A Tournament with many Losers

As the Aussie juggernaut, no wait, I'll have to rephrase that - 'juggernaut' is really quite a horrible cliche; so, as the Aussie missile tank cruised towards a thoroughly wondrous third successive World Cup triumph, the predictable SMS's of dejection and doom began doing the rounds. "These Aussies are invincible", went the more obvious ones, but there were some gems around too, like "Australia should be given a wild card entry into the final for all future World Cups so that we'll have to watch only one miserable Australia match" or "They should rename the World Cup the 'Australian Open' or the 'Aussie Invitation Trophy'". I quite like the idea of giving a different name to the World Cup. But I suppose the ICC might not be be too keen on giving up the the uneasy prefix 'ICC' attached to the name. Honestly though, the prefix actually sounds quite embarrassing now, after the utterly disgraceful mess that the officials somehow managed to create at the end and the torpid yet autocratic organisation of the tournament in general. I don't think there can be any worse indignity for the ICC than some people labeling this the worst World Cup ever. But we'll get to that later.

The final in itself was yet another damning indictment of the very wide gulf between Australia and the rest of the cricketing nations. Sri Lanka are no pushovers; their bowling attack is actually better than Australia's, and they've got some fantastic firepower in their batting. But their greatest strength is the wonderful sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm amongst the team that has been largely attributed to Mahela Jayawardane's astute leadership. All of this was, however, brought to a dismal naught by Adam Gilchrist's truly fearsome knock. There have been calls for his head by some former Australian cricketers considering his rather poor form in the last 6 months, but the fact remains that a Gilchrist on the rampage is far more worrying for an opposition captain than anything that Matthew Hayden or Ricky Ponting can come up with. This may sound sacrilegious to some, but I do believe that after Shane Warne, Gilchrist has been the most special payer of this utterly dominating Australian team. And history will remember him so too; if he retires now, I scarcely think any farewell by any cricketer can top what Gilchrist managed yesterday.

The Sri Lankans did, of course, keep interest alive in the match fairly long; Jayasuriya was at his slashing best, and Sangakkara kept unfurling shots of the most delectable order, almost as though he was hell-bent on winning the unwinnable battle of the wicket-keeper batsmen. Glory for Sri Lanka was not to be though, thanks to some steady Aussie bowling and the permutations of the very confusing and at times very unfair Duckworth-Lewis system. At the end of 33 overs, the Sri Lankans found themselves at 206 for 7, needing another 63 runs to win off 18 balls. A done and dusted game, surely. There was also the small matter of the ground being in near pitch darkness because of the heavy cloud cover. So the umpires offered the light to the batsmen, and the Sri Lankans took off, which was not altogether surprising given that Shaun Tait was lurking around the corner. And this was the beginning of the most embarrassing farce ever witnessed in a match of such significance. The Australian players dissolved in ecstatic celebrations, the scorecard flashed out 'Congrats Australia!', the ground staff began preparations for assembling the presentation stand, the Aussie fans embarked on their typically rumbustious rejoicing, and then Aleem Dar decided to have a bit of fun with the rule-book, going up to a delirious Ponting to inform him, quite like a stern parent would admonish a misbehaving child, that the match was not over yet! Dar then proceeded to shoo off the staff making preparations for the presentation, ordered Glenn McGrath to put the stump that he had yanked out in jubilation back in its place and decided, after talks with the two captains, to resume play on the agreement that Australia would only employ slow bowlers. The looks on the faces of the Australian players said it all. So back came Lasith Malinga and Chaminda Vaas to take guard against Michael Clarke, and everyone who was watching was quite sure that Aleem Dar, and perhaps even Steve Bucknor and Rudi Koertzen had lost their minds. Apparently, the umpires were convinced that the Lankan tailenders facing 3 overs of gentle spin bowling in a hopelessly lost cause would bring thrills of the most electrifying kind imaginable to the millions of viewers. Either that, or they really did forget the rule that a match could be ended by the Duckworth-Lewis system once the minimum 20 overs a side had been bowled, and that there was absolutely no need to resume the match the next day to play out the 3 overs. The match referee, at any rate, wants us to believe that it was a simple matter of poor memory that caused such an indescribably horrendous farce. Mark Nichols, the TV commentator, went nearly apoplectic with rage and outrage at the remarkably deranged behaviour of the officials. He wasn't the only one.

So was this the worst World Cup ever? The tragic murder of the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer bang in the middle of the tournament certainly makes a very strong case for that kind of statement. Then, of course, the sheer number of one-sided games right till the very end of the tournament tilts the balance even further. The security was inadequate, the attendance at the grounds poor, and even nature was not on the tournament's side, with many games being affected by rain. Captains complained thunderously about the poor training facilities in the Caribbean, and the crowds complained about nearly everything, right from the high ticket prices to the ICC's ridiculous restrictions on the weapons of mass destruction that are musical instruments, and the shockingly dangerous Mexican wave. Moreover, there was never really any competitive tension in the tournament, what with Australia reducing everything that came in their way to pitiable dust.The rest of the teams, left to merely squabble amongst themselves like a pack of hyenas and identify the team least likely to be humiliated by Australia, often employed petty tactics like deliberately 'resting' their premier players against Australia in the hope that their confidence wouldn't be shattered by the walloping they were sure to receive at the hands of Ponting & Co, which only resulted in even more one-sided matches. Phew, the list of negatives doesn't seem to end.

Sure, there were a few unforgettable moments to savour. Lasith Malinga's 4-wickets-in-4-balls burst was a truly magnificent spectacle, as was Herschelle Gibbs's astonishing 6-sixes-in-an-over butchery. Inzamam-ul-Haq bid a tearful farewell to the one-day game after Pakistan's rather humiliating early exit, and Glenn McGrath finished his international cricket career like only an Australian cricketer can, with jaw-dropping success, clutching the Player of the Tournament award and surrounded by euphoric teammates. But perhaps the most enduring and endearing moment of the World Cup will remain Brian Lara's farewell lap around the Kensington Oval ground at the end of his last international match followed by a sensationally regal retirement speech, coming at the heels of yet another inglorious performance by his team. There was never anything even remotely inglorious about Lara though, and he made sure that his end will remain forever etched vividly in every cricket follower's mind with a single line, "Did I entertain?". There are many who will testify that they never saw a more passionate response given to a cricketer than the rousing reply given to Lara's query, but there are also some who will admit that they couldn't stop the tears at a moment so poignant and evocative. Lara was special, right till the end.

After analyzing all the pros and cons, I'll have to agree - this was the worst World Cup ever. The ICC should have mass sackings for the excruciatingly long debacle that they thrust upon the cricketing world. Well, as long as I'm wishing for impossible things, I may as well wish for Lara to come out of retirement. Or for Sourav Ganguly to go into retirement. Or for Kevin Pietersen to go back to South Africa where his talents will find much more support than in the woeful team that is England. Or for Sony Max never to telecast any cricket match again. Ok, I'll stop now.

Red Alert! Close Matches in Danger of Extinction!

Graeme Smith has got plenty of explaining to do. For the past one year or so, he's talked about his team's 'strength of character', he's talked about the new brand of cricket adopted by his team which is both 'brave' and effective, and he's talked about how his team ruthlessly 'demolished' their chokers' tag. He's pretty much exhausted the supply of English words in trying to showcase the supposedly gritty and combative nature of his team, which we all expected would find dazzling expression in the semi-final against Australia. We expected a close match; heck, we deserved a close match. If only someone had told that to Ponting and his men. One look at the steely stares on the faces of nearly all the Aussies as they took to the field was enough to remind us that the phrase 'close match' doesn't figure in the mindset of any Australian cricketer at the moment, not even remotely. What followed was 40 overs of the most cruel and demoralizing walloping imaginable, even if the scorecard doesn't say so. Graeme Smith owes us a semi-final. Perhaps he should spend less time with a dictionary and more with a trainer, preferably a therapist, because this South African team needs help.

People have found it hard to come up with new adjectives to describe the mind-numbing dominance of Australia thus far in the World Cup. Australia haven't just beaten all of their opponents on their merry way to a fourth consecutive World Cup final appearance; they've totally, mercilessly and brutally pulverized them. Some people have criticized the 'run for cover' tactics of Stephen Fleming and Mahela Jayawardane in shielding their best weapons, Shane Bond for New Zealand, and Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga for Sri Lanka, in their respective matches against the Aussies. But in all fairness to these two fine gentlemen, they had to think of something to pull a fast one on the rampaging juggernaut that is the Australian team, hadn't they? It's another matter that these questionable but potentially-effective tactics resulted in two crushing defeats for the innovative captains. Perhaps they were expecting to be pummeled in any case. Ponting would whole-heartedly endorse the latter view, and with a broad, supercilious smile to boot.

Australia are currently on a 21-match winning streak in World Cups that stretches back to that glorious semi-final (ah! the days!) against South Africa 8 years ago. Erm, why haven't the rest of the teams died of shame yet? Three batsmen of Australia have scored over 400 runs this tournament; two of them have scored above 500. Three of their bowlers have taken more than 20 wickets, which is a stunning statistic no matter how you look at it. They've piled up more than 300 in every match that they've batted first, and bowled out the opposition inside 50 overs in all matches save for the one against Bangladesh which was a 22-over game. Every single thing that Ponting has touched in the last 6 weeks has turned to gold - when Symonds was inured, Brad Hodge filled his shoes and smashed a blistering century against Holland; when Symonds returned he promptly made a brutal half-century against England. The reserve bowlers - Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark, haven't warranted even a side-ways glance, so good have been the frontline ones. When Glenn McGrath has opened the bowling, he's routinely snaffled a bunch of bemused opposition batsmen before you could say 'accuracy' or even 'retirement'; when he's bowled first change, he's twice picked up a wicket in his first over. Mike Hussey, that ridiculously prolific batsman-machine, hasn't had to arrive at the crease before the 30th over in a single match, which renders his modest numbers so far almost completely insignificant. Has there ever been a more imperious performance by any team in any tournament ever? Honestly, if Australia go on to lose the final, it will probably be the greatest injustice in the history of the sport.

Mahela Jayawardane and his band of infectiously enthusiastic men will, however, have other ideas. Everyone who saw Jayawardane's innings of 115 against the Kiwis has raved and ranted about the incredible polish and awesome effectiveness of his batting. He's an extraordinary leader, that man, and it may just be possible for him to dig out some massive reserves of pluck and spur his talented team to come up with a truly special performance and upstage the Aussies. For that to happen, however, a certain Muttiah Muralitharan will have to be at his magical best, spinning out outrageous offbreaks and bewildering doosras in generous doses. And of course, the rest of the team will have to push the boundaries of their endurance and stamina to the very farthest, and put on a show both heroic and epic in equal measure. Or, they can just hope for Australia to have a stunningly horrible day. The frightening thing is that even if all these fascinating things happen, Australia may still emerge winners. Talk about depressing odds.

The Man Who Could Make Time Stand Still

When you hear deeply agitated fans whine about Kevin Pietersen’s lack of ‘sportsmanship’ in throwing down the stumps to bring the career of Brian Charles Lara to a premature, run-out induced end or express disgust at Pietersen's ridiculously long-drawn celebration at Lara's fall, you know you're talking about a man truly remarkable. And I’m not talking about Pietersen. That Lara's last innings had to end in a run-out was, in many ways, a perfectly symbolic climax to a quite special journey. For one thing, the fact that no bowler could get him out in his last innings reaffirmed Lara's complete and utter dominance over the best bowlers in the business through the years. For another, his teammate Marlon Samuels's very questionable call for a run which clearly didn’t exist was a painful reminder of the lack of support Lara has received from his compatriots throughout his career. And, perhaps most poignantly of all, Lara's controversial dismissal gave the millions of viewers something to talk about, awakening us quite emphatically to the simple truth that all that Lara really stood for during his entire career was entertaining the masses.

I must admit that I didn't quite think of all these things the moment that Lara got out. Right then, all I could think of was how truly horrid a person Marlon Samuels was. The fact that run-outs like the one to have struck Lara today are quite commonplace in cricket or that Lara himself may have been responsible for many a teammate's demise through bad calling didn't quite register in my mind. Nothing else mattered then, except that Lara was out, never to return to hold a bat again. The packed stands gave him a resounding ovation as he departed, but Lara was clearly furious at not being able to produce one more of his magical knocks in his final match. This was hardly a surprise, considering his amazing ability to rise to the special and most significant occasions, an ability that he’s demonstrated with astonishing ease so often in his career.

To say that Lara made batting look beautiful would be saying the obvious, and the oft-repeated. The thing that has always struck me as odd about Lara is that when off the field, his body movements seem a little uncoordinated and disorganized. Even his stance is a little peculiar, a little crooked, with the feet much too close together. It's almost as if his body was made for the cricket field, because the same disorganized frame suddenly acquired a grace that was almost balletic when he held a bat. This may have been repeated a million times before, but Lara's strokeplay was indeed absolute eye-candy - the elegance that he brought to a simple cover drive or the poetic artistry of his movements when he came down the track to the spinners was, there's no other word for it - breathtaking. Even his leaving of the ball was lyrical, as were his defensive blocks - batting looked more like exalted dance than a humdrum matter of scoring runs when he was at the crease. And yet, the power and momentum that he packed into most of his shots would have made Mohammad Ali proud; perhaps this had something to do with that extravagant backlift or the whiplash motion of his wrists, because Lara was anything but raw muscle while batting. No, raw muscle was for mere mortals, not for the colossus that was Brian Lara.

There have been many who have pointed out that Lara was nowhere close to a flawless genius. His mood swings, lack of discipline, arrogance, disdain for rules, and most importantly, rather poor captaincy skills have invited as much scathing criticism as his batting skills have earned awed praise. But what his detractors don't get is that when gifts as extraordinary as Lara has been blessed with find expression in such rapid and spectacular manner as two monumental, record-breaking innings of 375 and 501 mere weeks apart, and that too just 3 years into his young career, it becomes almost impossible to lead an uneventful life. Lara couldn't possibly have discarded his innate flamboyance and penchant for the impossibly glorious in exchange for a disciplined, run-machine career. And he didn't. But we must only be thankful for that, because I scarcely think any cricketer, with the possible exceptions of Shane Warne and Viv Richards, has inspired as passionate a fan following that cut across lines of culture and country as has Lara, which had as much to do with his logic-defying ability to win matches single-handedly as his refusal to conform to norms and follow the straight path. His indescribably brilliant innings of 153 against Australia at Barbados may be remembered for many centuries to come, but so will his child-like knock against Kenya in the 1996 World Cup that prompted calls for his head from many. It takes the good, the bad and the ugly to make a legend, and Lara made sure his mesmerized audience witnessed it all. His incredibly inadequate leadership skills perhaps diluted some of the joy that cricket followers all over the world, and particularly in the Caribbean, derived from his career, but genius must be granted its excesses. Besides, there are some who believe that the reason Lara failed so abysmally in arresting the decline in West Indian cricket through any semblance of inspired leadership is that he could never quite come to terms with the less prodigious abilities of his teammates. A classic case of extraordinary talent being surrounded, even overawed by mediocrity, something which could never really have been experienced by the great captains of history, the Clive Lloyds and the Steve Waughs. Raw, untamed, unfettered genius like Lara's comes only once in a century, but such remarkable flair doesn’t always translate into great team-management prowess, especially if the team you’re asked to manage is abysmally insipid. Ask Sachin Tendulkar.

At the end of the match, some of the English fans in the stands began to shed tears. No, England didn’t lose the match – they actually won by 1 wicket, but this day, all emotions were for Lara. Time seemed to stand still, as it did so often when he was batting, as he walked around the ground, waving to the spectators, shaking hands with the English players, wiping a stray tear or two off his cheek. His grief seemed a little incongruous at such a momentous occasion, but after a moment or two of reflection you realize that it was only appropriate. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it is Lara who has been defined by the game of cricket, and not the other way round, and that it must have been terribly hard for him to let go of the one thing that roused his passion and emboldened and inflamed him to attain heights dizzying, dazzling, delirious. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it was not cricket that lived for Lara, but Lara who lived for cricket.

They say that Lara’s most outstanding achievement remains, to this day, his reclaiming of the record for the highest Test score in an innings, exactly ten years to the day he first created it, on the same ground and against the very same opposition. Indeed, this is one feat so awe-inspiring that it is difficult to imagine anyone doing anything to even come close to matching it, ever. In fact, when Matthew Hayden had held the record for a brief while, I remember thinking how frightfully dramatic it would be if Lara were to regain the record, and then brushing the thought off as impossible, even for Lara. I need hardly mention how completely stunned I was when Lara actually went out and shattered the record only six months after Hayden’s feat, with all the poise of an indefatigable champion. And yet, statistics and great cricketing moments mean so little when you talk about someone like Lara. He is one sportsperson who has truly transcended his records and emerged as a legend so full of mystique and wonderment that it is beyond the realms of any kind of numbers. He is the man who, when in the mood, could do anything. And I mean anything. He may have been nicknamed ‘Prince’, but he was more majestic, more glorious, more splendid, more sublime and more imposing than any emperor could ever hope to be.

School Shootings: For Some Reason, Exclusively American Disasters

Towards the end of the Harry Potter series, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is threatened with closure because parents start worrying too much about the safety of their children to allow them to go to school. If yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech University in the US is anything to go by, parents in the real world should start worrying about sending their wards to school too. Schools and universities, at least in the US, are suddenly terrifying places. They have become the quintessential modern hotbeds of blood-spilling; so much so, that Quentin Tarantino might just be tempted to have his next flick centered around an American university. That's right - if there's any place today more likely to attract gunfire and violence than a crowded locality in Iraq, it's got to be an American school. Sounds ironical? Not nearly as ironical as it would have if Cho Seung-hui, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech slaughter, had been a native of North Korea rather than South Korea.

What comes across as an oddity, though not necessarily a surprise, is that school shootings are almost exclusive to the US. Of all the instances of gunfire-involving violence at educational institutions that have been reported in the last 30 years, nearly 90% have taken place in the US. So does this point to something inherently unstable about American youngsters? I wouldn't quite go to that extreme, but there's no going around the fact that the rebellious culture that has been prevalent in America has made picking up a gun and deciding to kill anyone who annoys you a lot less frightful than normal. Cho Seung-hui, a loner, had no apparent grouse with life other than 'rich kids', 'debauchery' and 'deceitful charlatans' on campus. Perhaps it is unfair to draw conclusions about the causes of these mishaps based on the unconfirmed emotions of a reclusive, possibly deranged student. But it is pertinent to note that there is an undeniable connection with the excesses reportedly observed in American universities and the angst, sometimes religiously motivated, that drives most campus killers.

There are other possible reasons for such shootings, of course. The most obvious among these would be that educational institutions, being invariably packed with a wide assortment of people, offer fairly irresistible attention-grabbing potential to the attention-seeking shooters. Then there's the inescapable fact that getting hold of handguns is remarkably easy in the US. In Virginia, for instance, any legal resident who is 21 years of age or older is eligible to purchase a handgun provided he or she has not been convicted of any felonies. Ridiculous? You bet. I wonder how the US lawmakers, in all their glorious wisdom, thought it fit to allow blatant selling of guns to every conviction-escaping potential criminal with such gleeful indifference. There was a movie adaptation of the John Grisham book The Runaway Jury some years back that changed Grisham's original cigarette/lung cancer plot to a courtroom brawl that had at its heart the prevention of indiscriminate trade in weapons. Though I was mightily annoyed about the change of plot, I couldn't have agreed more with the idea that handguns should NOT be sold without the strictest supervision and control. But that's just plain old common sense! It's amazing how notions of free trade and capitalism can sometimes blind one so completely to the benefits of basic reasoning.

The US needs to clamp down on such horrific incidents, and fast. After all, Mr. George W. Bush is out to reform the world and bring all savage (read: non-democratic) countries to American levels of civility and honour. It'd be a poor lookout for him if his own countrymen kept trying to drag American society into the revolting realms of barbarism replete with gun-toting madmen and tragic deaths of innocent people. Time for some soul-searching, Mr. Bush?

Batting Elegance: Soon to be a Lost Art?

When the brilliant fade away, the mediocrity of mortals begins to look distasteful. The Super 8 match between the West Indies and South Africa was, perhaps, a lesson in the importance of discipline and efficiency in modern one-day cricket, but it was also a bleak reminder of how much poorer the game will be when the current vogue of robust ball-thwacking inevitably pushes the virtuosity of the artists into the sidelines. Or one particular artist, to be more precise. We all knew that Brian Lara was going to retire from the one-day game after the World Cup - everyone was sad about that; but to see him confirm it with such pitiable defeat written all over his face was positively depressing. The most painful thing about the entire episode was not the fact that Lara's team got more insipid as the tournament progressed or that the captaincy skills of Lara himself suddenly and alarmingly reached rock-bottom; what was most sad was that cricket, at least one-day cricket, is on its way to saying goodbye to one of its most celebrated maestros ever with so little grace.

I'm not talking here, of course, of any lack of respect on the part of any cricketing figure towards Lara; the people all around have been most courteous and deferential, and rightly so. What I'm talking about is the manner in which physicality and brutal strokeplay are rapidly taking over the game. South Africa's explosion towards the end of the match may have had quite a lot to do with Lara's potentially-legendary (and not in the right way) decision to delay the third Powerplay till the 45th over, but it was the ruthless savagery of Mark Boucher and Herschelle Gibbs that effectively ended the game as a contest. And this has been the trend for quite some time now - Australia-South Africa matches are the best examples of the new cricketing dogma that power is joy, and even New Zealand have been turning to this unpleasant mantra through its McCullums and Orams. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those stuck-up purists who would rather see a batsman play out ten consecutive maidens with 'grit and patience' than hit a series of spectacular sixes. But I do believe that tearing into bowlers without the least hint of subtlety or elegance is more than a little disturbing, if not annoying. And sadly, with the exit of Lara, and the imminent retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, there won't be too many in the cricketing world to stand up to the unrelenting wave of ugly but effective ball-pounding that is threatening to turn cricket into a slower version of baseball.

Coming back to Lara, it's amazing how so many people brush off his one-day career as 'average' or 'nothing splendid' just because he's played very few games and scored no centuries in the last two and a half years. Most people tend to forget that Lara had semi-retired from the one-dayers two years ago and only returned as a regular member of the team when he was made captain. Before his hiatus, he had been as thoroughly proficient a one-day player as any, and certainly a lot more destructive in his approach and style of play than he is now. And his stats up to the year 2004 will happily confirm that. However, ever since he's entered his third stint as captain, he's largely tried to stay away from the spotlight and give his lesser-known colleagues the chance to become match-winners of their own, albeit with incredibly poor results. That the likes of Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and most infuriatingly of all, Marlon Samuels, have been unable to respond to Lara's pushes and prods (I'd perhaps leave Gayle out of this list - he was, after all, the Man of the Series in the Champions Trophy), is an apt reflection of Lara's entire cricketing life, both in Tests and one-dayers. He's never really had anyone to support, or even comprehend, his immense genius, and he has an astonishing tally of heartbreaking losses to show for that. Whether he would have been the greatest batsman of the post-Bradman era if it hadn't been for the remarkable incompetence of his teammates is perhaps too futile an argument. However, the fact that he has, in spite of the ruins around him, managed to carve out his own glittering place among the pantheons of cricketing greats is testimony to his incandescent brilliance. And besides, there's one thing that no one can ever take away from Lara - when he was on song, there wasn't a single batsman in the very long history of cricket who could match the sheer splendour of his strokeplay. Which is saying quite something.

Anyway, I think I should go back to watching the Australia-Ireland match. It's turning out to be quite ridiculously one-sided. I love supporting the Australians - it feels so much better to be rooting for guys like them instead of the appallingly pathetic West Indian team (save for Lara, of course). Ah, the Australian innings is just about to get underway, which means there'll be plenty of monstrous ball-thwacking from Hayden and Co. We'll miss you, Brian Charles Lara.

The Chastening of Chappell and other Cricketing Crises

So, Indian cricket is in serious turmoil after after a particularly appalling performance from its too-old-to-train team. The deluge of demands for mass sackings simply refuses to stop, and the bosses up at the BCCI seem completely cowed down by the frenetic outrage in all parts of the country. Familiar story? Well, not quite. For starters, the Indian team hasn't performed so poorly in a World Cup for, as has been well-documented, 28 years. This is actually quite unknown territory for the average tempestuous Indian cricket fan. More importantly however, there's the inescapable fact that Pakistan have been bounced out of the tournament in just as humiliating a manner as India (well, perhaps just a little more humiliating), they have had to deal with the added trauma of a murdered coach, and yet, the situation in Pakistan can hardly be described as anything close to tumultuous or outraged. The Pakistani players have taken the humiliation of defeat and the tragedy of death in their grieving yet composed strides, the fans let out only minor jeers at the arrival of their disgraced heroes, the Board has quietly gone ahead and appointed Younis Khan as the new captain, and all is calm and quiet, at least for now. Considering Pakistan's famed volatility, that's saying something. Frankly, in normal times, if the two loving neighbors were faced with such eerily similar situations, one would expect the uproar in Pakistan to completely overshadow any hint of commotion in India. Disturbingly, that isn't happening right now. So this distasteful episode may be a lot of things, but familiar it is not.

As every single Indian knows by now of course, Greg Chappell has resigned from the coaching job. I can't really say I'm surprised by that, but it is perhaps significant that Chappell chose to make this announcement just a day after being called a host of unsavory things by the much-derided 'seniors' of the team. 'Seniors' actually may be a misleading term here, because the only person from whom most comments seemed to have come is Sachin Tendulkar. And that is really shocking, knowing as we do how dignified and graceful Tendulkar normally is with such things. Quite frankly, most of Sachin's 'exclusive' comments to a certain newspaper made him look like an overgrown spoilt child. Chappell hadn't even named Tendulkar in his dreaded list of 'uncooperative seniors', for crying out loud. One would've expected Tendulkar to show some restraint and not be reduced to wailing about his 'commitment', 'heart', 'soul' and plenty of other dramatic qualities in reaction to a few unconfirmed rumors. And coming as this does on the heels of some very unflattering calls for retirement, Sachin's timing couldn't have been more wrong. So was Chappell's resignation hastened by Sachin's outburst? No one really knows right now (except for Chappell himself, of course), and I suspect no one will really ever know, unless Chappell decides to write an autobiography some time soon. And boy, will that be a bestseller!

To make matters even worse for the BCCI, if that were even possible, Subhash Chandra, head of Zee group, decided to have a bout of Kerry Packer-ism, and announce quite theatrically to a disbelieving media that he plans to start a parallel 'cricket league' to rival the BCCI's monopoly over cricket in India. He also declared that there'd be some Indian internationals who would be a part of this rebel league, spawning a string of excited theories about the identity of the suicidal cricketers. As things stand right now, it seems extremely unlikely that Mr. Chandra will succeed in his adventurous plans, what with all the legal troubles and the BCCI's stranglehold on everything remotely related to cricket, but the BCCI could definitely have done without this particular head sore. And I, for one, am not complaining about that. In fact, I hope hordes of rampant businessmen come out with similarly ambitious plans and force the BCCI to burn all of its funds in legally stamping out such unwanted fires. That'd serve the sorry bunch of scumbags at the BCCI right, that would.

While all of this brouhaha has been brewing, the World Cup has been chugging along serenely without its money-spinning Asian members. Australia, as usual, look set to bully their way to a third consecutive title, while New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa have been notching up impressive wins in their shadow. The performances of my favorites, the West Indies, however, have been singularly disappointing, not least because Brian Lara is being unfairly made the scapegoat for all the inadequacies of his insipid team. Clearly, as I keep saying, the Caribbean doesn't deserve Lara. On a more positive note, however, England seem to be marching towards a surprise victory over Sri Lanka as I write, and that can only brighten the extremely slim chances of the West Indies reaching the semis. Hope, prayers and good performances - that's all that the Windies need to go through now. Yeah, I know, I should stop being such a hopeless optimist.