Thursday, July 2, 2009

India's dismal performance in the T20 World Cup


Just like any Indian, Bollywood and cricket are an integral part of my life. Unfortunately in the past month both have been a major letdown for the entire country. In this post I will concentrate on cricket though.

Being cricket crazy, since I was a small kid I would do anything to watch all the India games with great passion. I remember when I was 7 I stayed up till 4 am to watch India get dominated by the West Indies. But I still stayed up night after night. That’s because I knew we were trying. Each and every player had their moments of brilliance on the tour.

A little more than twelve years later nothing has changed for me. About three weeks back I was watching India play England in the T20 World Cup and was absolutely disgusted with the way we played. It just seemed that most of the Indian players didn’t want to win the game. They just wanted to end the tournament for themselves right there and get rid of all the pressure on themselves once and for all.

On the second last ball of the match it was Ryan Sidebottom bowling to Yusuf Pathan with India needing 9 more runs to win or 8 more to tie and go into the super over. Basically to remain in the game or rather the tournament India needed a minimum of 2 runs off this delivery, assuming that Sidebottom would not concede any extras in the balls to go. Pathan slapped the ball straight down the ground and immediately shot off to run. Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was at the non-strikers end also began running, though he should have been at least half way through at that point considering he would be running towards the danger end in case India took 2 runs. In a very shocking turn of events, Dhoni reached the striker’s end and didn’t even turn around to attempt a second run. He didn’t even look back to see if the fielder had cleanly caught the ball or not, whether he had already thrown it, whether Pathan was on for a second run, nothing seemed to bother him. Even a schoolboy would know that not attempting a second run was suicidal. All that Dhoni had to risk for the entire tournament was his wicket which it seems was more precious to him than his own team staying alive to defend their world cup trophy. It was as if Dhoni had come in to the centre knowing from before that he had to concede the game but at the same time make it look close enough so that fingers wouldn’t be raised later on. There are a lot of smaller incidents that simply refuse to let me believe that India was out there to win.

So I have concluded that a lot has changed for me after this T20 world cup. I have lost that passion with which I used to watch the gentleman’s game. That thrill is no more there for a person who actually appreciates the finer intricacies of the sport. Now, it all seems like a beautifully written script for an engrossing tv series with enough drama and mirch masala to keep the ordinary person interested.