It's Just Not Cricket...

Twice upon a time in the valley of the tears

The auctioneer is bidding for a box of fading years
And the elephants are dancing on the graves of squealing mice.
Anyone for tennis, wouldn't that be nice?
-Eric Clapton (Anyone for Tennis)

Considering the state of Indian cricket, this could very well be their theme song! The auctioneers are the five wise men popularly known as the National Selectors. And fading years would be the past glory that these people, fondly referred to as a bunch of jokers by comeback king Mohinder Amarnath, are betting on! Like the elephants crushing the mice everyone thought that the seniors didn’t like new people in the team and wanted the selectors to bamboo them! Trust me there’s nothing that anyone can say that would explain how these five idiots look at things.

With the poor show at the World Cup, many of us thought that maybe things would really change. Heads would roll, people will get the boot, etc but nothing of that sort happened. Only God and the Selectors knew how it’d all play out. And of course Navjot Singh Sidhu knew it for he knows everything guru! They wanted to sack the coach but he quit before they could do anything about it. They decided that they wanted to try fresh talent but Chappell ensured that there was no one left to experiment with in Indian cricket anymore. They thought of chucking the demigods like Tendulkar and Ganguly but then agreed to ‘rest’ them for bigger fights that lay ahead. They finally went ahead with a new and young team- yeah right! So young that it doesn’t have a vice-captain! And new talent translates into one young guy.

The Indians don’t seem to have a plan while on field or off it. Try explaining Sourav Ganguly’s 60 runs from almost twice the number of balls against Bangladesh? Perhaps it was Puma who made it a contractual obligation for him to spend as much time as possible in front of the wicket to make money? Sachin Tendulkar is so busy ‘serving’ Indian cricket that he refuses to acquaint us with his former self. When he can’t take the heat he informs us about his many hidden injuries and rests. When ready to play he just shows up and he’s selected! I believe that he needs to be given the boot for a good series or two and I don’t mean against Bangladesh to get his cricketing genius of a brain ticking.

No one epitomizes the stupidity of Indian cricket better than Mr. Virendra Sehwag, the Butcher from Najafgarh who seems to have fallen in love with the lamb he’s about to slaughter.

Sehwag, who has forgotten that he needs to score runs at times, was dropped for two matches ostensibly to tell him that he wasn’t bigger than the game. While cooling his heels he threatens that if the Board gives him anything but a Grade-A contract, he’ll ensure that no one in the team signs the new contracts! Before he could prove himself in domestic cricket, he gets a ticket to go to West Indies and as expected fails to perform. He manages to survive the axe, retains his place and to top it off the Board’s sources have now hinted that in case Dravid can’t play, Sehwag would be made the captain for he has ‘hunger’!! Don't they realize that many people in India are unfortunately hunger and perhaps hungrier than Sehwag. Maybe all aspiring cricketers from Najafgarh and elsewhere and also VVS Laxman should learn a thing or two from this Maa ka Laal!

The newspapers and two bit ex-cricketers who form the expert panels on television all had Nostra’dumb’ass like predictions about India winning the world cup. Now we have commercials in which young children are going to the local tailor and asking him to make them Indian team’s uniform three sizes too big for they will be ready to don the Indian colors in 2011 to get the darn cup!

Only if we had listened to Sidhu and his advice that it’s ‘better to prevent and repair than to repent in despair.’ But as that isn’t the case anyone for tennis, wouldn’t that be nice...?

Image courtesy: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au.