s cricket craziness.
“No man!” Prashant’s specialty was that every time he picks a word and over uses it till it sounds irritatingly boring. ‘Man’ was the word for the day.
“Look at them; they are not even ashamed of the loss! Man! This guy Dhoni grabs the media attention and credit for all the success when in reality it is due to somebody else. They said Dhoni won us the series with youth against Australia, tell me who did it? Was it not our ever dependable Sachin? Now what happened? No Sachin and they lost!”
Now Prashant had a serious personal grievance against Dhoni for dropping Dravid and Ganguly, and he was always wary of the fact that Sachin might face the same fate soon. So much so that I was almost thankful to God for not allowing Prashant and Dhoni to come face to face, else, our country might lose a good cricketer and a decent chartered accountant.
Prashant had not finished yet. “And our selectors are a bunch of jokers.” He repeated the famous Mahinder Amarnath statement of the eighties, which had costed him his place in the side. Our man had no such worries, so he continued, “They can’t just select an one day side based on IPL performances. Man! IPL was just for fun and it was 20-20 after all.”
These are the two opinions which Prashant had picked this up from a column by Mr. S Dinakar, the sports columnist for The Hindu. I’m sure the same sentiments would be reflected by a large section of our cricket loving public.
1) India can’t do without Sachin
2) India lost the finals because of the 20-20 effect on our shot selection
With due respect to Mr. Dinakar, I must say that both the opinions are a bit over the top, and just over reaction on the part of the media and public, whose face we just saw in our very own Prashant.
So far as the first statement goes, this is grossly due to the overwhelming fan following that Sachin has in our country and all over the world. They just forget the impact that our youth brigade had in Australia. They also forget the huge number of pathetic losses that we had been suffering till now in the hand of the Aussies, despite of the presence of the three big guns, Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly.
Sachin’s innings was no doubt important in the finals of the series, but the victory was more due to the mental dent that was carved out by the approach of our youngsters on the field, which had created unprecedented psychological pressure on the Aussies, something they were not used to. Our guys chose to fight fire with fire and the result was there for every body to see. As far as individual performances were concerned, Gambhir played exceptionally well and so did Ishant Sharma. Why single out Sachin, who had faired miserably throughout the series except the finals?
Coming back to the more recent opinion, I’ve to say that people are being over skeptical about the impact of Twenty-twenty on Test and One-day cricket. I’m sure the same must have been the case when One-day cricket was introduced. But today, both form of the game have not only co-existed, but prospered. Seldom people react positively to changes.
Agreed, the recently introduced shortest version of the game is more about attacking, but I’d defy any body who says its slam bang cricket. If it was, then Shahid Afridi would have emerged as the highest run getter. Instead, his Hyderabad team mate, Rohit Sharma, a purist’s delight, was one of the most successful batsmen of the whole tournament. People, who say that bowlers in Twenty-Twenty are paid to get hammered, must reconsider their stand, as we had a certain Shaun Pollock, a Glenn McGrath and a Mohd Asif who bowled in the right areas and still commanded respect even in the so called slam bang version.
I believe the successful players of the recently concluded IPL are a bunch of talented, thinking and intelligent cricketers. The series has added a new dimension to the mindset of all the players. They now are more aggressive, more agile and more energetic than ever. This is something which they will definitely carry to the other versions of the game making cricket more entertaining.
To be more specific, in the tri-series final against Pakistan, we did lose crucial wicket at crucial times, which is why we fell short by a few runs. This happens and will happen while chasing such a stiff target, with or without IPL. Suresh Raina’s wicket to a full toss, Yuvraj’s under-edge to a short delivery and Yusuf Pathan’s mis-time to a long hop can’t be overruled in the future even if they play hundred test matches. Such things are part and parcel of the game and will be seen as long as cricket is played on this planet, irrespective of it s format.
On another day, these very shots would have won India a thriller and we would be sitting in our drawing rooms appreciating the effort.
To me, we had seen a very good tournament in Bangladesh, where despite of the end result, clearly only one team has dominated throughout, and it was Team India. If we keep doing that, match after match, results are bound to follow sooner than later.
Till such time people like Prashant can have their say.
Hi Sambit,
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your summary and deep insight you have highlighted on the tri series!
In this cricket crazy country where sachin has the stature of a God and worshippers like prashant exist in millions the tug of war is bound to happen not at the end of every series but every match!
At the end of the day people should realise that a game of cricket involves 22 players and 2 umpires and may be even the third umpire may come into fray on certain decisive moments in the game to change the course of a match! Its not about Dhoni or Sachin its Team India and lets support Team India or criticise Team India which we often do than appreciate!
Cheers
Rajiv