Million Dollar Babies !

what do you think of it ? asked my friend while we were watching TV. Tv channels all of them were into "Team India" bashing mode then , the very media who projected them as heroes were now after them show after show , funnily in between these debates the ads featured had cricketers endorsing products ( initially !)... on tv we were flooded with images of fans going berserk ... majority demanding that the team come back right now and stop 'disgracing' us !
( where were these ppl n those who interviewed em when hockey team was playin or when any other intl sports meet where we took part was happenin .. i wonder ;-) )
well it was that time of the World Cup when a extremely cautious India was shocked by a carefree Bangaldesh. I had hopes of the team bouncing back then as i beleived (and continue to beleive that we are a good team) but it was not be. Ex-cricketers , who had given 'expert' opinions bout the greatness of current team and had rubbished Bangaldeshis before the match , suddenly discovered that the team was not good and were able to come up with a lot of flaws. More hilariously TV channels went around asking common men and funnily filmstars for advice on what was wrong with Indian cricket... comments were really hilarious ( some sick) to say the least. here are some i recollect ...universal conclusion was that it was ads which was responsoble for the 'spineless' capitulation ..."stop them from doing all these ads , then they will be better cricketers" they all quipped . They should stop doing all these ads and practise harder instead they all chimed . How easy is the life of an arm chair critic ! we are a nation of under achievers yet we expect our cricketers to do magical feats. Ads i thot meant safe n secure income and optimistic way of lookin at it wud mean that a cricketer who has a 5 yr contract wud not be very worried about getting out and can be free of pressure and hence can perform better which cud lead to more ads and more money .. translating to more motivation for ground breaking performances ! But whole country acc to media polls thinks otherwise ... Another enterprising gentleman had this formula , there some 10 point agenda to reform Indian cricket ! Another KPS Gill in making i guess :-) if they dont perform , dont pay them they thundered. ..
some ( inc TOI newspaper !) were of the view that cricketers should be given targets like sales executives ... " they should be set a target of say 40 runs ave .. to be maintained over a period of 10-15 ODIs , if u dont match it u r dropped, same for bowlers , they should have x economy rate and ave over a period of time or they r dropped".
Gosh .. how idiotic can ppl get ! now they want ppl to conc on the personal records instead of helping the team win. now if these ppl/media have their way u will have ATP style ranking system wherein the top 11 wud make it to the team and others wud work hard to earn points to make it to top 11 and enter the team ;-) one politician was quick to poune on this and demanded bannin cricket as solution to all our problems ... i guess a better solution wud be to ban all these politicians, who discuss cricket in Lok sabha instead on concentrating on graver issues n problems botherin the nation.
my answer to 'it' would be that we are a nation which is evolving fast yet some things like mindset dont change so fast. im sure we will in due course realise that our Cricketers are no heroes they are also humans like each one of us and are prone to failures like most of us !
Our society has changed/evolved a lot in last 25-30 yrs when watching sports / playing was considered criminal waste of time by most parents ... to healthy appreciation of both .. to current trend of coaching camps , tennis academies where 6-8 yr olds are dropped for coaching by ever eager parents... The cricket economy has grown at a much faster pace then the game itself in our country and hopefully sooner or later this gulf wud get bridged , this defeat i guess wud in that sense go a long way in correcting the perspectives of most and would actually do us a lot of good in the longer run ... Soon we will come terms with defeat and will realise as late Bob Woolmer said "it is after all a game" !