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Indian people are passionate to the extreme about cricket. Cricket Control Board in India (BCCI) is the richest cricket organization in the entire world. England’s Lords cricket stadium is considered to be the mecca of the cricket. The main cricket playing nations in the world are England, India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. There are three forms of cricket. They are test cricket, 50 over cricket and 20-20 cricket. Test cricket is played for 5 consecutive days. An over comprises of 6 balls. In 50 over game each team is supposed to bowl 50 overs in a day. 20-20 game is like mini or instant cricket. The maximum number of overs to be bowled is only 20 overs per team in this game in a day. The 20-20 game has become popular among spectators and TV viewers because of instant entertainment in batting, bowling and fielding departments and also because of the fact that it takes far less time to watch. The maximum time consumed is only 4 hours for watching the game. Its popularity is mainly due to the success of IPL tournament for the past few years. IPL tournament is conducted on behalf of BCCI. Players across the globe are making a bee line for IPL because of huge money involved in it. The amount paid by IPL to the players is many times more than what is paid by their respective boards in their countries. They prefer joining IPL due to huge popularity it attained across the World in addition to getting very large sum for a very short duration.

The Indian players play all forms of the cricket round the year. So their technique is got messed up. The test Cricket needs plenty of skill, dedication, lot of patience and adaptability to all kinds of wickets in the World. The Indian wickets are generally batting friendly wickets. There is no bounce on these wickets barring one or two pitches. Even the weather conditions make it difficult for the fast bowlers of any international standard and for the seam and swing medium pace bowlers. The spinners also do not get much help from the pitch unless the pitch takes wear and tear. So the Indian batsmen make merry and score plenty of runs on Indian pitches. The team total score even exceeds 450 runs per innings most of the time and then they get carried away by the instant fame. Their weakness to fast and swing bowling gets exposed on foreign soil especially in countries like England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand due to varied bounce on the wicket and also due to the climatic conditions prevailing in these countries. They have failed most of the time on foreign soil. They succeeded on only very few occasions. Further they also play 50 over game and also 20-20 Cricket. In 50 over game the batsman cannot afford to take too much time to settle. The batsman invariably has to go in for the non conventional shots and also he is supposed to take risks. In 20-20 cricket he takes too many risks in far too short time. Now we can see that if a particular batsman plays test cricket, 50 over game and 20-20 game he is neither here nor there. His game completely gets ruined.

Ishant Sharma is some what fast compared to the other bowlers. He doesn’t swing the ball much. His bowling is some what improved recently. He still needs to go a long way and should learn to bowl good line and length balls when the conditions don’t favour his type of bowling. Sreesanth generally gets carried away and bowls wayward most of the time. Zaheer Khan is the only strike bowler and gets injured on account of too much strain on his body. Munaf Patel is only restrictive type of bowler. Praveen Kumar is a very good swing bowler but lacks pace. We should encourage bowlers like Varun Aron who have raw pace and are very promising. Harbhajan Singh hasn’t contributed much of late. Ravichandran Ashwin needs to be considered in his place. Amit Mishra needs to be disciplined when the conditions of the pitch doesn’t favour spinners. It is always better to be disciplined in their bowling and not to try too many things at a time and should learn to bowl within their limitations in the larger interests of the team.

It appears our cricketers are playing in all the forms of cricket mainly with the intention of making merry when the sun shines thereby pocketing loads and loads of money and also to obtain instant fame at the cost of the Nation’s pride ,barring a few, and also at the cost of their health. Further they generally do not give priority to fielding aspect of the game. Their fielding is not up to the international standards. Sometimes the batsmen prefer to sit out rather than facing a deadly fast bowler on foreign tours for fear of failing and getting their batting average damaged and also getting injured. The players even try their best to be in the team even when they are not physically fully fit. They fear that some other player may cement his place in the team. This kind of attitude has caused immense damage to the Indian Cricket. BCCI should handle this mess with iron hand. There should be separate teams for all three forms of cricket with a good backup. There should be a strict rotation policy of the players. They should strictly monitor the behaviour of players on and off the field. BCCI should not permit senior players to play 20-20 Cricket at all. Their participation in IPL should be a strict ‘NO’. These players may be compensated subject to performance. Bouncy wickets in addition to good wickets should be prepared by BCCI in the larger interest of the game. Then only India can be called genuinely a top Cricketing Nation.

The BCCI’s policy of playing international matches on dust bowls in India is sure to boomerang. 

The disgraceful performance of our cricketers continued non stop in the present test series in Australia. Virat Kohli played unbelievable innings the other day at Hobart for a lost cause. Our cricketers are too selfish and lack the team spirit. They think that they are playing an individual game rather than representing their Country. Rohit Sarma, Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina failed to capitalize on their opportunities. Sehwag appears to be a confused man. Rohit Sarma, Ravichandran Aswin, Gambhir and Suresh Raina talk too much without delivering goods.

Srilankans proved to be the real Lions. Their Board has gone bankrupt but their spirits are high. Jayawardane’s captaincy is the highlight. All of their top batsmen have scored heavily. All rounders delivered the goods. Everyone chipped in. The way they fought back at Melbourne on 2/3/12 when they had the drubbing by Indians is to be seen to be believed. Lasit Malinga proved once again to be their trump card in spite of severe battering by Kohli at Hobart. M.C.G ground in fact looked like Columbo ground. Srilankans came in huge numbers for supporting their team out and out at M.C.G. Hats off to their enthusiasm. I salute the Srilankan team. I am least interested about the ultimate winner. As far as I am concerned the Srilankan cricket team is the champion team.

Sachin’s century of centuries at last happened in Bangladesh on 16th March 2012. Is that all India wanted?. There are many questions asked rather than answered such as

1) The chaltaa hai attitude of players like Yuvraj, Sehwag, Gambhir, Rohit Sarma, Ravinder Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma and Yusuf Pathan, officials are no exception either has caused immense damage to our team.

2) Fitness of Zaheer Khan.

Hats off to Bangladesh for achieving clowning glory by reaching the finals of the Asia Cup due to its win over Sri Lanka on 20th March 2012 and successfully eliminating India. Shame on India for achieving ha-trick of failures against England, Australia and now in the Asia Cup. Of course our selectors, players and Board Officials will definitely say it’s just one of those things.

Bitter Lessons Learnt:

1) Politicians should have no place in BCCI

2) All our senior cricketers right from openers should be shown the door except Sachin.

3) Sachin should be asked to concentrate only on Test Cricket and quit IPL and one day games.

4) Zaheer Khan proved to be no destroyer of rival teams.

5) Ishant Sharma has miles to go.

6) The players should be made to play in Mohali and in Himachal Pradesh and J $ K during winter.

7) They should be asked to practice on matting wickets.

8) Fitness and outstanding fielding should be the essential criteria apart from talent for selection of the players and no politics of any kind should be entertained.

9) The medium fast bowlers should be asked to bowl from 18 yards instead of the regular 22 yards if practiced on the regular pitches. Then our bowlers can achieve the much needed speed and our batsmen can be rattled.

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