Let's Kick Back & Relax

The previous post was on the 12th of March, and today is the 28th. Just a little over a fortnight's worth of world cup is behind us, and a lot has happened in the mean while.

Pakistan and India have been dealt ignominous exits from the world cup and Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was murdered after the debacle.

I have been doing a decent amount of reading regarding the extra curricular events casting their shadow on the world cup and a little bit about the cricket involved as well. I have no clue who killed Bob Woolmer. I may have a theory or two, but they are not worth the bytes they consume, so I will not talk about them.

There are two things that I will talk about, both today and in the near future.

1. The high quality cricket that we have been witnessing and that we should be focusing our attention on

2. What can be done with the Indian cricket team. Well, the true question is not just the team, but Indian cricket itself.

I will concede that India's loss to Bangladesh was not a normal event. Even with the current team, India is a superior team compared to Bangladesh, no matter what one game tells you. I will start and stop my accolades to the Indian team right there.

The loss to Sri Lanka was shocking. Sri Lanka are a very good team, especially with Vaas and Murali in the squad. But even against that line-up, the target was achievable, and we screwed up, much similar to the 1996 world cup semi finals in Eden Gardens.

Well, now that the dust has settled (at least in the minds and hearts of the fan base), what needs to be done next?

The agnostic sceptic in me tells me that "what needs to be done" doesn't really matter, as it will not be done. Even if we went into the super eights by beating Bangladesh and losing to SL, our performance there would have been pathetic. Australia and South Africa are in a completely different league here. Fanaticism and patriotism aside, anyone who watched the Australia Vs South Africa game can easliy see that India doesn't even play the same game. We did not stand a chance against either of them. Between the hosts and India, I would have put my money on West Indies, not just because they have home court advantage but because we are pretty bad outside the sub-continent and we would have succomed to them rather meekly. New Zealand has been playing amazing cricket in the recent past and they still have a good shot entering into the semi finals. That would have left us with one win against Ireland and maybe one against England and pretty far from the semi finals.

This article list five reasons, just five reasons, but I am sure there are more. So, I ask myslef again, what is the problem with India. I have heard several theories and I will list them, in not particular order:

1. Physical Fitness, or the lack there of
2. Lack of bowling talent
3. Lack of application among the batsmen
4. Age (maybe this is related to #1 above)
5. Politics/regionalism in Indian cricket
6. Match Fixing
7. Domestic Cricket
8. Fanaticism among cricket followers, with mercurial emotions
9. Lack of ruthlessness among the selectors (sticking to names rather than performances)
10. Players being paid too much, leading to lack of application in the game
11. Pure lack of talent
12. Bad coach

I guess there may be another reason or two, but the list seems pretty comprehensive to me.
I really liked this article by Jayaditya Gupta, comparing current cricket to Hockey a couple of decades ago, explaining how the basics of the game changed and India was not able to cope up.
The comparison is scary and far fetched at the same time. Cricket has more money and resources than Hockey had during those days, and that will help us not fall behind the curve too much. However, money will not help us get to the top. We need to do other things for that to happen.

I don't think we could have selected a significantly different team going to the world cup. People might make an arguement about Kaif, Raina and maybe Gambhir, but that would not have had a material impact on the team's capabilities. We have to develop a stronger bench and that means the solution is long term. There is no short term. A knee jerk reaction to scak a bunch of people and fill those spots with younger, less experienced players is not a long term strategy. The players will at best become as good as we are today, but we would still be significantly below par.
As to sacking the coach, that is going to happen and it is utterly useless. Based on what I could get from John Wright's book (Indian Summers), the Indian coach has a very small role to play and even the best of coaches, in the Indian context, cannot do much. The way I see it, this is a lost opportunity for Chappel to write his own book.

So I end with a question to you. What would you do in the short term and in the long term if you were the head of BCCI and were allowed to make any and all the decisions you wanted to make?
While we get some of those thinking gears churning, lets kick back with a beer, relax in a confortable chair (or couch) and follow what will be a great world cup.

PS: While India's exit hurt, this made it all the more miserable.