ARTICLES

    MEDIA TOO HARSH

 
"Another spineless performance from India”

   India’s horror show down under.

    Flames down under.

    Ships are sinking

    Absolute shame.

The above were the headlines of the newspapers after India suffered a loss in the perth test match yet again. India was bowled out for 191 in the first innings and 162 in the second innings and was handed yet another inning defeat by the Australian team.

I think the media has gone bizzarde against the losses that India has suffered at the hands of Australia which was once the world champion. In my views the reaction from the media was extreme because it’s only a test match that rather a test series that India has lost not its pride. I wonder how a person who has not held a cricket bat in his entire life term Indian team good for nothing and define the losses down under as a shameful sin for which the members of the Indian cricket team are responsible.

I wonder how some people can term Indian coach Duncan Fletcher as a man with no ideas. It’s not right on the media’s part to term a series loss as a national shame because in my views the game of cricket cannot bring a national shame to the people of India. One must not forget that cricket might be a religion in India whose god’s are the star cricketers but it’s not even the national game of our country.

Many national television channels termed India’s loss as flamesà> as if the world was coming to an end. Many termed it as a matter of absolute shame as if the cricketers had degraded India’s pride at the hands of Australia. I wonder how the people can term the Indian batting order spineless in the presence of greats such as Sachin, Dravid and Laxman. I think media has no right to suggest them when to retire because for decades these players have performed consistently to be at the top and they very well know when it’s the right time.

Also a die heart cricket fan must realize that losing a test match is no big deal and their faith in the Indian cricket must not disappear due to this. It’s not a matter to be worried of because in a game you win some and loose some it’s just that Indian team was at the receiving end. One must not forget the memorable triumph moment that our team gave us in April 2011 when they made us the world champions after 28 long years .one must not term them as zeroes just because the team is going through a bad face that might end soon and India would retain its number one position in the tests also Sachin would score his much awaited hundredth international hundred and would give us a moments of joy and would put Indian team back on track.

I wish them all good luck for the triangular series and many more series to come.

sahil gupta

23/01/2011 




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 Flames down under

India has been plundered down under. It is all done and dusted, the downfall that started in England got worse in Australia where India have been outplayed by the mitty aussies that could well result in the another humiliating 4-0 whitewash . After losing in Melbourne many felt that India would surely bounce back in Sydney where Indian batsmen boosted a very good record but the manner in which Australia uprooted India was heartening to see. Neither the Indian bowlers held their line nor the batsmen showed any sort of resilience against the relatively inexperienced bowling attack. At the beginning of the tour many cricket pundits believed that India had a strong chance of beating Australia in Australia. India had the best batting line up in the world that included record over 140 test centuries among themselves. But it was soon proved that records are history and one need to play competitive cricket throughout than to rely on the past records.

Another reason for this mishap is the weak bench strength which is a result of the poor planning by the selectors. They never realized that the senior pro’s of the team are over the hill and cant except them to fire every time with the same intensity. One needs to realize that their era of greatness has ended and they must now hang up their boots and pass the torch to the youngsters. Here one feels that a senior official of the working committee must step in to ask them about their retirement plans. Player like Dravid is not in best of the form his defence has been breached many times on the tour. The magic of wrist and flicks is also missing from Laxman , Shewag looks out of sort and gambhir has been doggy outside the off stump. Tendulkar is under all sorts of pressure as he is nearing the landmark. The bowling looks totally out of sort and that zeal of passion and execution of planning is missing. Apart from zaheer all bowlers have looked below par. Be it ishant , umesh ,ashwin or now vinay kumar all of them had been plunderd for plenty by the mighty aussies and their performance was more sought of a club level not international standard where you consistently need to hunt for the wickets or stop the flow of runs. Captaincy is another important issue. The midas touch that Dhoni had is now missing. He has looked totally out of sorts throughout .Dhoni now needs to shed the image of captain cool and need to show some aggression on and off the field rather discussing about his retirement plans before the eve of the crucial test match. The best thing that India could do now is to go out on the park all guns blazing and play fearless cricket and show some positive intent .Fans need to realize that it is just a game that they had lost and its not a matter of life and death. So they must be calm and must not term their heroes of the worldcup2011 to zeros.    

sahil

14/11/2012