Let me add to the noise that is being generated on account of the great reversal of fortunes in Indian cricket. From being world champions to submitting to the British has rekindled memories of an era gone by; circa 1857 (well that time we at least put up a fight!). Hope this phase does not last that long though.
Watching Rahul Dravid's reaction yesterday after dropping yet another catch was more painful than watching Kambli crying at the Eden Gardens. When 'the wall' is frustrated you know something is terribly wrong. It is not that we have not lost before in an equally shameful fashion, it is the team's Poland-like surrender of 1939 which is concerning. We do not seem to be putting up a fight at all. As pointed out by a recent article one can't tell whether it is the English who are playing superbly or the Indians playing like Bermuda.
This series has thrown up a lot of concerns, which I am sure the BCCI has taken no notice of. The fact that our best bowler broke down within the first hour of play on a more than a month long tour, how we have NO replacement in place, how we had absolutely no preparation coming into this series, why does Sreesanth continue to play for the test team and so on. Another commentator pointed out yesterday that no team rightfully claiming the No. 1 spot can rely on any one person. That was the great thing about Indian cricket in the past few years. The emergence of good solid players from opening to the tail. The fact that we stopped relying on Sachin or Kumble was the most important contribution leading upto our victory in April 2011.
What we are witnessing now is the result of complete absence of any planning on behalf of the powers that be. Our players have not stopped being great suddenly. They are worryingly overworked and denied basic preparation time. School teams spend more time practicing than the current lot. The time gap provided to the Indian team between the test matches in the Windies and the UK was fitting for a tourist not for a team of world class professional sportsmen.
There is also a lot of noise being made about the IPL being responsible for our current woes. Not entirely accurate or off the mark either. Cricket is one of the very few sports which is played across varying formats. There is an obvious ambiguity here. While we have benefited in the ODI format because of IPL, our test team is bearing the brunt of it. In today's scenario, cricketers need to be near schizophrenic to do well across all formats. It is all the more important to plan well and well in advance. A team playing ODIs, Tests and T20s all in one series is bound to get confused and complacent. The importance of other formats is going to go down the drain if the team does really well in another.
Cricket administrators in their unquenchable greed are trying to juggle all three formats at the same time. We have seen them bungle up with much less responsibilities. Expecting players to perform across formats is not only realistic but borders on cruelty. In times like these it is commendable that players like Michael Clarke come out publicly in support of one format over the other.
India's current woes are a direct result of the madness that runs through everybody in the BCCI. We have to stop milking the cricket team and the sport for more riches. It is time that we reevaluate our systems now, when the team is not doing well. Because we will be complacent once we start winning again. All of this will then be conveniently forgotten.
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