The Only One Pill is...

This morning I read a very powerful article by Sambit Bal, 80% of article made lot of sense, while there were few lose parts that I don’t concur with him [Who cares! For my opinion is another separate discussion]. Blaming BCCI is accepted, I agree 100%, but they are not the only culprit. ICC and every other ICC member have been enjoying this flow of funds from Indian companies. BCCI is a well known replacement word for “disorganization” however in my opinion it is not correct to victimize Indian Cricket alone for this fiasco. I feel ICC is as greedy as BCCI when it comes to money. ICC has to enforce better rules and the member board like BCCI definitely needs a THOROUGH cleansing mela.

It starts right from the team selection, selection should be more transparent and in black and white clearly on paper. Indian team selection has always been under fire, for example a player like Viru was given many free coupons with no expiry date to regain his form. Basically in my software world, we don’t dare testing a product in a running production environment, once a product is on the production box, it has to be good, if not it has to go back to testing or staging. We cannot keep patching! The production box; Likewise players like Viru are sitting there trying to patch and reinvent themselves but in the process they have slowed down the entire machine. This should never happen. In Indian team selection history may be after Agarkar, no other player has got so many free rides, this includes the former captain Ganguly. In the past Players like Krish Srikkanth were mercilessly axed citing just few failures.

The team selection procedures should adopt an automatic rotation policy. If a player fails for more than “n” games, the “n” is decided based on their experience but less than 10, they will be out of the squad regardless, their reentry into the team should be based on their domestic performance [Staging]. This applies to the captain also, if he fails to win more than n number of series, say 5, he should be replaced. An open ticket given to players like Ajith Agarkar should be forfeited. Agarkar has been in the team for many years now and everyone knows he is a poor bowler but he manages to find his place. Imo, Agarkar is not even fit to play for any minnows.

Back to the article discussion, I quote from Sambit Bal [Cricinfo] ,Read the following lines and conclude yourself - “The reality is that India reaching the World Cup final would be an overachievement. Australia and South Africa possess superior teams, New Zealand have more balance and depth and Sri Lanka are the most improved team in world cricket. India have proven, but ageing, batsmen, a bowling attack that's susceptible to pressure and poor fielders”,

”But you can't call yourself a true fan if the sight of 17-year old Tamim Iqbal charging down pitch to belt Indian quick bowlers brought you no thrill.”

Sir, how is this worse from you simply writing off a team that came second in the last world cup?

Further quoting him, “But it might not be such a bad thing for cricket if they were to be knocked out in the first round. Cricket needs a reality check. It has an unhealthy, and unsustainable, business model that relies primarily on an increasingly delusional and one-dimensional fan-base. The bubble has to burst for a semblance of sanity to be restored. We must learn to once again enjoy cricket as a game." My question - Why Indian cricketers are alone scarified while the WHOLE of ICC enjoyed the benefit and if punished it should be every board that got paid;

World glorified Bangladesh for their win, and even the captain of Bermuda was saying “we can surprise”. However as expected the results are different today. I am surprised by columnists who have written off the Indian team and go on speculating that Indian team’s progress is due to the money involved. This is totally absurd and takes away everything from Indian cricket. After all in spite of good ICC rankings South Africa did not make it to super 6 in the last world cup but this time they are ready to believe that south Africa could win the cup but India the runners up in the last world cup does not get any respect in the deal because Indian companies are pumping money, Come on!,

Tomorrow Indian will face Sri Lankana; it is a must win game for India. I don’t want to write off India completely here based on their performance against Bangladesh, I am hoping that Indians will come good with improved performance. Dravids and the Sachins have to come to the party to prove themselves once again, no other choice. Victory is the only pill that will shut critics.

Go India.