MOUNT T20!!!!

India has started its quest of defending the T20 champion’s title in style with a convincing win over Bangladesh. India after mixed results in the practice games has started off its world cup campaign on a winning note. It really is a big surprise that India is the overwhelming favorites in clinching the title, I say so, purely on the merit of the format of the game. T20 has one rule written all over it – UNPREDICTABILITY!!!! It certainly ain’t a Monza circuit as in F1 where the driver who takes the lead and steps on the gas at the right time will win nine out of ten times. This game is as unpredictable as India’s coalition government and can turn topsy – turvy in a matter of an over or a couple of wickets. The Indian media as always has gone about its routine job of over- hyping the National side but, this time around the results in the recent past certainly add spice to it.

I always wanted to write about “upsets” in sports. A lingering antipathy in me that always surged up whenever a commentator said “We are in for a big upset here!!!”. “Upset” is too nominal a word used to ridicule a hard earned victory. When stated, it shifts the focus from celebrating a surprise and BIG hard earned victory to the defeat of a much stronger opposition in a context that makes you to sympathize the dismal performance and feel lucky about the hard earned success! What an irony! The term minnows don’t sound that pleasant either. The US and Canada were undoubtedly minnows when they played the First official Cricket match in 1844. So was the case with Australia and England when they started their international outing. Well! The fact that The US and Canada still remain as minnows cannot get more obvious. For some reasons Longevity alone has not defined the term “minnows” but standards and performance have a greater say in defining the term.

The typical English weather is doing no good to the sub continent players. The players swell up with pullovers and find it tough to take the pounding the ball effects during fielding. It’s not just the players who have got the cold shoulder of the weather but the biggest losers are the spectators who paid heftily with all the hopes of having a closer look at the cheer leaders. Where is the Glamor? Why the hell are the cheer leaders dresssed like Eskimos?? This is definitely not the opening the world cup wanted. Lol!!!

England as rightfully predicted by Ian chappell, faltered when it came to doing the basics right and yet again has stumbled in the big stages. India too looked very apprehensive and itchy when they came out to bat in their first match against Bangladesh. Rohit Sharma was awe-inspiring with his astounding stroke play that looked so effortless but he played one too many shots that led to his exit.

Dhoni has off late indulged in a much futile act of promoting himself up the order to the most important number three position. Now, that’s a fatal tactic and I still don’t understand how the support staff and coach is keeping mum on this issue. Dhoni’s saga of big hitting and marauding stroke play is slowly diminishing and is very evident from the way he plays in the recent past. He is now more of a nudger and has transformed into a fantastic finisher picking up the ones and twos and putting away the odd bad ball to the boundary ropes. A role much similar to what Bevan did so well for the Aussies. When he has such a cushion up the order with the likes of Raina and Rohit in his ranks to do the job at number three, over experimentation is not the order of the day! Dhoni has picked up this unhealthy habit of coming down the track time and again risking his wicket only to end up securing a single, this is quite frankly absurd. Gautam Gambhir anchored the innings but he too was more of an accumulator on the previous occasion rather than his usual self who would punish the bad deliveries at will. If not for Yuvraj’s cameo The Men in BLUE would definitely have faced the BLUES!!!