Men in Blue(s)

India is my country, All cricketers are my Gods!

A bandwagon, consisting of the promising youth blended with a nice mix of the experienced geriatrics was chosen by the elite panel of the richest cricket board on this planet to represent the world's second most populous country and largest democracy. Now, let's stop right there! World's largest democracy. We have more that a billion people to satisfy. We need to keep the bongs happy, the mumbaikars feeling good about their people, the mozzies' blood from boiling and the southerners' as calm as they have been from time immemorial. We have just 11 people to do all this with. The inclusion of players from ones mulk or zone or sect has more of a palliative effect than any one of the golden budgets or a 7+% GDP growth or Vishwanathan Anand winning the Corus or reading a column by Jug Suraiya or some Jeev Milka Singh doing what no Indian has done before- make the cut! Don't our boys need to make the cut? Or be cut - guillotined actually!

Where is the problem? Or is there one? Or did they just have a short miserable run in the world cup? Was the pressure of a billion people too hard to handle for the experienced quorum? Was it complacency? Or are we just THAT bad? Was it our selectors who messed up? Was it the Australian taskmaster? Some might say it was because of the inclusion of Dada??? Or was it justfuhkix? Or are we just talking too much about the loss, and actually it is no big deal? Apparently, no one doubted the attitude of the past batting great, Mr. Tendulkar. And so takes a dig at our scapegoat. Then next morning TOI prints: Chappell Retired Hurt.

Reality check! Are we in a soap, yes soap? Might be, considering some bard once said, the world was a stage and all the men and women (and cricketers) are merely players. This is the attitude that has done us in, done THEM in! Association with the team gives me the jitters. Call me a traitor, but I need to have something concrete to hold onto. Not thin air, not some flimsy gumption less band of useless losers (please forgive my emotions) who's prime aim in life has changed from being sportsmen to actors. Schumacher earned billions in sponsorships, so did Tiger but there almost never was a moment their game dropped.

Ian Chappell once said about Australian Cricket, “There isn't a single good player in Australia who goes unnoticed. Every person who belongs to the team, without a doubt, does!" Michael Slater: “If my captain [Steve Waugh] asked me to run headlong into a wall I would, coz he wouldn't ask me to do it if I couldn't."

It is high time we stop trying to find a scapegoat, stop retaliating to the bitter truth that was dug out and try to rebuild. The journey will be a long and emcumberd one, tough for the juniors and tougher for the veterans. But it is time we dug deep and did some soul searching.