Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

Everything I've read about the various comments from BCCI tells me that nothing is going to happen to Indian cricket other than more of the same - more mediocrity, more respect for reputations and past performance, more ostrich like attitudes and more incompetence. BCCI says the coach will go - as if all the blame for the debacle was his alone. When Chappell took over and the Indian cricket team starting winning matches, they were all praise for his process. Now the same process is deemed to have failed. Perhaps they should look at the execution of the process and whether Chappell was allowed to have a free hand in doing so. He has stated time and again that we need a younger team, but a team of oldies went to the Cup. The results were predictable.

If reports in the media are anything to go buy, the senior people have a serious attitude problem and think of themselves as above any criticism or accountability. BCCI seems most reluctant to address this issue, so how can things change. Getting an Indian coach won't help. Do you see a Sehwag or a Ganguly or for that matter a Dravid listening to, say, a Mohinder Amarnath? Or a Sandeep Patil? They first thing they will throw at him is that their records don't match ours so they can't tell us what to do.

Its time to put Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar and Sehwag to pasture and tell them that their time is over. Let younger legs, enthusiasm and passion take over. Which means getting rid of Sharad Pawar first of all.

Predictably, the mice in blue turned out to be paper tigers with feet of clay. Nobody had the balls to stand up and be counted. 255 was an eminently gettable target and it was a do or die situation, so what do our zeros do - they roll up and die. Meekly. Without so much as a fight. That really pissed me off.

Its high time the big guns (on paper) retired from cricket while the goings good and they aren't being pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes. Tendulkar and Sehwag should be dropped from the team immediately. Dravid, Ganguly and Dhoni can take turns being the 12th man. Every selector who has chosen Agarkar over the years should be blacklisted immediately. Harbhajan should be dropped too. Yuvraj can dropped and asked to play domestic games till he is mature enough to come back to the Indian team.

Actually, surrendering meekly shouldn't surprise us at all. After all that's what India is known for. How many times have we forged ahead and won against overwhelming odds? I can't think of many. We would rather hype up trivial things and small achievements as the next best thing since sliced bread. And then believe in the hype.

Cricket can't be cleaned up in India and we will continue to lose and lose miserably at that. For good things to happen to Indian cricket, every stakeholder needs to clean up their act. Fat chance of that happening. At the very least

1. The BCCI should give back more to the game considering the loot they are indulging in at this time. Massive upgrade of facilities at all major centres of cricket. Spend money on stadiums to upgrade seating for the crowds, improve parking facilities, toilets, availability of water and food. Spend money to hire quality groundsmen and curators, the latter from outside our shores if need be. Prepare pitches that help the bowlers, spinners and pacers alike. Let our batsmen prosper only if they aren't just flat track bullies. And that's just for starters.
2. The fans need to stop hyping the abilities of the Indian players and stop treating them as demi gods. Currently expectations are way beyond what the Indian players are capable of delivering, yet we persist in thinking that the Indian team is a world beater. Maybe if the world cup was played exclusively among minnows (on the other hand if minnows have the capabilities of a Bangladesh, we are in trouble yet again). By all means be happy when we win, but don't go overboard. Same case applies to failures. By putting massive pressure on Tendulkar, we have prevented him from delivering the goods. He's human after all, an extraordinary human no doubt, but still a human. That's counterproductive.
3. The selectors need to stop backing players from their zone, purely because they are players from their zone. Back the performers, the ones with the right attitude, the ones with the right work ethic. Banish the rest to the wilderness unless they improve.
4. The players need to internalize that only performance counts. Any hint of selfish motives detracts from team effort and should be avoided.

Won't happen, that's why Indian cricket for all the money it has, won't improve in a hurry.