Happy Perth Day

This was my status on Orkut when India won the Perth test match during its last tour of Australia under the captaincy of great Anil Kumble. Even after yesterdays and rest of the completed series against Australia this time around, this Perth Day, still can be a happier one. Plenty of things must have come and gone through your mind if you are a staunch Indian  cricket fan like me. You would have even cursed our team or at times even abused it. Happens, natural to any one. But at the end of the day, it’s our team. We love them so much that we have right to get angry on them, but it should be within the limits of being fans of a sporting team. Being a fan myself, I too never felt this low during last twelve years, not even when we lost to England 4-0, as I am feeling just now. Blame it on Dada and somewhat Kumble that kept us winning test matches abroad, consistently that we just can't take defeats easily any more. 

"Lions at home and Lambs outside" that's famous phrase often used for Indian cricket team, even today. But during the first decade of this millennium at least we were winning test matches outside subcontinent successfully and were at least able to draw the series. Suddenly after we won the world cup, we have lost that “art” of winning outside , ironically, that world cup win came for limited over’s game and it has nothing to do with test matches. Why suddenly this huge drop? Its hardly make any conviction that suddenly all 5-6 batsmen in the team loses either concentration or form or both. The biggest problem and difference I see between West Indies of 90s and Australia of recent times and us now, is that the both West Indies and Australia saw the sudden decline because of the mass retirements by their seniors, whereas in our case, we have declined this heavily in presence of our seniors. If it’s not threatening, then it’s really worrisome for sure. The pundits sitting in AC studios or hotel rooms have given their views already, but none of them have uttered a single word about how the fans should take this? How should they react? What I am going to do in this blog is exactly the same.

The biggest issue concerning to the fans is that our team is going down without a fight. It was not like that friends, before March 2011. Why suddenly it is happening? Answer is, “We don’t know”. Let’s go back to our memory lane. Once we lifted the world cup, we started playing IPL then we went to West Indies and then to England, then England came back to India, then many of the players played in Champions League and then West Indies came here and played a full series, then this Australian tour started. Today, most of our media and fans are asking for senior’s heads. Fine, good, non performers must be shown the door. But yesterday Dada said one good thing and I am also stressing on the same point. They are not getting any younger. Yes there is a skill, yes they are masters, but the reflexes and workload which they had and could manage a decade back, is not possible to manage today by them. As a fan, as a human, we must understand this. For me, there must be an age bar for players playing in IPL and CL. If possible remove CL, its useless tournament. There should be no botheration on players who do not want to play either in IPL or CL. I know money is big issue, but what is our priority? Celebrating our city’s team winning a domestic tournament or winning a test match series in Australia, England and South Africa? As fans we must start to shape our support now. We must decide our priorites while supporting the team. Test match first, ODIs next and then T20s or IPL.  What we can do is what our great Mahatma Gandhi showed us during our freedom struggle. We must show our displeasure in disciplined way against this long and/or useless tournaments. I am not saying we should boycott IPL, but by showing less numbers in crowd, we can at least force BCCI to reduce the number of games. I think it was visible during last IPL.

The biggest problem with us is that we forget everything so fast and so easily. We lost in England very badly, but when we whitewashed them in India and then won comprehensively against West Indies at home, we started to believe that beating Australia in Australia is now just a formality. Looking at Australia’s performance in South Africa away and then against New Zealand at home, may have helped that thinking too, probably this audacity is hurting our egos now. We must not let this defeat go out of our mind so easily. It’s time that fans should also show maturity. One day hero and next day Zero, doesn’t show any kind of maturity at all. When we won, we start to make fun of other teams and when we play like them, we abuse our players, because we can’t have an appetite to hear the taunts from other. We must know that it is a sport and victory and defeat are part of it. I know this has been repeated time and again, but as I said, we forget such defeats so fast. Remember, as per my knowledge there are not any away series till 2013. That means like Bishensingh Bedi said, we will forget everything during IPL. A big request to all of you that please do not listen to these news channels. For them it’s earning money from our emotions. I don’t want to name any one, but most of the so called “experts” always have knee jerk reactions. They will take down the team to the lowest point possible. You must know that these people have once played cricket, some of them have played very less international cricket, but still have played cricket at top level, yet their comments are so pedestrian. We are fans and god has given a mind and heart to think and use our emotions. Once you support your team, you should always support it. Yes you must criticize really hard when they lose like this. But then with grace, because tomorrow same team will again give you sweet memories of victory.

Now the biggest point of this blog I am going to raise. I have gone through roughly 9 to 10 news channels all day yesterday, the moment India lost at Perth. All were behind the seniors, namely three. Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman. As always our media reacted and they were bashing the trio and asking for their blood but were not able or not wanted to discuss the replacements. Or what should a fan do when the transition period starts and keeps on going for a year or so. Probably lack of following of our domestic cricket was hampering them. Just in case our selectors drop this trio then who are their replacements? I am not saying that there aren’t any. There are many waiting in the wings; two are already in the team. Rahane and Rohit. We can probably look around and see Badrinath and Pujara too. But will the same media give them time to settle too? Winning is important, but winning every time is not possible. For me Laxman will definitely be the first casualty but as Dada said yesterday, he should not be made a scapegoat. He must be persisted with in Adelaide and then decide about his future. If he is good enough in the test, he must be given a farewell test at home this year. Rahul Dravid must play the entire series home and Tendulkar should play for a least a year, where he must get retirement from ODI. As fans, we must think that yes these are greats and yes they are going through their worst and probably the final phase of their career. But how long they will keep on playing? Most of them are knocking the doors of 40s. Once they are replaced, we must support their replacements with longer amount of time. We must  understand that even after repeated numbers of foreign tours and with tons of experience they are failing like this, the new comers will get some time to start winning under foreign conditions. We must persists with likes of Kohli,Rohit,Rahane, Badri and Pujara when they will be permanent part of this team. That time is not far, its lurking now.

There is another resignation people wanting is our captains. Yes, he must be blamed. He was known for his Midas touch. He was known for his skillful captaincy, He was known for his cool, calm and collective attitude, where he could do no wrong. But suddenly, we have seen a different Dhoni this series and probably all this year in tests. Once a partnership is above 40 suddenly we start to see a long on and long off dropping back and sleeps go invisible. He has even hinted about his intentions to quit tests in the middle of this series. Even then people from media houses started controversy on this that whether such statement was required during middle of an important series where India is doing badly. But they  forgetting that Dhoni was just answering a question asked by a media person  which was asking about his future plans and he just answered it. For me, after this series, he will  rather be doing that earlier then what he has scheduled in 2013. But I disagree with him that he wants to quit the test to play World cup in 2015. Players do not play cricket just to play world cups.

So, the message for us the fans is, that do not forget this, be ready for hard decisions made by the BCCI, if they have any guts to make, if there are any hard decisions, still follow our team as religiously as we are now. Players will come and go but the game will stay so will Team India. Criticize debacles in strongest possible way but do not abuse the team or its members. Follow the media and its stories, but use your own minds. Follow only those who have sane comments for our cricketers for example, Sunil Gavaskar, Sanjay Manjerekar and Sourav Ganguly. Avoid so called “experts”. If possible do not watch repeated postmortem shows on our debacles. Do watch highlights of our winning days where ever possible. If we follow these then yesterday’s day will also become a “Happy Perth Day”

Dessert Storm !!!

“Bas ab bahot hoova, maaf karo, seniors ko saaf karo”

(Enough is enough, please clean the seniors out of the team)

-       A news shows on one of the “famous” Hindi news channel.