Recreation

Fans with short term memory, a board with nothing else on mind other than money, media which waits for every little opportunity to paint the team as a shame to India ...My god!! An unenviable position really !

I will never hold the players completely responsible for the 8:0 loss. Yes they deserve a bit of a flank, but there is a bigger issue that needs to be looked at.

The biggest hurdle that I see in Indian cricket progressing the way it should is BCCI and not to forget its golden egg the IPL.

Such is the zest for money in BCCI that a meaningless IPL 2011 was held within 6 days of the most memorable day of Indian cricket in the past 25 years. The players did not get to savour the moment,they did not get an open bus parade,they did not get time off with their family and friends, they did not get to bask in glory .. All they got was a lunch with our president Prathiba patil (Last thing on earth that players would have wanted).

To think that this world cup win was the same as the ones between 1975 to 2007 would be foolish. To me there has been no win that was as emotional as 2011 wc . Perhaps 1992 and 1996 run close for the second spot . This is no effort to belittle their victories but still, Pakistan did not have to beat India to reach the finals, Sri Lanka did not have a single game which is worthy of an India v Pakistan semifinal , but India did .

As if beating Australia in-spite of a pointing century was not draining enough we had Paki's lined up next . I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that it's okay to loose the cup but not the game against Pakis... To top all that a brilliant chase under lights with stellar performance by Gambir and a six that will be folklore for ages to come. I was emotionally drained!! Never mind the players .what did they get to offload all that pressure ? A lunch with Prathiba Patil. The WC was history within hours .. CSK , MI , KKR hogged headlines .

Such is the pressure on players to participate in IPL that my favourite Cricketer played the tournament during April , May and skipped the tour of west indies wanting to spend time with kids on their "summer vacation" during June and July . I am all for players taking rest against weaker oppositions and i do not blame them for wanting to spend time with family. Infact they should have got time to do all that immediately after the WC not after 2 months of high intensity 20:20 s .

The BCCI which behaves like local politicians throwing it's weight around in matters like Woolf report or the DRS was blinded by money then. A Board which could force other cricket boards to play unscheduled test matches to ensure that India sticks on to Number one position in tests could have postponed the IPL pretty easily. It did not care for the players .. It did not want quality cricket .Instead they wanted feed their never ending appetite for money and so they killed the goose which laid golden eggs - the players .

To blame just the IPL for all these losses would be amateurish ... The whole system needs to change ,specially our first class set up. Teams of poor quality ,poor pitches and Meaningless tournaments should go. Sensible , objective cricketers who think rationally without bias should be made to take all cricketing decisions, not the cement man Srinivasan . An Australian like Argus review of our current system should take place and the changes suggested should be implemented religiously .

Emerging players Should be made to play in county, perhaps even in Sheffield shield and south African first class system . Pitches should definitely improve . Expecting our players to play all their formative years on slow and low pitches and expecting them to cope with pace , bounce and movement is unfair . You can’t teach some one tenth standard syllabus and give them IIT question paper, Can you ?

If we don't act now we are going to be the new West Indies and the only prevalent sport in our country is bound to die.

Sanjay mankrekar's recent tweet said

"you know you are in a sports loving nation when you find 29 sports pages in the sunday newspaper here in oz."

We don't have that luxury , do we? A county ravaged by politicians and terrorists needs its favorite sport more than anything else .