In India, cricket lovers are keeping their fingers crossed over the question of India’s chances in this first twenty-20 world cup. India’s interest in this form of cricket has been Luke warm so far. While most of the international teams have already played quite a few number of such matches among themselves, India can boast of having played only one international match so far and that too more than 9 months ago. Even Kenya and Bangladesh have played more such matches. It is to India’s credit that although inexperienced, they recorded an emphatic 6 wickets victory over South Africa Africa in the former’s debut match!
The “new look” Indian team which will participate in the September 11-24 showpiece, will also be without the names like Zahir Khan, Munaf Patil, Ramesh power. The mercurial Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead the team with the dashing Yuvraj Singh as his deputy. Other known faces of the Indian team which will be seen in the T-20 world cup are Virendra Singh Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Kartic, Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawala, S.Sreesanth and Joginder Sharma. Rohit Sharma of Mumbai and Irfan’s brother Yusuf will complete the 15 member squad. As is clear from the list of the players, the Indian team will be one of the most under-prepared ones to participate in this world cup. The players had hardly any opportunity to adjust themselves in the format of T-20 cricket. More than half of the 15 member squad was busy playing test and one day cricket in England till recently, 8th September 2007 to be exact. There is a fear that these players might already be very tired and jaded as there already away from their home for over a couple of months.
For some of the players of the India team, the tournament will be a great opportunity to rehabilitate themselves in the Indian test or one day squads. This is very true with test discards – Virendra Sehwag, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh. The tournament also opens up opportunities for all rounders like Yusuf Pathan and Joginder Sharma. The Indian test and one day teams will soon be in the re-building process and Gautam Gambhir, robin Uthappa, Dinesh Kartik who are already in the Indian team, should use this T-20 world up championship to cement their places in the national squad for the bigger versions of the game.
However, the point of this article is not to discuss these innovations and their rights and wrongs but to forewarn the Indian authorities that the Aussies and their ilk are not content with only winning all there is in Cricket but are professional enough to look beyond competition and change the way the sport is played. Not that I agree with it, but Cricket cannot afford to bury its head for long and to compete with other modern sports will be forced to innovate. So when the time comes for change and like football we must not be caught with our shoes off, literally. This also shows how much the Aussies and the Sri Lankans (Jayasuriya and Sangakkara also used the graphite bats), think ahead of their times and hence no wonder are at the top of the sport. Compare this with
With the way things have been going on, unless we change our mindset rapidly and begin thinking about the game rather than going through the motions, we would soon see Cricket join the likes of hockey and myriad other sports which live more on borrowed glory from the past than bask in the expectancy of a glorious future.
Till then, enjoy…
