Indian Cricket: A smooth transition required
India is a cricket crazy nation and thus majority of people have their own view-point on what’s happening on and off the cricket field whether its Dada retirement or Dravid’s sluggish form offlate or Harbhajan-Symonds brawl.
Lately India has been doing well in ongoing Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008 vs Australia. For the past few days Indian newspapers and media have questioned Australia’s supremacy as World’s Best Team and have portayed India as serious contender as the team replacing them. The same media has lamblasted the team after they lost series to Sri-Lanka and has questioned place of Fab 4 in the team.
No doubt India has played brilliant cricket in this series as a team and under the new Mr Cool captain Dhoni haven’t scumbbed to pressure which it earlier used to do especially after taking 1-0 lead in the series. As i write this blog on the 4th day of 4th test at Nagpur,Dhoni-Harbhajan were involved in brilliant 100+ run partnership at time when India was reeling at 166-6. This handling of pressure under such conditions is a big difference between present team and the earlier teams.
Government support to cricket vs other sports
We have an obsession with cricket in this country. It is the most popular game, and maybe there are valid reasons for that. It has been marketed wonderfully, and people’s involvement in the game has been raised to such a high degree that when the finals of the Twenty-Twenty were taking place in South Africa, the roads in Delhi were deserted, and for the next 2-3 days, the newspapers had major sections covering the event. The players were heroes, welcomed by the state government on arrival in Mumbai, with the BCCI doling out large sums of money to the players. Now, so far, the BCCI is a body for cricket, and it can give awards. But the Government has to appear broad-based and fair to all sports, and yet we know that is such a fiction. So, we have the hockey players, who won the Asia Cup when no one expected, protesting against the doling out of money to the players by State Governments.
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