Howzzat!

A pessimistic beginning,,,,

I begin my musings on cricket after a long pause. Somehow the disastrous performance of this indian team , guided by gregg chappel , seems to compell me back to this blog. And so obviously i begin this new phase with pessimism and critisism ; one that holds enough justification. Following their insipid - if i can be generous enough to call that - performance in the tri series down at srilanka , the indians moved into africa to begin disastrously by registering an ignominous defeat in the hands of new zealand. The only hope is that they will fare better against zimbabwe a side that is weak and broken. Even that may just be a pipe dream given the state of this team. This is obviously not a good news for greg.

And now much as he would like to avoid , let's focus on greg. His appointment followed a rosy period under john wright ; a period of sucesses and falures interspersed with each other. Greg was expected to deliver better results. Results that would take the team to the pinnacle of ratings and snatch the world champion status from the aussies. Now what is hapening is the exact anti thesis of this dream ; a steady slide to oblivion for a team that is losing confidence by the day. There are already some rumblings within the hazy order of indian cricket's politics. Greg had begun to complain. Traces of greg-ganguly conflict seems to be emerging. I am forced to wonder whether this spate of sub standard mockery is just a reflection of the off-field politics. Given india , its a shining possiblity. India needs a man like john wright , a quiet affable guy who could make compromises and shape people by giving away as much as he extracts. in constrast greg projects the image of a strict trainer who would be really enraged by little excesses and deviations. Whatever the reason , it is not sufficent to justify this kind of sporting quality. Are the vagaries of form so accentuated for the indians that they show drastic changes from a world class team to a good team and ultimately a pathetic bunch that comes out reasy to lose.

If india loses to zimbabwe it will start murmurings in the elite corridors of the sport's ardent critics. The focus will obviously fall on greg, the man who had been at the center of the recent transformation. He better make the team deliver!

posted by Tyagarajan S @ 8:51:00 AM