India crashes out of Cricket World Cup 2007

"India is out of the world cup"- every news channel and newspaper is crying hoarse at the dismal performance of the Indian Cricket Team. Everyone is asking for the heads of the team members and the coach. They are going to the extend of picking individuals and blaming them for the whole debacle.Why is the disappointment so high ? Why so much of hue and cry about it- after all India had been performing very badly for the past 8 months or so.

Its because the Indian team had been hyped to a large extend by the media for their recent performances in India.

Lets get down to earth. We are not a world class team. We were doing badly for the past 8 months and our cricketers dont seem to have the urge to win. A few recent, winning performances at home grounds against depleted West Indies and Sri Lankan attacks gave the reason for the media to crown our team as a balanced and world class team. Our team suddenly was placed on par with the top teams like Australia and South Africa. If there is one thing that the Indian team has always lacked - its consistency. One can never be sure of how the Indian team would perform on a given day. Each day was a surpise for both the players and the viewers. Somehow , we the ardent fans, refuse to believe that we are a mediocre team. We always keep hoping. The Indian team always tend to lose the grip of any good match due to their awful temperament and lack of confidence.

Role of the coach:-
What is Mr. Greg Chappell supposed to do ? Teach our guys how to hold the bat or how to bowl. These guys can go to such lows that even their basics look out of place. Lets leave the coach out of it. Its how you perform on the field, not off it, that matters. For our team- even if you manage to get the great Bradman- its not going to bring in a difference.Ours is a de-motivated, unenthusiastic gang who never manages to raise the game against class teams. Here's where the Coach is supposed to be playing a part- which seems to be non existent.

Captaincy:- We have a maverick who leads from the front. He decides to bat when the whole world would have fielded first and decides to field first when you are supposed to bat. Maybe his reading of the pitch generally is opposite to that of the view of the experts. God knows what makes him act this way, consistently.

Let's have a look at the Indian team reasonably-

Bowling:-
Zaheer Khan and Agarkar are spearheading the Indian attack. It cant be any poorer. These two gentlemen are known for their inconsistent performances and are generally a let down in crunch situations.
Harbajan Singh- very effective in doctored home pitches. In other places he is not even as good as Sachin.
Why were Irfan, Sreesanth and Kumble taken to West Indies ?While Irfan and Sreesanth, luckily for them, never got to play, Kumble was kept out in the 2 important matches, for some inexplicable reason.

Fielding:-
Fielding was literally non existent. While Yuvraj Singh keeps falling down, his success rate at actually stopping the ball is minimal. Others like Ganguly, Dravid, Uthappa are never good fielders.

Batting (our strength?) :-
We are considered one of the best batting line-ups in the world. Lets face it- we are the most unpredictable set of batsmen. Our batsman are not good at chasing targets as it creates pressure and we are not good at setting targets as we are not clear what would be a winning target.
Ganguly- Had the leisure of taking his own time to meddle around in the first 2 matches, where we batted first. But when it came to batting second, under pressure- it was the same old story. He should be playing only in home grounds and in test matches - Prince for only the Kolkotta audience.
Sehwag- Good against teams like Bermuda. Lets make him the captain of the India Z team and send it for a world tour againstthe minnows.
Tendulkar- looks absolutely scared, of God knows what.
Dravid- Wall but never capable of taking the team home.
Yuvraj Singh- Irresponsible with too much of attitude.
Uthappa- He can write a book on how to get out on each ball that he is facing and continue to do so, if the opposition happens to give him chances.
Dhoni- When everyone fails, he follows them. Agarkar- wonder how long he will be in the team on the pretext of allrounder.
Munaf, Zaheer, Harbajan - the most dependable batsmen in the Indian squad as they always seem to do well in tough situations.

What is the difference between a world class team and a regular one?
Imagine a situation when a team is down 75/5 chasing a total of 250. Take for instance, teams like New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. They would make it 90% of the times. Their middle order digs deep and comes out with a simple strategy to stay at the crease and keep taking the singles without any risks. They would go for the big blows as and when possible. These are teams which has a set of players going for the target as a team. In such a situation, we can be very sure that India will never make it. We generally wont have any basic plan and each player will do things which he thinks is best at that time. There is no common working plan and generally all of them end up falling early, trying some lofty or silly shots. We look completely in disarray.
Why ? Because we lack common sense and practicality. There is a huge difference between playing and giving one's best in a particular situation. While good teams try their best in tough conditions, the ordinary teams try to just play. India always tries to play rather than giving in their best. There is no point in playing if we dont intend to win. Winning the game needs to be ultimate goal. Somehow this simple logic is lost to our great team.

BCCI:-
The BCCI till date has never been responsible in bringing in any changes to the Indian cricket scenario. The best part is that the members of BCCI go about threatening non-performing players during a series and bad-mouthing about them. Since most of these are politicians, can any cricketer questioned them, when they dont do their duty? What right do these gentleman have to question the integrity of players , when they have not contributed for them? BCCI never groomed any of the cricketing greats- be it Sunil Gavaskar or Kapil Dev or Sachin Tendulkar or the others. Each one of them came into prominence by their own hard work and ability. All they do is back those who are able to break the barriers and shine despite all the odds. Its a money making power centre which is embroiled in petty politics. They break more careers than making any. What can be done ?Lets stop blaming everyone and try looking at what can be done to bring in some positive changes. Change at the top: The top means BCCI. Every sick politician and greedy businessmen will have to be thrown out from the BCCI and it needs to have cricketers and coaches. The highest cricketing body needs the best cricketers of yesteryear's to make it successful. To assist them there can be a few Administrative and Financial experts. We can even bring in experts from other countries like Imran Khan and Gary Sobers. Every State and Zonal Association needs to have similar set ups.

Better pitches: The pitches in India needs to be completely revamped to create more sporting pitches. It will help the players to deal with foreign pitches in a better way.

First Class scenario: The various teams based on states needs to be done away with. What we need are just 4 zones. The team representing each zone should comprise of the best in the various states in each state. The national team should be selected from the 4 zones only. Every national player, when available will have to play for his zone, compulsorily.

Competitiveness: A second string of good players will always have to be maintained. No one should be indispensable. Non performer needs to be sent back to play zonal or state level games and should be made to qualify for the National team. Someone should be there as a back up for every player in the national team. No one is to take his place in the team for granted. It has to be a hot seat for which the competition should be severe.

Announcing of teams: The BCCI has a very strange concept of announcing the team for the next series, when a series is in progress. This generally de-motivates the members who are dropped for the next series. Any team announcement will have to take place after a series.

Performance based payment: No one is complaining about the players being paid too much. Its needs to more sensible and based on performance. Only 40% of the pay needs to be regular while the rest of the 60% will have to be based on performance.

Grooming youngsters: The new comers in the team will have to groomed by the coach and the senior players, so that they can take up the pressure at International levels. Their mental toughness will have to be improved.

Media Hype: A much more restrained media can help a lot, as it would put less pressure on the players. Lets take both the wins and losses in a more sporting way. Its afterall a game. There will be both ups and downs and it needs a more neutral stand. Instead the media goes about dissecting each player and thus giving him a harder time. The images of India's losses are played as if its the end of the world for India. Its the media hype that's creating a lot of pressure on the circketers. After the loss, one player who had been targeted relentlessly had been Sachin Tendulkar. Its sad and quite unnecessary. I am not saying that Sachin is not to be blamed. If Sachin was out for a duck, what happened to all the other 10 men in the team. It was a bad team performance and everyone in the team is responsible. If this media glare had been there on someone like Ravi Shastri or Chetan Sharma when they played- they would have hanged themselves and not sit and comment on the current lot. Guys and ladies of the various News Channels- Give us all a break and tone it down. You are not helping in any way. You either hype everything or crush everything. Its sad that Indian cricket despite all the talent is really struggling. The Indian team has managed to break billions of hearts with their mediocre performance. Please stop making the individuals a scapegoat of your thinking and stop pushing the views of your media team on the audience.

Despite the low in Indian cricket, I am very sure that Indian team will bounce back and hopefully there will be some changes that will help to better the current scenario.

Good Luck fellows. We understand that you are not feeling any good about all this. But Never loss heart. You have given us moments of pure joy and made us proud a number of times. I am sure you will continue to do that.

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