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.
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