The gloss of a
4-1 win against Pakistan and a
5-1 against England has long faded.

Team India was on the crest of a tsunami,
chasing and demolishing opposition targets.
It was all attributed to Chappell’s coaching and Dravid’s captaincy.

So under no condition was Chappell was to be annoyed.
Experienced players were dropped for ‘young legs’.
The team suddenly had ‘other options’.

The new BCCI management had won the coup, and in style.
But success cannot be sustained on lies and dishonesty.
It wasn’t long before Team India went into a spiral,
accelerating downwards, nose first, out of control.

Players cast aside, had to be recalled,
shamelessly welcomed back
as an old “mate”.

It was too late.
The team had been well and truly destroyed.
The downward spiral ended with a spectacular crash
out of the world cup at group stage, alongside Bermuda.

Did we learn any lessons?
No we didn’t.

BCCI blamed the failure on players’ endorsements.
After a pathetic attempt to blame the players,
Chappell was forced to quit.
He had no other options.

The main reason of the failure was ignored.
We had a captain who proved he is not a natural leader.
He has no positive attribute to be an asset in a one day squad.
In his gratitude to Chappell for being handed the unexpected captaincy,
he forgot his responsibilities towards his team, and sided with the coach.

BCCI chose to retain him as captain.
He immediately forced two senior played to be “rested”.
Two hollow ODI victories later, he to his followers has redeemed himself.

But the chosen one’s “chosen one”, a Mr Ford
pulled out from accepting the role of our new coach.
In the process, we lost the only one who had showed any interest in the job.

So now, the team is back on a tour,
to play away from the dustbowls of the subcontinent
against formidable opposition of South Africa, England and er…Ireland,
without a coach. This time, no one for our captain to again hide behind.

The fact remains,
a slow batsman, with no other attributes,
is an automatic choice in our ODI team by the virtue of his captaincy.

A situation, that we were promised, would never happen again.

Technorati Tags: cricket, ODIs, Team india

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