Any one who watched the India – Sri Lanka match would understand frustration and anger that I am writing this article with. Hopes of a billion strong nation came to a crushing halt, due to the lack of effort shown by a handful of cricketers who have been worshiped like god in India.

Now India’s only hope of making to the Super 8 is if Bermuda manages to pull a victory over the young and energetic Bangladeshi cricket team. Even a thought which is so negating and shameful, that even India’s loss to Bangladesh seems small.

Now is the time to look into what went wrong, why couldn’t cricket crazed worlds second populace country manage to produce 11 individuals who could have done our nations honor some justice.

Here is what went wrong and needs to be changed asap:

The Politicians: This is the single biggest problem plaguing Indian cricket and other sports in India. Instead of the sport persons running the show, it’s the politicians who pull the strings. Selection is not done on the basis of a player’s performance; it’s done on the whims and fancies of the politicians.

Deserving individual get lost in the crowd, while nincompoops with political resources and fat wallet make it to the team and manage to stay despite their poor performance.

Rapport matters more than performance: Mainly due to the above reason and few others, a player’s reputation matters more than his current performance. Else how could one justify Virender Sehwag’s inclusion in the world cup squad, despite his poor performance in the recent matches?

Some might argue that a player with good track record will bounce back one day, but even then why does that players need to be included in the world class cricket?

Can’t he bounce back at state level and then be relegated to the international squad?

A good example of this would be Saurav Ganguly, he was thrown out of the team yet managed to work hard to get included in the team once again. Again some might argue that this sort of thing creates pressure on the players and is not recommended.

But then again when did international cricket became walk in the park?

If a person is expected to play at the international level and that too in the world cup, he ought to be ready for the stress. After all these aren’t amateurs or people playing for fun. These are professional athletes and this is a job that they have to do.

How many of you will be left with a job if you displayed dismal performance in your company for a length of period?

Then why should things be any different for these players, who are obviously playing as much for the sake of money, as they are for the love of game.

Pressure of performing puts stress on a person, but it also motivates them to strive for excellence. This is the sort of fear we need to put in to our player’s mind, reward them when they perform well, but don’t forget to punish them when they don’t perform. After all it can not be a one way stream.

Make the management responsible: Make the management as much responsible as the players themselves. After all it is the selection committee’s job to choose the right players for the right situation, if they make wrong choices and put wrong individual in the team then thing will go wrong! If they can’t make the right decision then they don’t deserve to be in the selection committee.

If the team is not able to formalize a strategy to take on opponents, then coaches along with team’s captain should share the blame and responsibility. After all there is no use having good players on board, if they are not given a decent strategy to play with.

Make the advertisers more accountable: One can’t talk about cricket in India and forget to mention the high stakes involved in this game. International players earn crores of rupees every year through advertisement contracts. While the advertisers do start looking for other players if their current brand ambassadors fail to perform, it’s often too little too late.

If companies in England can be forced to take advertisements off channel 4 after the racial row over the show Big Brother, why can’t this be done in India?

I mean I don’t want to see faces of those nincompoops on the idiot box if they can’t even produce a decent total or defend a decent score!

This was evident on the India – Sri Lanka match; the moment it became apparent that India is going to loose, most of the advertisements were pulled off. While Set Max couldn’t even wait for the over to finish earlier in the day to show advertisements, in the later stage it was actually showing activity on the field while the field placement was being changed between overs!

Yet today the blue billion ads, jup for cup etc. etc. are once again back and every time I see these ads it just rubs salt on my fresh wound. This is what I don’t want to see, I want these companies to realize that if their “brand ambassadors” can’t perform on the field then they can’t perform off the field either!

This should be a wakeup call for the money hungry leaches we call cricketing icons, after all at the end of the day it is about money honey!

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