The Great Indian Cricket Tamasha

As expected the debates and the blame game is on. Indian cricket is being analysed and dissected by experts, the cricket board, former players, the shop keeper down the street, the milk man, the bike mechanic, my neighbours and almost everybody ( Not my mom though. She hates the whole game.). Everybody who has a mouth has an opinion. Who is to be blamed for the poor show at the World Cup? One or all? What changes should be done in the team? Should X quit and should Y be the captain? Many questions to answer and every one ready with one.


Quite surprisingly Greg Chappell had a very neat answer. He had a lot to say regarding the pathetic performance.Chappell had claimed a lot during his unabated bashing of senior Indian players a couple of days. For one thing he blamed the Indian seniors for poor sportsmanship. He said that the seniors operate like the "mafia". He also claimed that "They hammer and abuse them because they feel threatened by the junior players and don't give them a chance".

That too against players of such experience and reputation.Sachin, Rahul, Sourav are good role models for the youngsters in the team. I don't know in which way they could have possibly hampered their development. Cricket is a team game and I don't think anyone will be foolish enough to depend only on the talents of a few. It needs all the players to play well and everyone knows that.

I don't think it was right in anyway to blame anyone person or a group of players like that. Questioning their attitudes towards the game and the team like that was in no way justified. That too by the ( now the former ) coach of the team. It has been high drama in the past couple of days. Causing a needless controversy at a time when already the team morale was so low. Chappell just wanted to show that none of this was any of his fault. Though he is to be equally blamed for this. Maybe his strategies and ideas were worthless in the Indian context. Who knows? In any case he wants to wash his hands off the issue now. Following the outburst of Sachin to an Indian news agency, Chappell thinks he has had enough of being the coach, and tendered his resignation. In fact by all of his needless allegations he has made himself totally unworthy of the little sympathy I had for him. One good thing that he did with his outburst was that he diverted some of the cricket fan's anger on to himself. Now everybody is all so suddenly supportive of the team and the players! The same crowd that was threatening and abusing then not so long back.

Even if the players are to blamed, this is no way in which it should have been done. No one wants to lose a game on purpose. They did not deserve it so bad. As it is they were being tormented by their crazy fans and now this. Being humiliated like this by the coach himself, is very unfortunate. Oh! and don't even get me started on the media. They compete amongst themselves for ratings. To get the most juicy bit of information and force out a statement or a reaction even where none are available. But lets talk about the media some other time.

Anyway, it is good riddens to Mr.Chappell ( As the coach at least. I think the board has other plans for him ). Who is going to be the next coach is still an open guess. Indian or a foreigner, only time will tell. Whoever it may be will have quite a tough task at hand. There is a lot of talk going around about it. Lots of speculations but i personally feel that anyone who undertakes the task must be well known with our typical subcontinent attitude. It means, he must be prepared for some amount of politics, hero ( player ) worshipping, tackling the relentless media and the psychotic fans.Oh! and also be able to coach the team to able to WIN MATCHES.

Other than that it seems the our poor players are going to see a cut in the number of products that they can endorse. That too only after the permission of the BCCI. As well as of the salary paid to them depending on their performance. That is so cruel!!!!! How good or bad ( well...cant get any worse from here ) it does to Indian cricket will have to be seen as time goes by.

As for now, Indian cricket remains "exciting" more off the field than on it. Keeps us all amused and keeps our minds occupied with our ideas and arguments.

As an Indian cricket fan ( me of course ) once said "Let the tamasha continue....."