Amitabh Jotwani

While one cannot explain the absolutely dismal cricketing antics of Team India, what has caught my attention is the format of the tournament and the recent ban of YouTube by ICC.

The new format adopted in 2007 allows only 3 games to each side before they move on to the super eight, thereby not allowing even a single failure or as the experts like to say “an off day”. The disasters of this format were pretty clear when the world cup encountered it’s first upset in the India-Bangladesh encounter(that India managed to ruin it beyond repairs in their Srilanka encounter is a different story). At that point India had lost just one game but their prospects of moving on to super eight were already seriosuly dented. It was a situation that even if India beat Bermuda and Srilanka, it may still not make it to the super eight if they did not have a superior net run rate. Now this is absolutely absurd. Just one bad game in the preliminary round can basically throw a team out. Looking back to the previous world cups – Pakistan started terribly in the 1992 cup but the format allowed teams to come back into the tournament and they went on to win the cup. Ditto with Srilanka in the 2003 cup – started in the first gear but got to the semi finals.

The 2007 format was heavily based on the assumption that the top 8 teams WILL DEFINITELY beat the minnows and thus make it to the super 8. Now that ICC has seen the minnows are not so much minnows and it’s a one day game after all. No team is good or bad. They only have good and bad days. That’s a fine line that ICC missed. The fact that India and Pakistan did not help themselves by playing the way they did goes without saying. Hopefully the babus at ICC will realize the blunder and make amends for the next one.

Also I learnt this morning that ICC has asked the video giant YouTube to remove all the world cup clips from their website. Here again I think the Idiots Controlling Cricket have missed the boat. It seems like a short term vision. While trying to reason that this is in the interest of the broadcasters and the sponsors, they have failed to realize that this is probably the only way for people to watch the clips living in countries not broadcasting the world cup. Zimbabwe for instance is not broadcasting the world cup at all. Also its’ not that YouTube has live streaming of the world cup. ICC is making tons of money. They can afford a minor cut in their huge pockets, what they cannot afford is losing the true fans and the love they have for the game. They keep talking about promoting Cricket globally but they don’t seem to appreciate the powers of the Internet and what it can do to promote Cricket albeit ICC lets it. Here’s hoping sanity will prevail soon within the idiots. For the time being though the idiots are busy making money and destroying cricket while they are at it…

Team India’s world cup campaign is over in all of 6 days. Unless of course Bermuda manages to create an upset of sorts by beating Bangladesh, India’s worst fears have come true. Still a little hard to believe…I mean come on guys, we have been preparing for the World Cup since eternity now. Whatever happened to those so called experiments, good for the long run talks. If I remember correctly Guru Greg Chappell was hired to get us higher up the ladder – nice job we all must agree. We were in the 2003 World Cup final….come 2007, we could not even make it to Super Eight…good going Chappell….you have managed to ruin Indian cricket.

Bitterly disappointed I am…or rather we all are…and all we would be doing here on would be the blame game, sack the coach, fire the captain, hold protests, burn effigies, make it a parliament issue etc etc….and am sure we will see some innovations this time around of venting out the anger…the fact of the matter of course remains…Team India has managed to ruin the passion for cricket that India has…

BUT even a bigger fact which we all must learn to accept is – it’s just a game. The passion we all have for the game is great…it’s good..it’s healthy..it’s needed…but when the passion goes beyond a level that it kills a coach, incites people to destroy property of the so called failed players, the media which is supposed to be reporting news as it comes works overtime focusing on what certain group of maniacs hell bent to get their own bit of publicity did to vent out their anger on Team India..you know there is something definitely wrong with the world of cricket and it’s followers.

It’s heart breaking for me to even say this given that fact I am die hard supporter of Team India but lets face it – Team India did not deserve to be in the super eight. It’s that simple. Lets try not to make it a BIG issue and still love cricket for the game that it is and not follow it just for the patronage we have for India…

So….India has managed to put themselves in that position yet again..they are pretty good at this..screwing up things for themselves to the point that it gets down to the last game and the net run rate which by the way is as confusing as the pythagorean theorem…I like to call this whole deal a “danda” effect…the guys refuse to perform unless they get the danda…anyways long story short, they better beat lanka tomorrow or maybe apply for a carribean citizenship or maybe get an H1 visa and become an IT consultant…..life doesn’t get better…bet all you IT guys would agree…

The good news is India has beaten Bermuda…the minnows convincingly although after the India-Bangladesh and Pakistan-Ireland results, I am not really sure who really is a minnow…anyways for now India seems to be back in line, the next game of course will decide the future for Team India and the rest of us…the loyal supporters!!

wow…can’t believe I am really doing this..my first ever blog entry…lets see how long I can carry this on now….