India's (World) Cup of woes...

India is out of the World Cup. The public is enraged for now. Heartaches and Heart Attacks were reported. Gloom has spread all across.

But, sanity will soon prevail. People will soon realize that there would soon be no late nights for most “Indian fans”, no more red, weary eyes in offices/colleges/schools/anywhere you name it, and spaghettis of Mandira Bedi will be replaced by those of the Kkusums and Kaavyanjalis in the Drawing Room Television (those two were just random, arbit names I have heard my mum use, no, I don’t watch ‘em plz!)

But the question still remains, what happened there? I hear my friends moan, “the best batting line up in the world lost to the “minnows” Bangladesh. Hmmmm, minnows? This word that has become a part of the local panwaalah’s vocabulary simply means, “a person or thing that is comparatively small or insignificant”. Insignificant? When they have already beaten Australia an year back, and NZ in a warm up match before the World Cup, apart from “stunning” the best batting line up of the world. And if my memory serves me right, we have already lost them once earlier a couple of years back, aint it? So, why consider them minnows?

Now, comes the second most pertinent question. Did we deserve to win the Cup? Forget the cup, did we deserve to reach the semi finals? I will be very frank, I never expected India to crash out in the first round, but an equally blunt confession would be, that even my heart did not say that India would win the cup. And yes, I do have that ever so famous tool called ‘hind sight’ with me, but, I also have some kind of a bad intuition, that this was a long time coming.

Why do I say this? As a great detective would say, elementary folks! Our great batting line up, which apparently fails to deliver in crunch situations, is the key. Did I hear correct, great? Naah, I am not being cynical post the event, its very easy been that. I would want to pull out a set of statistics to prove that I am not blabbering my frustration out, and that I had seen this coming.

In the last 15 odd matches that India has played abroad, our average runs per over is around 4.5. 4.5 RPO over 20 matches played abroad, think it is decent. I don’t think so, when you look at 20 over Power Plays, better pitches, smaller grounds, and a “Great” and an experienced batting Line up like ours! I am sure that if I dig up statistics further, India would not feature in the top 5 of the teams vis-à-vis runs per over. Now comes another shocker. In the same period, we have scored runs at an average of less than 20 runs per wicket!!! Dravid’s average is 40, Tendulkar is 44 and Ganguly is 41, add a Dhoni with almost 50 to that. What does that show? In the last one year, individual averages have also gone down. It may be ever so slightly for players who have played 300 plus ODIs, because that’s how Statistics works! Still think ours is a an awesome batting line up? Guys, grow up, and accept the fact that we have a decent batting line up, but the rest of teams are way ahead.

And what’s the solution? Wish the same as easy as the patches that Microsoft sends us every time they find a bug, no, enough patch work has been tried, it is no longer a question of a stitch saving nine, or even replacing the cloth. We need to drill down to the basics, the crop of cotton from where the cloth is made, the domestic circuit, where in, which we need to make much stronger. It may be a long, excruciating what-you-call process (that word again), but, it is the right way of going about it. I am brimming with ideas for the same, but I guess it can wait, till after I am made the CEO of BCCI. Mr. Pawar, are you listening? :-)