Questions for Indian fans

Incidentally, why do we call the Indian cricket team ‘Team India’?

So we are out of the World Cup. After walking through two depressions and climbing a meek peak in between, the team’s fired. The players must be feeling awful. It is, therefore, not my intention to expatiate on why we had to leave the beautiful Caribbean so quickly.

In sport, the question whether a team is good enough is answered by the team itself — by scoring two goals to nil in the first half or by posting a 254-run target, batting first and then not letting the opposition score more than one goal in the second half or bowls well enough to get 10 wickets in 49.3 overs.

The Indian team never belonged to the top league. This was true when it landed in West Indies earlier this month. The team knew that very well. It did not, for sure, appoint itself as one that could bear the weight of expectations. So if, as a fan, you are surprised at the team’s dismissal, you should not ask the team what happened. The fans should instead ask themselves more imaginative questions.

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Why do we call the Indian cricket team Team India? Are there no other teams in this country? We have a team for hockey, our national sport. Sure they keep losing, but perhaps not more often than the men in Nikes. We have a kabaddi team, too. It wins us gold all the time. Team India is an advertising idiom. Why do we say our team is full of talent? The only talent that proves itself on paper is a writer’s. And talent is generally associated with youth. To call Paul Auster a talented writer is 30 years too late. Harbhajan Singh was talented in 2001. Sreesanth is perhaps talented now. You just don’t go on being talented, year after year.

Why do we love our players more than the game? Does it matter how many centuries Sachin Tendulkar has scored? Why do we never watch a national league game or a school game for that matter? It’s not worth our time. Even when we are watching an international match, we don’t like watching India bowl. Bowling is menial work. A Kumble is a workhorse while a Laxman is an artist, never mind if he can’t run a proper single. And when our batsmen look like rabbits in headlight, we can’t take it.

And finally, why do we never play a game ourselves? It would be easier to appreciate a sprint if you ran 100 metres and clocked yourself. Getting out while batting is easy. You only need to make one mistake.

It is likely that the experts at the BCCI will now take some important decisions. They will be doing what they feel is needed, like a management raising the price of a bag of potato chips because salt costs more. Meanwhile, let’s do what is needed of us fans. Let’s not trouble our players so much that they stop performing altogether.

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And as for the World Cup, let’s now cheer for Bangladesh. They really did not mean to hurt us, did they?

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