Sunday, March 25, 2007

On the ignominious Indian exit from the World Cup

I've been reading news reports over how Dravid, Tendulkar, Sreesanth and others were weeping upon exiting the world cup at such an early stage.



Poor Sreesanth could never play - but why were Dravid and Tendulkar weeping? They very well had it in them to change the course of the match. They should have knuckled down and played. I know the defeat can be sad, but what is the point of weeping? Or, could that be because of the loss of their potential financial benefits? I have high regard for both Dravid and Tendulkar. On their day, they can easily take an attack apart - but they couldn't do anything against Mortaza and the gentle left arm spin of Bangladesh, who got badly mauled by the SriLankans later. Why did they weep?



And also, our guys were heroes at home. They defeated Sri Lanka at home so easily when it didn't matter and now when it really mattered, they couldn't do much.



So much for the fancy coaching from the great Greg Chappell. Tom Moody, who initially interviewed for the position of Indian coach, must be laughing at the Indian Board. When John Wright could succeed with almost the same team, why couldn't Greg?



I, for one, was sick of his almost stupid experimenting with the batting order. Those things just didn't pay! India should have had a more conventional coach who got his team playing cricket rather than football during practice!



And Dravid -- though he is a good player, he is quite a lousy captain. He insisted upon Uthappa - and contributed to the demise of India in the world cup. A solid opening partnership could have saved India the blushes against Bangladesh and also against Sri Lanka. Uthappa shouldn't have opened at all. He could have been put through his paces in some other tournament. By relying far too much on a debutant, India dug its own grave.



Anyway, I am sick and tired of watching spineless performances by the Indian team. I actually now look forward to Sri Lanka and New Zealand who are the dark horses in this tournament. Now, I can watch the game for its own sake without extra patriotic feelings.

1 comment:

Srik said...

Very true.

Rahul Dravid, who is a good player, was a bad captain.

He just implemented what the coach asked him to, never bothered to think on his own. Field placement in Srilanka match was a proof of this. Wherever Srilankans hit, there was no fielder, but wherever Indians hit, there was a fielder!!

As you have mentioned, we can now follow the game without any bias!!