Lankan Lions had Indian Lamb Curry - ICC World Cup 2007

Sri Lankans clinically annihilated India and there was no secret formula, they did their job for which they were paid for in a professional manner. And what was the job, to go out and bat, bowl and field well. And still their players get a much lesser remuneration than our so called superstars.

Yes this is a game after all, and I would not have been upset had Indians shown a semblance of a fight, but to surrender meekly was simply unacceptable. The Lankans had nothing to lose, but the way they played it was as though everything depended on this match and it was the opposite with the Indians. At the end of this game the biggest smile was not on the Sri Lankan players face, but the Bangladeshi players who had come to see the decimation of the Indians.

I am sure a lot of journalists and news channel would have already written their obituaries about this Indian cricket team. But I can only say is that people should remember that this was a collective failure of team India and not any individuals. We simply did not look like any world beaters.

Theoritically we still have a chance, provided the Bermudians defeat the Bangladeshis. But that is a very very remote possibility, but if Ireland can defeat Pakistan and Bangladeshi can defeat India, we can assume that there is a flicker of a chance, as they say cricket is a game of glorious uncertainities, and this world cup proved exactly that.

Even if we do not make it to the next round, this is not the end of the road for Indian cricket. Indian cricket will always survive, but hopefully the Indian fans learn a lesson out of this and stop hero worshipping our cricket players. Remember they are paid to do a job and they have failed miserably in that job so far and the team and the board should be held accountable for this. I hope the fans do not start burning effigies and vandalising the cricketers house for losing, instead the worst possible punishment that can be given to them is ignoring them or in a way ostracizing them.

Congratulations Team Sri Lanka, you did your job as expected and you were worth every penny your board paid you.

India Lost to Bangladesh - Now what

India lost yesterday to the so called minnows i.e Bangladesh team. Any person who watched India and Bangladesh for the first time will be scratching his or her head as to why Bangladesh are called the minnows of cricket and not India after seeing their performance yesterday. And ofcourse just for the records, there was another huge upset yesterday when Pakistan lost to another so called minnow Ireland.
There will be a lot of criticism and post mortem from the highly emotionally and charged Indian cricket fans.

There will be a set of fans saying sack Dravid and make Dada the captain,
Some would say Sachin Tendulkar does not score when most needed,
Some would blame Chappel,
Some would blame the selection committee,
Some astrologers would try to make a name for themselves by saying I predicted India losing to Bangladesh because neptune and pluto were copulating

The reason is simple and straightforward, TEAM INDIA as a whole played badly.
It was not any other reason. A majority of us Indian cricket fans are unfortunately not a fan of TEAM INDIA but fans of individual players in the team. And this has what allowed some of the experienced so called Superstars get away with absolutely abysmal performances, because they know that their fanatic fans will see to it that they are not going to be dropped from the team. I am not saying that we should not like individual players, but what I say is that do not idol worship them and make them Gods or whatever, we should learn to enjoy the positive feedbacks when they do well, but at the same time learn to accept the negative criticism.

Dave Whatmore played this superstar card very well before the beginning of the match, when he made a statement that he hopes that his Bangladeshi players do not get overawed by seeing the Indian superstars. Our players must have taken that seriously and thought that this is going to be a walk in the park, and yes it was because most of our batsmen walked in and walked out immediately.

All said and done, Bangladesh played outstanding cricket, it was refreshing to see their teen brigade bat with so much maturity and responsibly.

Team India is not out of the tournament yet like their other famous counterpart Pakistan, but they have to play as a team and not like a bunch of superstars if they have to go to the next round. Also the Indian cricket fan should pray that Team India does well and not just a Sachin or Saurav or Dravid.

All the best TEAM INDIA.

Sammy