Thoughts on the World Cup thus far

It's been nearly 10 days since the Cup began, but I think it was only after watching India lose to Sri Lanka and limp out of the tourney, that I felt compelled, or let's say, moved sufficiently to write something on the goings-on.

To get this out of the way, I'll say that it was a disappointing way to go out for the team, which had shown the ability to live up to promise, playing effective cricket without riding on sensational individual performances. As I watched the dismemberment of the top order, I was sad, even sympathetic, at what was happening. There have been so many occasions in the past, when I have felt anger at Indian losses, but today, the sense of helplessness that pervaded the batting effort could not evoke such strong emotions.

Going into the championship, I felt, for perhaps the first time, among the 3 WC's that I have watched with some kind of intelligent perspective, that the team had a good chance of doing well, and even the thoughts of losses were invariably linked to images of a team fighting hard, and going down to the might of a superior opponent with its pride still intact. I would like to think that I had reasonable and well-founded expectations. It was as true then, as it is now, that we were missing a bowling spearhead, but the line-up had demonstrated its capacity to overcome that disadvantage and still win games.

I had never expected the team to win, but I was looking forward to the Super 8's, when they got themselves into a tangle by coming out under-cooked mentally against Bangladesh. Perhaps I'm too lenient, but the first thought that came into my mind was that they had an off-day, and they would surely bounce back from it. Today, I realized that I was wrong, not because they could not bounce back, but because in a tournament with the format this one has, off-days are blunders, and more likely than not, fatal. I also realized that even though the team did superbly in 2003, I probably gave them less credit than they deserved. That tournament had a more forgiving format, and yet the team won 8 games in a row between defeats to Australia, against quality opposition, and with convincing margins. That side did not have off-days at crucial junctures, even though the lopsided losses to Oz were in the same bracket as the losses in this Cup.

So, were Sri Lanka the better team today? They were, in hindsight. But this game could have been so much more closer had there been calmer and more sensible minds on the field. The dismissals of 4 of the top 6, to me, were similar because they were all results of what I like to call brain fades, blind spots in judgment. The tension and pressure were so palpable that anybody would have called it quits for Indian hopes after 25 overs of their innings.

This will inevitably be clubbed together with the demise of Pakistan to make a very succulently amazing statement, but I make a distinction between the two. The Pakistanis had come into the Cup looking woebegone, and their campaign never even looked as if it had even started running, let alone taken off. But as their loss to Ireland showed, just how far they had slipped was hidden by the fact that the opposition they played before the championship was considered capable of beating them.

However, I think I've said enough, and I'm looking forward to enjoying more marquee match-ups from hereon, especially Oz vs South Africa tomorrow. On a sadder note, the death of Bob Woolmer was a great shock, and now that it has been confirmed that it was not natural (I can hardly bring myself to use the word murder, it upsets me so much), the shock has given way to dismay. There are so many things that come to mind, and I'm sure every person who has some degree of perspective on sport, and even more so, defeat in sport, would feel anguished too. Sambit Bal has written a comprehensive article on the same in Cricinfo, which I would definitely want every cricket fanatic to read and absorb. The deluge of public reaction to the article shows that there are many who share similar views, but a closer look at the feedback shows up some issues with the way we in India perceive the sport and the players.

The most common comments that I've read so far are "the lack of accountabilityof the players to the people" and "players are interested only in making money" and others expressing the same sentiment. Firstly, it's not obvious to the folks making these statements that technically there is no accountability and there can never be any accountability, NOT because there is no such thing, but because the grounds on which such accountability is being demanded are hollow. If the players were being paid by the government, and hence by the taxpayers, then such a sentiment would undoubtedly justified. But it's not so at all. Cricketers earn huge sums of money because the people elevate them to the status of Gods, and allow them to be even considered for such astronomical payments. I am sceptical about their value as brand ambassadors. I am not convinced that their would be a drastic difference in the sales and consumption of various products, and more so, competing product, if the cricketers were removed from the calculations. After all, rival companies are both employing their services, and in popularity stakes, apart from perhaps Tendulkar, all the others nullify each other's effects.

So the gist is, if you're the ones who allow them to earn that kind of money, then you're also the ones who can take it away. After all, cricketers who fade from public memory are consigned to the 'expired' bin very quickly. So what is the point? The point is, sadly, that we are a country of a billion people, and just as there are failures and successes in any society, we have our fair share too (maybe more than our fair share, I'll concede). In such a country, you do not descend into anonymity and neglect, you rise from it. It's a nation of people who were denied opportunities to achieve their goals in life, and on top of that, many of them have seen the unfair side of life at almost every juncture. In many a moment of sheer frustration I have called the Indian people a bunch of losers, who live off the the glory and success of their chosen ones, such as actors and cricketers. With little to look forward to in terms of personal advancement, the average person looks to them to provide his thrills and his ecstasy, and the ugliness of hurt dreams rears its head every time the team does badly. The media adds fuel to the fire, and the result is very, very unpleasant.

Being in the US, I'm thankful that I won't have to see the hate and fault-finding campaigns that are surely ready to come out, all guns firing. I'm so glad to be away from it all, even though there is little else to be glad about.