What Ails Indian Cricket?

If we can diagnose this, we can find a cure, right?
Nobody is a culprit until proven guilty. So until one’s guilt is proven judiciary forbids you to call him anything but accused.
One method of proving the guilty guilty is the process of deduction. Prove one by one that the accused is not guilty. Ultimately you find a person who cannot be proven innocent and you collect credible evidence against him.
Let us do the same for the question: “What ails Indian Cricket.”
The accused from a variety of sources are
1) Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel
2) Sachin Tendulkar, Sourabh Ganguly, Harbajhan Singh, Yuvaraj Singh etc.
3) The Cricket Administration
Let us take the less culpable first.
The first accused:
1) The Cricket Administration:

To a balanced cricket follower the selection of the cricket team was fair. You cannot name anybody who was picked wrongly or who was omitted in spite of good performance.
Cricketers were provided for more than sufficient ways. The Board treated them royally. The 15 who were selected were selected purely on merit. You can argue the case of Sehwag, but he redeemed himself in the world cup.
Suresh Raina, Mohammed Kaif were omitted because of non-performance. Balaji, Nehra were injured.
The only blot was Romesh Powar. He deserved a place. But that is an exception than rule. You cannot blame Vengsarkar and his team for poor team selection, whatever Greg Chappel suggests through the great Mr.Rajan Bala.
(By the way, I cannot understand why Chappel chose Rajan Bala and SMS to vent his feeling. Because as you and me know how irritating it is to write a long message in you SMS. He had email. My deduction is Rajan Bala doesn’t have an email address. So Greg takes all that pain to write that message after the Sri Lanka match, hard to believe, but true!)
So you can safely say, the selection committee and the Board cannot be held responsible for this debacle.

2) Sachin Tendulkar, Sourabh Ganguly, Harbajhan Singh, Yuvaraj Singh etc.

This is what is suggested by our Great Guru Greg Chappel (I will call him 3G from now onwards.)
3G says Sachin, Sourabh, Bajji and Yuvi were behaving like untouchables. They were hindering 3G. Spare a serious thought about this latest from 3G. We are witnesses to all the above accused persons behaviors on and off the field. Particularly Sachin Tendulkar. Every one of his former and present teammates will tell you that Sachin is one of the most genial personalities on and off the field. The people who were his friends in his school days, his mentors, his acquaintances all will agree Sachin never was a dual person. You cannot find a better gentleman than Sachin this side of the Himalayas.
In fact, 3G is only the second person to throw aspersion on Sachin, first was, the now infamous, Mike Denness who charged Sachin of ball tampering during India’s tour of South Africa in 2001.
Sachin came out of that false allegation with dignity and aplomb. Did Sachin ever make a wrong comment on Mike Denness, even after such blatant injustice? No. That is the height of character. Sachin is such a mature person at such a young age, it is amazing. That is why in my earlier articles I have called Sachin an Angel amongst us. Not for his cricket alone. For his cricket alone we can call him that, is a beside the point.
And 3G is trying to belittle such a person!
I have referred to this process in my earlier article “Should Sachin Tendulkar Retire!?” as C.Y.A.( Cover Your Ass) operation. I am vindicated by today's revelations of 3G’s grouse against Sachin amongst other things.
If Greg Chappel had any history of successful coaching like Dave Whatmore, John Buchanan, Late Bob Woolmer, I would take his leaks, SMSes, emails and ghost talking through his big brother Ian Chappel, seriously.
He will be shown the door is given. If he gets a coaching job for any other unfortunate teams, he will have a chance to redeem himself. Until that time he is guilty in my books.
We appointed him without looking at his previous history as person and cricketer. He told his brother Trevor Chappel to bowl under-arm so that New Zealand does not win and who was on the field at that time? His big brother Ian Chappel and now they are giving directives as to what to do for Indian cricket? How apt is the saying, “When you are pointing a finger towards somebody, don’t forget three of your fingers are pointing towards you”


Greg Chappel started the rot in Indian cricket by victimizing Sourabh Ganguly.
Other Indian players thought, “if Greg Chappel can do that to Sourabh Ganguly, what of us, if we rub his wrong side?” That is the genesis of fear in the Indian dressing room, which had the tacit support of Rahul Dravid.
You cannot but notice the omission of Rahul Dravid from the list Greg Chappel’s culprits.
Why?
Rahul Dravid was Greg Chappel’s crony from the beginning. These two hand in hand dethroned King Sourabh and banished him from their kingdom and usurped the powers and by their short sightedness or their blindness destroyed the kingdom.
And Greg Chappel with his brother are searching for scapegoats.
My argument is, if you cannot get along with Sachin Tendulkar, you must be devil himself. You have got the worst man-management skills.
What makes a coach?
It is knowledge about the game, the skill of imparting that knowledge, it is having a broad shoulder which is available to all members of the team when they are in grief (empathy), and most importantly, Man Management.
If Sachin and co, were behaving like that throughout the 2007 World Cup, Greg could have sit with them one on one and could have thrashed it out. All the accused were level headed people.
If a son makes a mistake, father’s duty it is to sit with him and talk about that and try to solve it without hurting son’s feeling or self-respect. As a coach Greg is supposed to be father figure to the Indian team.
But what does he do? He goes to the rooftop and announces that his sons are incorrigible, so the world cup loss is not his responsibility.
And he is crying like a baby who knows his candy is being snatched by the BCCI if he does not cry.
I feel like sorry for Rajan Bala when I visualize how much painful it is for Rajan Bala to wear his reading glasses, peer in to his mobile and read the small print, interpret it and publish it in his article. Rajan Bala, Rahul Dravid and Dinesh Karthik; I will have an enemy any day than having a friend called Greg Chappel!

I was professing this point that, it is Greg Chappel who is the culprit since three months, in my earlier article “Rahul Dravid is not a leader, but a follower.”
We Indians are late in catching something, let alone the cricket ball. The damage you can see.
Greg Chappel is poison for Indian cricket and it is high time he exits, earlier the better.
And don’t reward Rahul Dravid either, for his dumbness in following in Greg Chappel’s footsteps. Strip him of his captaincy and I strongly profess Sourabh Ganguly for captaincy.
The safe way out is once again John Wright as coach. He is available and the least we can expect from him is a clean heart and a love for Indian cricket.
This fellow Greg is a mercenary and the most you can expect from him after his exit will be a book on Indian cricket like a book by a Marxist writer on Indian history, full of lies and cover ups.
By the way the readers of this article who are Indians, please buy a book of S.L.Byrappa called “Aavarana” (if you are non-kannadigas, I think you can get a translation.) You will change 180 degree after you read that book.

So Greg Chappel and Rahul Dravid are the culprits.

I rest my case!

The Judgment in God’s court:

Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel, Guilty
Sachin and co. Not guilty
Cricket Administration of India, Not guilty

The punishment will be announced on 5th or 6th of April in B.C.C.I’s special meeting.

I hope so!

I am a cricket crazy Indian, and proud of it! (and I have nothing else to do!)