Me and Rik

I wonder why people still have such absurd views

I just bumped into this blog posted on Times of India - about caste systems. I just wondered - is this a simple stunt, or do people really have such absurd views even now?

Dravid is a human afterall

He's almost thirty-three now, he has been the "deputy" for about five years, never been in charge of the whole team except a few matches where he was the stand-in captain...how long could he go on like this? He's a human too, with all the human instincts of selfishness, tendency to betray, making a volte-face...he just followed his instincts. Forget what he once said about Sourav ("On the off side there is God, then there is Sourav Ganguly"), forget how he was brought back into the one-day squad by Sourav even though everyone was skeptic about his slow-scoring...this is a new Dravid, who needed the hot-seat for himself.

So how did it unfold?

Sourav didn't call for the press conference to blame Chappel in Zimbabwe - rather he was quizzed over and over by the media, who certainly knew about the incident (where he was asked to step down). Who leaked it to the media? A certain individual within the team management – as per the media itself. Who had the motive and who was supposed to gain? Several such incidents were reported during the Zimbabwe tour where someone from the team management leaked internal matters to the media...

The infamous mail from Chappel to the board (none of the allegations he was able to prove though) was leaked to the media - who was supposed to gain the most from this spat and by turning the board against the most successful captain of the Indian Cricket Team?

Who made a volte-face within the selection meeting just after saying something completely different infront of the media?

Well, I can make 2+2=4, I hope everyone can.

And the oscar goes to Sharad Power

So Sharad Power (the current BCCI President) has proved his acting merits too. As per The Hindu, Power was shell-shocked over the expulsion of Sourav Ganguly.

How low can they be?

Indian Cricket - RIP

I'm starting to write my first blog today, a day that was long expected (at least by me) - a day when the vicious power-play in Indian Cricket came to the limelight (again), a day which tells the tale of a selfish betrayal...

Sourav Ganguly was unceremoniously expelled from the Indian Cricket Team. Oh, I should mention - this team does not represent the Indian Nation, officially this is the BCCI XI. Time and again, I have thought that I should stop following cricket - because it has created stars and not heros, it has emptied the pockets of millions of Indians, and have not given anything in return. But well, this is not cricket's fault. This is how cricket has been run in India - rather than being a sport, it has been treated as a business. And, we are all drawn into the whirlpool...not following cricket...well it's like quitting smoking, which I have done countless times...

Anyway, so where was I? Yes, Sourav Ganguly being axed from the BCCI XI. Yesterday, the news created quite some activity on the major blog sites, TOI had several blogs published on this issue, I'm sure other forums did too. What bothers me is the attitude of people on these forums. In most cases, the debate turned into un-civilized rants against a person and a community as a whole, and this is what bothers me most. Do we lack respect for each other? Certainly we do, or so it seems. Blogs being mostly open forums, the frequent use of four-lettered words actually tell about the user...it speaks about you, about your background, about your attitude. The venom spitted out by you tells me that even though you reside in the same landmass which you call India, for which you sing Vande Mataram, in reality you do not belong there...

This is what bothers me...this is why I started this blog today.

May be within a few minutes, this post will receive similar comments from others - I do not expect much more than that. But I will keep this blog on. Each such message will harden my thoughts and my beliefs. And perhaps one day, you will be able to see yourself in the mirror.

Now back to cricket once more. Was Sourav dropped only for cricketing reasons? This is a question you really need to ask yourself.

A few days ago, in another blog, I saw a nice bit of statistics...comparison between two individuals, X and Y (before the series with Sri Lanka and South Africa).

2, 2, 2, 39, 19, 11, 2, 67, 93, 9, 123, 6, 2, 4, 47, 19, 16, 74, 18, 78, 82, 11, 18, 37.
31, 2, 19, 20, 5, 26, 51, 18, 4, 9, 0, 22, 55, 22, 0, 48, 0, 90, 90, 7, 24, 25, 79, 39, 60.

The total of the first row is 673. The total of the second row is 746. The don't differ much, do they? Rather the second total is more that the first, but still Mr. Y is dropped from the team.

Another set, tests this time:

16, 41, 52, 52, 94, 36, 32, 20, 3, 55, 248, 5, 2, 8, 1, 8, 2, 194.
16, 101, 2, 1, 12, 12, 21, 88, 71, 40, 57, 9, 5, 45, 77, 73, 144.

The total of the Mr. X is 869 and that of Mr. Y is 774. Not a great deal of difference here either. And Mr. X scored his 248 against the "giants" Bangladesh, while Mr. Y scored his 144 against "novices" Zimbabwe. So, we drop those two - and it turns out that the total of Mr. X is 621 and that is Mr. Y is 673. And now if I can reveal the identities, Mr. X is the great Sachin Tendulkar, and Mr. Y is the worthless bong (as coined by numerous blog-readers) Sourav.

I'm not saying Sourav is better than Sachin - not even for a moment. What I just want to say is when you talk about performance being the criteria, you need to be consistent - otherwise, people like me would call it "double standards". So, Sourav, with similar figures like Sachin is dropped, asked to prove himself in domestic matches (when did Sachin last play domestic cricket?), brought back again, and then again dropped (I should not repeat the whole plot here - every news site, every blog site has vivid descriptions) - and this time the intentions were more obvious - Greg Chappel and Rahul Dravid played the good-boy role in front of the media (before the selection) and turned on their heads within the meeting!!! I am least concerned about the selectors' role here, because they were and still are what Mohinder Amarnath said more than two decades ago - a bunch of clowns. And, firing of all the three who voted for Sourav soon after the BCCI elections were over speaks volumes about the whole mess.

I am concerned about what Dravid and Chappel thought. Did either of them really think about cricket? Did the selectors think about cricket? Are we thinking about cricket?