but, sad to say, the guineapig has died a painful death….

At the start of the World Cup as I looked at the teams’ groupings
only two possibilities regarding India’s progress came to mind, ie.
1. We win all three matches and go through.
2. We win against the ‘minnows’ and lose to SL, we still go through.
How wrong was I?

Yesterday,
the match should have been only about points,
and NOT about India proceeding to S8 only by winning,
(or they would proceed to S8 only if Bangladesh lost to Bermuda).

So why did we get into that position?
Because we did the unexpected…..LOST to Bangladesh.
Whatever we have done since,
has been like running up a downward travellator.

Yesterday,
to qualify for the next round we had to play a strong team,
who had already qualified and were not under any pressure themselves.
So the pressure was only on us, the task was twice as difficult, we crumbled under it.

We are on the brink of exiting from the WC
but is that really only due to our defeat yesterday?

The blame game has started already,
and conveniently, just like so many times in the past
only the batsmen and the bowlers who failed against SL
are being made the scapegoats.

But when shall we account for the true reasons for our failure?
How, how, how, could we lose against Bangladesh?

How did we have the audacity to go to play in the World Cup
1) as the only team without a fixed batting order
2) as a team that hoped their opener would “regain his form” during the tournament.
3) as a team with only one genuine all-rounder, who was so out of form that all he did was carry the water bottles.
Almost every other nation took a team, we took (15-2=) thirteen players.

Those of you who would still blindly believe
that the coach and the captain is not at fault, think again.
It is time to take a reality check, folks.

I know we lost even before we left for the Caribbeans.