Should we allow cricket to fall into an abyss?
Team India has gone all the way to Zimbabwe to prove that it is really only a paper tiger. Humiliated by a cricketing squad which has had negligible international exposure and is nowhere near the No 1 ODI ranking that India enjoys, our men in blue have passed on a very grave message from Harare — that we are not up to the mark in either of the team categories — neither in our first rung squad which could not stand up in the Caribbean to be counted, nor in the second rung which now tells us that it’s a total non-entity.
All talk of IPL-aided bench strength now rests where it always belonged but no one was ready to acknowledge it — on the back bench — uninterested in either the study or the execution of the game.
Zimbabwe has proved beyond doubt that we have not been building up in any department really except in the money section — our youngsters resemble sagging mangoes with a body language that smacks of defeatistism. Our young bowlers look defanged, if at all they ever had the fangs. Our batsmen make a better picture sitting in the stands watching a Brazil-Zimbabwe soccer match than working out in the middle themselves. Our fielding department, as Dhoni would say, is not performing and our captain — at least for the Zimbabwe tour — is someone who has never played a Test match till date!
One doesn’t really know what’s catching up with our cricketers. If it is fatigue, if it is contempt to the game bred by too much of cricket or if it is the impunity that stardom bestows on you. It looks like it is a mixture of all this, aided and abetted by our Board’s unrelenting drive to milk the cash cow to the hilt and beyond.
Unlike any other team in the world, we play cricket for no less than 245 days a year if not more and if there was any scope, the days would only extend. Inanity is the most obvious fallout of this unending season that we put our cricketers through and it does more harm than good — a fact which is crystal clear in the burnouts. Our swashbuckler Yuvraj Singh is all but gone — unfit, petulant, unaccountable, fatigued and out of form — he would not have ever wanted this to happen to him. The only thing that can save him now is a break from the game, some domestic circuits, some brain-twisting and a grilling fitness regime. Does he have the time to do that? Not really, for the next season is just around the corner. Does he have the mental strength to go through a disciplinarian stint? Coach Gary Kirsten has already told us that he is more fit at 42 then anyone in the Indian team.
In Zimbabwe, where the team were handed over a seven-wicket thrashing by the hosts and are virtually out of the finals of the tri-series, our boys look as unfit as they can. Rohit Sharma is obese, drooping and slow between the wickets despite his centuries and his performance will earn him a blind eye from the regimen squad. Yusuf Pathan, our volcanic hitter, is on the verge of going extinct due to too much cricket and too little handling. It would be a shame if we were to lose him to apathy like we did his brother Irfan. Raina, the man of the future, is fighting his own demons with the bat and skipper-ship both of which are burdening his mind unnecessarily. Add to that the stark absence of a togetherness in the squad and you have what would be manna to any opposition.
Why we need to send a woebegone team to a needless series in Zimbabwe will fox even the most altruistic person in cricket. Add to that the BCCI’s decision to not send the team to the Asian Games in China and you would think there’s a Mugabe in its mindset.
Reports say, the BCCI would lose Rs 180 crore if the series in New Zealand were to be cancelled for the team to go to China. But that’s national duty and even the much bigger soccer clubs give way for their players to go to country-specific events. The question is whether a sporting board should really have the authority to say no to events which are meant to propel national pride. The BCCI is a private entity which has nothing to do with the Government. That in itself gives it the yeomen responsibility to take mature stands which do not push nationhood to the realm of the ridiculous.
Yes, canceling pre-scheduled FTPs could create havoc but both the domestic boards and the ICC should understand where and when to give way. The argument is that it was Kalmadi and Co that was pushing for a cricketing event in the Asian Games and that the BCCI had never really given its nod to this extra-curricular. Granted. But the fact is that Big Games like the Olympics, the Commonwealth or the Asian Games could be treated as part of the expansion plans that the ICC talks about with so much force.
With BCCI not sending any team to China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka may also withdraw from the event. China has been a big country in the eye of the ICC which is trying to give cricket a soccer-like reach by extending it to nations hitherto having no knowledge of cricket. The Asian Games could have been a showcase event for that. But then, it would not have gotten money and that’s one thing the bat and the ball do not perform without.
All talk of IPL-aided bench strength now rests where it always belonged but no one was ready to acknowledge it — on the back bench — uninterested in either the study or the execution of the game.
Zimbabwe has proved beyond doubt that we have not been building up in any department really except in the money section — our youngsters resemble sagging mangoes with a body language that smacks of defeatistism. Our young bowlers look defanged, if at all they ever had the fangs. Our batsmen make a better picture sitting in the stands watching a Brazil-Zimbabwe soccer match than working out in the middle themselves. Our fielding department, as Dhoni would say, is not performing and our captain — at least for the Zimbabwe tour — is someone who has never played a Test match till date!
One doesn’t really know what’s catching up with our cricketers. If it is fatigue, if it is contempt to the game bred by too much of cricket or if it is the impunity that stardom bestows on you. It looks like it is a mixture of all this, aided and abetted by our Board’s unrelenting drive to milk the cash cow to the hilt and beyond.
Unlike any other team in the world, we play cricket for no less than 245 days a year if not more and if there was any scope, the days would only extend. Inanity is the most obvious fallout of this unending season that we put our cricketers through and it does more harm than good — a fact which is crystal clear in the burnouts. Our swashbuckler Yuvraj Singh is all but gone — unfit, petulant, unaccountable, fatigued and out of form — he would not have ever wanted this to happen to him. The only thing that can save him now is a break from the game, some domestic circuits, some brain-twisting and a grilling fitness regime. Does he have the time to do that? Not really, for the next season is just around the corner. Does he have the mental strength to go through a disciplinarian stint? Coach Gary Kirsten has already told us that he is more fit at 42 then anyone in the Indian team.
In Zimbabwe, where the team were handed over a seven-wicket thrashing by the hosts and are virtually out of the finals of the tri-series, our boys look as unfit as they can. Rohit Sharma is obese, drooping and slow between the wickets despite his centuries and his performance will earn him a blind eye from the regimen squad. Yusuf Pathan, our volcanic hitter, is on the verge of going extinct due to too much cricket and too little handling. It would be a shame if we were to lose him to apathy like we did his brother Irfan. Raina, the man of the future, is fighting his own demons with the bat and skipper-ship both of which are burdening his mind unnecessarily. Add to that the stark absence of a togetherness in the squad and you have what would be manna to any opposition.
Why we need to send a woebegone team to a needless series in Zimbabwe will fox even the most altruistic person in cricket. Add to that the BCCI’s decision to not send the team to the Asian Games in China and you would think there’s a Mugabe in its mindset.
Reports say, the BCCI would lose Rs 180 crore if the series in New Zealand were to be cancelled for the team to go to China. But that’s national duty and even the much bigger soccer clubs give way for their players to go to country-specific events. The question is whether a sporting board should really have the authority to say no to events which are meant to propel national pride. The BCCI is a private entity which has nothing to do with the Government. That in itself gives it the yeomen responsibility to take mature stands which do not push nationhood to the realm of the ridiculous.
Yes, canceling pre-scheduled FTPs could create havoc but both the domestic boards and the ICC should understand where and when to give way. The argument is that it was Kalmadi and Co that was pushing for a cricketing event in the Asian Games and that the BCCI had never really given its nod to this extra-curricular. Granted. But the fact is that Big Games like the Olympics, the Commonwealth or the Asian Games could be treated as part of the expansion plans that the ICC talks about with so much force.
With BCCI not sending any team to China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka may also withdraw from the event. China has been a big country in the eye of the ICC which is trying to give cricket a soccer-like reach by extending it to nations hitherto having no knowledge of cricket. The Asian Games could have been a showcase event for that. But then, it would not have gotten money and that’s one thing the bat and the ball do not perform without.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, June 6, 2010
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