Cricket frenzy in India

So the Indian team has lost to Srilanka and have started packing their bags to take the flight back to India. Here in India people are on streets shouting slogans and burning effigies of players for their poor performance in the WC. Its a great shame on us that we take our teams defeat in such an irrational manner. First of all its a game, played between tow countries. One has to win and other has to loose. Why do we expect our team to win all the time? Why we are not ready to accept the fact that Indian cricket team is not a world cup winning team!!!
Lets look at the facts. Till date India has not produced a bowler who can ball with a speed over 145 Kmph. Our bowling has always been listless. All the time Indian bowling has been more dependent upon some miracle. We are never sure of restricting the opposition within 150 even if top 4-5 wickets are down within 50 runs. So on the bowling front it has always been the grace of God which has made us sail through. Though we have been able to produce some quality batters, but none of them are able to deliver under pressure, barring some exceptions like Dravid. Yes, under pressure, the pressure created by the Media, created by over a billion people(who eat cricket, drink cricket and live cricket) and by the multinational cola companies. Its quite natural that one will always under perform when put under pressure. And that is whats happening with Indian team right now. Get a life people!!.. Give them a break..

And about the stone pelting on ZK's restaurant and ransacking of Dhoni's house in Ranchi, i have to say that these people are definitely not the supporters/fans of Indian team. They are not the disappointed and disenchanted people who are sad because their favorite player has broken their dream of getting the WC. They are the people who are venting out their personal grudge against the players. Why should one demand Dhoni to return the land back to Jharkhand Govt which was awarded to him when he had played the fantastic knock of 186? One can demand this only because of jealousy. They are the disgruntled neighbors of Dhoni who were waiting for right time to hide themselves in the mob. They are definitely not his fans. Similarly, whoever is throwing stones on ZK's restaurant must be unhappy with his restaurant's flourishing more than his in that area.

Its high time Indian Government start thinking about promoting other sports. I am not saying this because I am too sad or unhappy by the poor performance of our players in WC. There are many reasons why I say this.

First and foremost, in India, cricket has lost it status as a sport. A sport should be meant to recreate people, it should be played as a pastime, as a hobby. It is no longer a pastime or recreational activity in India. And before things take an ugly turn, like the Bob Woolmer episode, its imperative to do something. Apart from this, Cricket is not our national game. Either we should change our national game by bringing a bill in parliament or start promoting Hockey. We must understand that in cricket we can not be as good as Australia or South Africa. We have been playing international cricket for more than 50 years but we are yet to produce a quality bowler who can change the fate the game in his team's advantage. We must realize that Indians are a breed, a species who can't do it. We simply can't produce such bowlers. In other games like Hockey, there is no such need, so why not go for it and promote it.

I do not support the idea of players being restricted to the number of advertisements they can take in a single year. They never do an ad in their training session or at a time when they are not supposed to do so. Though it may bring down the money earned by them because of promotions but it can never encourage them to play better cricket. We can never say that less advertisement = better cricket. The players are giving their best even today. I dont think any thing is going to change because of this.

Lets hope that the people of India will realise some of the facts put down by me and will stop expecting extra-human (rather extra-Indian) show by our cricket team.