The IPL Apple!

Once you bite the apple there is no going back! 

The recent performance of Indian team in England needs no introduction. No cricketing team ranked Number One has played as poorly as Indian team did. As if losing a series wasn’t bad enough India didn’t even win a single international game. Not even a single one-day international.
I blame this shameful performance to IPL. 

Gautam Gambhir a good batsman. But along with other ‘giants’ of the game he sucked big time against England. I think he should be dropped from the team not for his poor performance but for his lack of commitment to the cause. He played the World Cup and he must have been tired by the end of it. He also got injured during the world cup but instead of resting and preparing for one of the most important tour of England - place where ball swings viciously– he foolishly opted to play for his IPL team. He played the whole session and got injured some more. But then instead of excusing himself from the Indian team he had audacity to open the innings in the First test. At the back of such a strenuous work load his awful performance in next two tests makes lot of sense. What doesn’t make sense is his decision making ability. And yes, his insatiable grid!
He added another layer of injury during the third test against England and played no role in second and third innings.  (But he still managed to drop two crucial catches when he was on the field) But the agony doesn’t end here. I am talking about my agony! He says he banged his head hard enough to be disoriented for rest of the tour and yet he was playing for his IPL team again in the worthless Champions Trophy 20/20 right after end of England tour. 

IPL is here to stay is quite all right.  I am not against ‘cricketaintment’. I am not against cricketers making millions of dollars for 15 days’ worth of work. They can do whatever they want in their spare time. But they shouldn’t or rather they can’t mess their priorities when it comes to playing for India. IPL is a sport or entertainment, whatever you want to call it. But cricket in India is a different specie and has a storied past. Yes it’s a colonial game but India embraced cricket so readily because Indians got the taste of representing their country, to root for their country long before independence. Representing your country in any sport is a privilege but to do so in Cricket in India is unique. Also the fact that cricket is the only sport on the world level in which India suck less. We have been fielding competitive team since 1950’s. And these teams have given us quite a few moments to cherish. The victories were savored because there was little else to cherish. In 1980’s when India was slowly sinking in the potholes of economic disaster the victory of 1983 world cup was a gift from heavens. For such moments Indian fans elevated cricketers to God like status. Cricket is the only sport worth rooting for. Nobody in India follow Ranaji cricket yet throngs of people show up even if India is playing against Bangladesh or Zimbabwe. 

They are not their only for the love of the sport. Crowd cheer for their country more than they cheer for the game. They want India to win every game against Pakistan. They want the gratification of winning against mighty Australians. Fans identify so much with cricket that they take any real or imagined insult at their cricketers personally. You rarely see Indians uniting against price hike or shitty corrupt politicians but they were on the street s protesting when Sehwag and Tendulkar were banned for a test in South Africa. Tendulkar is Tendulkar because he scores runs for India. He has been behemoth for Mumbai but his claim to fame is being highest run scorer for India. That’s his identity. And no matter how much successful IPL becomes or how much more IPL bastardizes the game, the first and foremost identity of a cricketer will always be his nationality. 

Under such situation it’s insulting to see Gambhir, Khan and Sehwag giving more importance to IPL owners than to India. It’s insulting to see Tendulkar skipping West Indies tour because he was tired from playing in IPL. I am not sure who he is kidding. There are only 8 serious test playing nations in the whole world. And if he is ready to skip playing against one of them so that he can concentrate on IPL then it’s not fair to Indian as well as to the West Indian fans. 

Talking to my brother on this issue he made a valuable counter-argument. BCCI is a heavily political organization unaccountable to the fans, to the government or even to the players. They pick or drop players for no obvious reasons. For example look at Amo Muzumdar’s career. A contemporary of Tendulkar and Kambali and a loyal soldier for Mumbai cricket, Muzumdar is the highest run-scorer of Ranaji trophy. And yet he was never even short-listed for Indian cricket team in any of the format. I mean we have in numerable dud players representing India since 1990’s and yet this behemoth of runs with perfect technique was neglected for no reason whatsoever. 

Under such conditions if Muzumdar had opportunity (he is retired from cricket couple of years ago) to play for IPL and not only make truckloads of money but splash on the national stage then would it be surprising if he shows loyalty to his IPL overlords than Indian cricket team? Probably not but it sure would be sad. Injustice happens to lot of people in India. In fact India is a land of injustice and unfairness. Do Indian soldiers manning Kashmir border get a fair deal? They are putting their life on the line only for politicians sitting in Delhi fuck up the hard won battles. These soldiers are poorly paid (as compared to any IT sector employee) and they get poor equipment to do their job. Would they rather man a rich person’s home just because they will make twice the money doing so? Some of the soldiers would but most of the soldiers do their job because they love their country. 

Indian players should play for the love of the country. I am not saying they shouldn’t worry about the money. They should be able to make as much as money as they can. The reality is, unlike the players of 60’s or 70’s; the current crops of players do make shitload of money playing for India. They are crorepati’s playing only for India. 

IPL is bonus money, a lot of money but still bonus. And as they say, one shouldn't work for the bonus! 

Please also see Suresh Menon’s blog below. His suggestion is spot on!
http://cricketnext.in.com/blogs/sureshmenon/2968/62659/need-a-body-for-the-players-by-the-players.html

In Digvijay We Suck!

Digvijay ‘Doggy’ Singh, the current professional ‘ sewer dweller’ of Indian politics is at it again! When bombs went off killing dozens of innocents on the busy streets of Mumbai most of us were, at first, shocked to see mayhem then sad to see the human loss and finally enraged to witness, yet again, the sheer incompetence, impotency and criminal negligence of ruling party. But Digvijay, our erudite non-leader was busy weaving web of lies, unfounded accusations and outright anti-national behavior.

He care least about the lives lost. He moves around in Z+ security. He cares list about the incompetency ,impotency and criminal negligence because, well, that’s him personified. His job was to bark at the wrong tree and pee all over. He had his prose ready for mocking the unfortunate souls. He was huffing and puffing already. After all he is battle hardened in the sport of gutter wrestling. In fact, he is quite professional at it. He is so pumped up that I have seen him baring his teeth even at his shadow. “This shadow is the work of RSS” I have heard him saying. To that, Sonia said “Yes my dear, that’s RSS’s work. Now you keep on barking”

I know you never heard of this sport because it’s quite exclusive and open only to the gutter dwellers. What you do is, every time you see someone passing by you start throwing gutter waste on them. You do that to old and young, woman and children. It’s not an easy game. To play that game you need to have no credibility, no ethics, no morality, you should be a louche, power hungry and you should be expert in ass-kissing and boot-licking. And of course, the incompetency and the impotency part I mentioned above. You should be reeking venality all over. Even by the lowest possible standards Digvijay set for himself his recent outburst against RSS after another Islamic terrorist attack was so low that actual gutter creaters were like “you are the man!”

Accountability isn’t exactly a strong point of current ruling party of India but even by their standards Digvijay is a nadir no one would dare to compete. I would love to think of him as a jobless politician who can’t make money off of his position (i.e. siphon of public money to his Swiss bank account) anymore if it wasn’t for scores of innocent people killed. That’s not to say that the Sonia’s party, sometimes known as Gandhi Party or the Congress Party, isn’t paying him to bark and pee at every corner. He is a dog all right. The current government is full of such personalities who resemble more to our canine ‘best’ friends than actual human beings. The grand old party of Congress has become a canine compound since independence. You have to lick boots of Gandhi family to get any position in any government. Loyalty to Gandhi’s is supreme and takes precedence over loyalty to your country. Loyalty to ethics or truth, now what’s that all about?

He was the Chief Minister of 2nd largest state (at that time at least) in India for more than 8 years. Every Chief Minister of India dreams of becoming Prime Minster of India one day. I am sure Doggy had those dreams too but reality slapped him pretty hard. He not only lost the state elections but he couldn’t even transition himself to a cabinet ministery in central government. He is basically ‘ghar ka na ghat ka’.

All though the world wouldn’t miss a beat if he becomes ‘ghat ka’!

No one expects Digvijay Singh to speak truth. Even his mama wouldn’t dare dreaming that. But the malicious stuff his potty mouth vomits is not merely another act of Gandhi-ass-kissing. It’s part of nefarious design. He speaks of things that only CBI, NIA or perhaps, the Prime Minister or the Home Minister would know. Of course, our Prime Minister is not known to know anything. But just for the argument sake, in a perfect world, in a hypothetical situation, in a dream state, if our Prime minister was competent enough and senile enough then only he would know that RSS is running bomb factories. Because that’s a pretty serious accusation, especially if you are to make such accusation after Islamic terrorist bombed Mumbai again!

The people standing at the corner in Zaveri market didn’t start their day thinking they are going to die today. They simply started the day as they did for last so many days. Except that what they didn’t knew or didn’t realize that their current government, the police organization and intelligence agencies are not meant to protect them.. How pathetic is that? And to top that a senior ‘leader’ of ruling party actually has cajones to blame a cultural organization for the bomb blasts! Is he trying to gloss over the mistakes of ruling party? Or is he in cahoots with Islamic terrorists, ISI and underworld to defend the terroristbombing? Even before the dead were counted Digvijay was making unsubstantiated accusation diverting precious public resources and media attention away from the tragedy? If he knows something about the bombings then shouldn't he be talking to the cops instead of holding media conferences? How come the ruling party allowing one of its members to level such accusations? How come our Prime Minister allowing such insidious behavior?

In spite of carnage of 2008 the chief minister of Maharashtra couldn’t get in touch with chief of Mumbai police after these recent blasts. Even after four days there’s back-and-forth on whether there was suicide bomber involved. Our prime minister finally uttered “perpetrators will be punished”. If that to hold true sir, you should be the first one to go to jail. Rahul Gandhi said that 99% of the terror attacks have been repealed. Really? I would request you to go and stand in Zaveri Bazaar without your Z+ security (which by the way is paid by us)

The process of protecting civilians is riddled with bureaucratic impasses and the will to protect the innocent civilians is compromised with sordid dance of treachery under the guise of political brinkmanship. The current ruling party is a vortex of corruption and criminal negligence. Innocent civilians are treated like expendable objects and their deaths are pawned off for political gains. If you think things aren’t bad enough then just wait, it will get worse.

But I think we deserve these hazardous buffoons. After all, in spite of carnage of 2008 we elected them in 2009.

The Great Indian Escape

It was the last hour of the third test. India, the recently crowned one-day cricket world champions, had five wickets in hand and only 86 runs to score. Any sane person would bet for India. It's just makes sense. A good 15 overs were in hand, sun was shining brightly. There was nothing stopping India from cruising to victory and win the already won cricket series. Yet Indian captain offered to call off the game to which West Indian captain happily obliged. And why wouldn't he? India had Laxman and Raina batting. Dhoni, Kohli and Harbhajan Singh were still waiting in the pavillion. To top it of, Ravi Rampaul who more than troubled Indian batsman through out the series was nursing wounds in the hospital.

Yet India decided to let go the game. Yes, they didn't loose. Yes, they won the series but if they did that in a shamefully defeated manner. It wasn't that they chose the draw over a win, it's that they didn't show intent to win that got me and scores of other riled up.

How can India call themselves the best test side in the world if they don't have enough balls to score 86 runs off 90 balls? Come on, you are telling me the pitch is slow? You just won the world cup for heavens sake! If you don't play to win then you should just go home and spare us the humiliation.

West Indies is ranked 7th out of 8 test playing nation. India is ranked 1st and yet India decided to opt for the draw. West Indian players are paid peanuts for playing while Class C contracted player in India makes more than Rs. 25 lakh. And that's just for being contracted. Players get paid for each test, one-day and 20-20. Add endorsement on top of that and each Indian player is a millionaire. And yet you play for a DRAW! You kidding me!

I am not saying Indian team plays bad. Of course not. They have been consistently winning for last ten years. They won easy games, they won hard games, they won some improbable games. They beat minnows, they beat good teams and few times they were just kick-ass. They deserve to be ranked number one.

But at the same time their rank is not secured. England and South Africa are within sniffing distance. If you want to hold on to your numero uno status then you need to win continuously. You need to play to win continuously. The aim should not just to be number one in the world but there shouldn't be any number one like you ever. That's what West Indian team of 1980's achieved. And that's the realm where Aussie of Shane Warne resided.

Indian team doesn't play for themselves. They play for India. And when you play for your country your only aim should be to win and nothing else. There's no draw, no cop-out clause. Dhoni, admittedly one of the greatest already, should be ashamed of his decision to shake hands when he should be busy whacking ball around.

Champions are champions are at the heart first and if you are thinking about draw then you ain't the one!