Is Cricket still a gentlemen's game ?

I have grown playing cricket and always thinking it is a Gentlemen's game. The boos of the crowd when a catch goes down and the galore of claps when a sound shot is played or terrific delivery is bowled are the sights that still echo in my hears.

Along with me loosing my childhood, I strongly believe game lost its gentlemen-ship. It became an whore who sways its hips for the smell of currency and dangles the anklets for the sounds of coins. The fairness of the game has long been gone for me when Symmo became a scapegoat for the famous Monkeygate controversy.

You might think me as a fanatic of Australian cricket or an hypocrite who wants to garner people's attention by making statements against the nation where cricket is a religion and cricketers are treated as gods. I too am from the same country and have learnt my cricketing skills from the players like Azhar/Sidhu/Prabhakar/Shreekanth etc., from this country.

I was never disappointed when India lost a match. I only took pride in saying we lost to a better team. The reason being, the game was played like a game, with no overhyped players or sponsors calling cards or any cricketing nations regulation body showing its monetary prowess. It was all controlled by Umpires and in case of any off field allegations (which can be counted on fingers) were strongly handled in the way it has to be without any inclination to any player/team.

I could feel that all changed from the mid 2000's. India clashing out of 2007 WC had incurred huge losses to sponsors. The sponsors were mostly those who had a huge base in India. The money that would have come because of Indian team staying in the tournament alone would have been enough to turn the plates. But that didn't happen as atleast the tournament looked fair and righteous teams played finals.

That tournament clearly showed to entire cricketing platforms that money vests when India stays in tournament. In order to earn that, they have to be kept alive. Never was any tournament incurring losses due to early exit of a team until that time. It clearly exposed to media the monetary power of BCCI.

Coming back to monkeygate trial, the judgement was passed on by ICC ruling Indian player as culprit. The statements got changed overnight and the player was given a clear chit. It marked end of a the world's best fielding all rounder Symo. He never could come back to play as he used to. The game lost its flavor and was rotten due to BCCI inflicting its power of money and making decisions.

I might be questioned for evidences when I say I feel 2011 WC looks to be fixed event. I understand that you all would comeback strongly and oppose me. If possible you would even like to butcher me.
I only ask you to question your conscience and answer whether India was deserving team to become World Champions. The team which gave away 280 plus scores frequently to every team in group stages, didn't give any such score to top teams. Did our bowlers bowl so brilliantly by learning from their mistakes? Definitely not. The bowling was same, the only thing that changed was opponents batting. Neither Aussies played like Aussie, nor Pakistan played like Pakistan nor SL played like them after first 10 overs when they had India derailed. So my presumption is not out of blue moon.

The immediate question would be then why did India loose badly to England , SA or NZ or AUS in bilateral series. It is very simple, there is no way that India is going to be out of the tournament :P
But even that seems slowly coming into the BCCI and its sponsors money minting. They are loosing quite a share when India is loosing badly or tournament is becoming one-sided. That is when I guess, BCCI started its second step of making matches interesting by a second level of fixing. Ensure that better team (obviously the host nation) wins but make sure that India play well at least in a session or two to keep the interest of audience going in India, so that money can be minted by playing with emotions.

I would be an opposite of fanatic to Indian cricket, if I say that all matches are being fixed. The decline in the quality of players in cricketing nations like NZ/AUS/ENG/SA/PAK/SL is also evident. They are loosing the players to other games coz its no more a gentlemen's game. It has money and fame but only when played in India and for India. Hashim Amla, the silent monk of SA has been scoring piles of runs and winning matches for SA but he is never praised as our overhyped Kohli/Raina/Rohit. Kane Williamson another silent youngster who is climbing history records by scoring tons at all touring nations and that too a match saving and turning innings. He is also over shadowed. Reason he doesn't play for India. He doesn't chose IPL over his nation.

This post might seem more confusing and fanatically against BCCI. Let me conclude by saying that, I have not lost hope that the game returns to being a fair and gentlemen's game. I strongly root for a fair WC 2015 at least. If not, my glimmer of hope also will be gone.

Retrospection: Two done and more two to go

After having delight of watching some good battle between bat and ball for 9 days, the media has been divided by the press release sent by BCCI Team Manager and statements made at Press conference. 

Lets go through the points raised by manager and captain as concerns/reasons for failures on field due to off field and on field activities.

Umpiring standards have been questioned by Captain in the press conference after the batting collapse in Second innings of  Second Test as one of the reasons. Whom are we complaining against here? Umpire's call if DRS was implemented or the umpiring errors? If its for the Umpire's call of DRS, then its technology and all the teams have come  to terms with it. If BCCI says, we entertain and support fair game, then the rule is simple : Follow DRS as all teams do.  If the statement hints to umpiring errors, not to forget, Second Innings of First test, when Murali Vijay was dead plumb when Kohli just walked in. Taking it into the pressure being applied ,the match situation  and history of batting collapses with the Indian team in past series, match would have ended much earlier. What would it have done, the confidence of the team with which they have batted in First Innings of Second Innings would never exist. DRS is for correcting the umpiring errors which can be corrected.Blame has to be at BCCI and not at umpires or the hosts. 

Practice pitches and Food has been another point of concern for team. The worn and torn pitches are the worst a test match wicket could get and practicing on them should be taken as positive and batsmen should try correcting their techniques rather than complaining. We can never forget Indian pitches which are totally different to what one gets to practice. Even the pitch gets rolled with heavy roller, even though its not supposed to be and never have we seen any visiting team complaining about it. This is because they accept that their batsmen have flaw in their technique and return back by correcting the  flaws to succeed. Come on guys, you are here to play and not for food. The MoU between the team manager who has agreed for menu should be questionable and not the organizers. 

Another point raised, was batsmen were not ready for batting as the overnight batsmen was hit in the nets. This is almost like a school boy complaining that I dint know that I had to show my home work even before the first bench students have shown. Agreed that a batsmen needs time to prepare to come and bat in a match. When in between an innings, if no.3 and no.4 are out the consecutive balls, can no.5 complain that I was not prepared to go and bat? A batsmen has to be ready to bat at any point of time, he is required to. No excuses accepted when you are being handed fat pay checks for playing.

My humble request to ICC is to take an action on BCCI for rejecting DRS and also stop getting bullied by the monetary power of BCCI. ICC did survive when BCCI was present or not. Cricket is a game which needs to be played fair and everyone has to play with same rules and without any variations. Accept DRS or reject to play.

Hoping ICC take a decision on such off field activities and tantrums being played and have a fair series.