The Cricket World Cup of 2007 has been very disappointing for the two most populous and possibly most fanatic cricket loving countries — India and Pakistan. Both of them are eliminated (India is almost eliminated barring a miracle) in the first round. Pakistan’s coach, Bob Woolmer, has been murdered.
I can imagine the mood, disappointment, and frustration about India being in this situation in Indian population. Cricket is really the only sport that has national following — and does it have following? Cricket is a passion among masses in India.
Being still a cricket-follower and a cricket-lover, I am also disappointed by the performance at the World Cup, but I must say that based on the performance of the team in the last two years I did not expect it to do too much better. I was thinking that we will collapse in the next round. Bangladesh’s young players had different idea, however.Â
At this point, the only thing I can do is to hope that the culture of Indian Cricket changes. What India needs is a fresh look the profession of Sports. Most Sports now are professionally organized activity that rely on identification, training, and building of talented players with total disregard to politics. When professional politicians govern Sports, there is something wrong.Â
Look at the bright side…India’s projected GDP growth is more or less on track now thanks to the fact that we can get back to work and also focus better! 🙂 I was starting to get worried about folks in my team walking into office late and groggy. 🙂
Had we done well, the status quo in our domestic system and our cricket administration, would have been unchanged. Now , that the skeletons are out of the closet, changes are expected. Kindly read a few articles , that, I have written on related topics at http://www.commonfan.blogspot.com.Thanks
Look at this year’s 20/20, India once again crashed out. Pakistan made it to the final. There is a pool of untapped talent in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka with talented players ready to walk into the existing players’ shoes.
I feel that consistency in batting ie high runs, is necessary for any team to succeed. Okay, good bowling and fielding helps as well but its the batting which, in my opinion, wins the day. I am actively involved in junior cricket, trying to instil in young players, the techniques of batting, making runs etc, so that it becomes second nature to them when they play at higher levels, either for club or country.
The problem a lot of clubs have is that the coaches training these young cricketers have earning their coaching qualifications by attending coaching courses and not through experience ie playing at the highest level and therefore knowing what is expected of a good batsman.
All we can do is keep trying.
Regards,
Jas Khanna
This is something which I am trying to forget.I think both team India and Pakistan were a bit casual about their campaigns.Both of them lost against below par teams like Bangladesh and Ireland and it turned out to be the crucial blow.