C'mon India..Dikha Do!

Cricket is a second religion to most people in India, that said, when the Indian cricketers fail to meet the high standards set by the general public on their performance, there is bound to be discontent.

India's match against Bangladesh in the 2007 World Cup is only a case in point. A higly paid, highly trained, "seasoned" cricketing team like India, lost..and lost badly to a fairly new and inexperienced side, and to add fuel to the fire, it happened during a World Cup....opening up the (previously unimagined) possibility of a shameful first round exit for the Indian side.

To this, the Indians reacted by raising their voices on the streets, burning a few posters and storming an under construction house of one of the cricketers and causing some damage.But is this reaction getting the point accross?

Dont get me wrong now, I'm all for reactions.. any kind of reactions from my fellow Indians, because Indians by nature are a quiet lot, they barely seem to react to "issues" anymore, for the most part, the common Indian has given up hope it seems. So after the recent bomb blasts that rocked the very epicenter of Mumbai's routine..the Railways..the world marvelled at the strength of the mumbaiites as life went "back to normal the very next day", while the rest of us wondered at the lack of passion shown by the general public. A thing like the blasts..in any other country..would've incensed the public, they would've asked the government for answers, for revenge, for better infrastructure..while in India..we acted as though not much had changed.

So the show of passion by the general population in this Indian defeat, pleasantly surprised me. However, once that is done..a more sensible (in my opinion) response should be for the Indians to wonder, why do we pay our cricketers the high salaries that we do? why not pay them based solely on performance? why do we allow cricketers to become actors..when clearly that seems to be distracting them from the one task which is theirs to do..play cricket..why dont we ..the Indians..decide to proactively NOT use any product our so called cricketers support in their advertisments..which will prompt the advertisors not to go to them..hence leaving our cricketers with little choice but to practise in their "spare" time..

Why dont we more voiceferously voice our opinions when a player who is clearly not performing well, is chosen to be on the team solely because the captain wants him? Team India needs to realize..that they are just that..Team INDIA..the represent us, our hopes, our sporting dreams.. and that is not something to be taken lightly..a player needs to perform to be on the team..a captain needs to lead to be the captain..and our selectors need to select based on performance..not on the captains whims.

We treat our players like demi-gods..in exchange we demand they perform. No one can expect them to win all matches..but we expect them to play like the world class players we think they are..we expect them to excel in all parts of the game..we definately dont expect them to reply on the wins or losses of a third team to decide their fate!

This opinion of-course is not solely based on this one game that Team India lost..its based on their past performances..its based on the fact that our players lack the killer instict..its based on the fact that some of our players are growing too big for their breeches..

Team India needs to perform..for itself and for its 1 billion supporters..or we need to find ourselves some new demi-gods.