Best? My foot ...

Being a passionate supporter of Indian Cricket Team, I don’t feel good when it doesn’t play to its potential. Watching them play in the Asia Cup was as dejecting and dismaying as reliving a spoilt child story. I call it dejecting because this team, despite being the best that India has produced for many many years, fails to win on a consistent basis. And it is dismaying, because if it is the standard of the best, I fear for the day when it will not be the best.

After the much-publicized high of Australian tour, Indian team seems to have struck the old note of mediocrity among the feigned aura. It failed to win the Test series against South Africa at home. The series leveling win in the 3^rd Test at the dusty pitch in Kanpur was hailed as a feat extraordinaire. But Graeme Smith put it in perspective after that, “We would have been disappointed if we had drawn the series at our home.” But this introspection was lost in the frenzy of IPL.

Post IPL showbiz, the team embarked on back-to-back one-day tournaments where it had a grand opportunity to decrease its loss ratio against its old-time nemesis, Pakistan. But it still managed to lose to them, more so in the tournament final at Dhaka in Kitply Cup. How could it? Against a team like Pakistan- a replica of the team of India of late 1990s. As if it was not enough, it lost again to them once in Asia Cup. The final was a Mendis show, which I grudgingly enjoyed, but the team had lost the match when it allowed SL to score 270. Same old story- below-par bowlers, sloppy fielding, occasion-lacking batsmen; and the same grieving spectators and followers.

I had decided not to vent my spleen in any way, after watching the debacle in Asia Cup final. Instead I had wanted to throw encomiums on Ajantha Mendis, who is indeed a breath of fresh air. But as another series against SL arrives, my simmering thoughts need to be outpoured. I want a clean performance from the team- Mendis or no Mendis. But what I can do if it again loses. Probably join the club of hacks who shamelessly conclude, “It is the fault of Indian Selectors who decided to select a coach for India. See yourself- the curse has struck. No win after Gary.”