The great Aussie debacle and world is not complaining.

Recently  there was a crucial one dayer between Pakistan and Australia  And somebody  who did not follow cricket just asked me curiously as to which side I was supporting . I replied that I was rooting for Pakistan and he was flummoxed as to why on earth was an Indian supporting a Pakistan side which was taking on the Aussies.  My logical reasoning was that I have always had nothing but  contempt for the Aussies and whichever side was taking on the Aussies, I would support that side but never the Aussies. I have some very good reasons for my hatred towards the Aussies. Don’t mistake me,  Australia is a great  country with great sporting tradition. The Aussie athletes are very famous for their fitness and endurance all over the world. Especially the Australian cricket team  has been one of the most consistently performing team for over 2 decades. the Aussies have won 4 cricket world cups, numerous important series and been the top ranked test team for about a decade or so. Having said all that, the Aussies have been a naturally aggressive lot and  this has spilled on to the sporting arena.

Right throughout the 90’s and the first decade of the new millennium, the Aussies had enjoyed unprecedented success in all the formats of the game. It was blesses to have 6 or 7  great players at every point in time who could win matches and coupled with captains like Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting who led from the front. The one thing common amongst the champion Aussie team was the on field behavior which was  very  rude and not in accordance to the spirit of the game on some occasions. There was a lot of murmur among past legends that the Aussies were not popular champions  when00ever the Aussies were compared with the world champion side of the west indies in the mid 70’s and  80’s,people just disregarded the Aussies as the west Indian team won a lot of heart and local  fan’s applause even if the local team was on the losing side. The great west Indian side boasted of some of the finest fast bowlers who never abused or used foul language against  the batsmen  but always  beat the opponents fairly and within the spirit of the game.  The west Indian team always played with passion and a smile on the face. On the contrary the Aussie bowlers and fielders  also stepped outside the spirit of the game and termed their on field behaviour as mental disintegration. The Sarwan – Macgrath confrontation  and the infamous Sydney test against India in 2007 are some of the examples of the crude Aussie behaviour.

The current Aussie team is in a state of  turmoil to say the least and the period of transition is taking far too long . the most worrying part for the Aussies is that there seems to be a dearth of young talented players who can take the team forward.  The current  Aussie team does not have the ability to instill fear in the opponents mind and even weaker opponents like Bangladesh are giving the Aussies a good run for their money. The recent record of the Australian team has not been very impressive  australia has only won a single test match out of 7 losing 6 tests in a row in 2013. The Aussie batsmen  struggle to play quality spin as was evident against the Indian team which gave them a  4- 0 brownwash in India earlier this year. The current ashes series is amply displaying chinks in the Aussie armor as neither the openers nor the middle order batsmen are able to put up a good total on the board  the ever threatening fast bowling line up of the Aussies also seems to have dwindled with a dozen or so fast bowlers who have been tried but apart from peter Siddle and to some extent Mitchell Johnson, none of the young  pacers have been able to cement their spot in the test squad. Every sporting team  goes through a lean phase when nothing goes their way  like the west indies team which  has struggled for more than a decade and a half . unlike the Aussies, everybody in world cricket wants the revival of the west Indian team because the brand of cricket which they display and the man ner in which they play in the manner in which a sport should be always played with a smile on the faces. The winning moments shared by the west Indian side after the  world t -20 triumph are ideal spectacles for young kids to emulate and exactly the manner in which any sport should be played.Currently everybody excepting the Aussie fans must be enjoying the debacle of the Aussies as they have always appeared to be an arrogant lot nobody I dear say should have any sympathy for them and  I hope all of us especially from the subcontinent want them to be thrashed 5-0 in the ashes.

To whom is the BCCI accountable?

In our daily professional and personal lives we are all very much accountable to the people who are our near and dear ones, like our family, friends and our bosses, colleagues in our offices. There are hardly any group of professional people who are not held accountable for their actions. The board of control of cricket in India (BCCI) is however one such so called professional organisation which has nothing to do with words like accountability, responsibility for their own member’s acts.etc. The BCCI  has been running the Indian cricket for over 75 years now and one thing which has not changed in all these years is the casual and care a dam attitude of the board officials towards the cricket fans of this country who are the real reason behind the immense popularity of the game.

To quote a recent example in a long list of instances of the shoddy and disgusting attitude of the egoistic BCCI officials, the Indian team returned after the twin success of the champions trophy  and the tri series in the Carribean, there was a gag order from the BCCI ( read Srinivasan ) on the players not permitting them to give any media bites and interviews with the media. Poor Rohit Sharma reacted very naturally to the simple innocuous questions posed by the media personnel  and  he answered the questions in a normal manner not speaking anything malicious against the board or  any controversial topics like selection matters. The end result was that he was issued a show cause notice by the BCCI for failing to follow the gag orders issued by the board. In another instance, Cheteshwar Pujara  the newly selected captain of the India A team which will be touring south Africa was asked regarding his reaction to being appointed captain and the prospects of the India A in south Africa . The BCCI  also issued a notice asking him to explain his recent behaviour in the media.

Both the players are the future prospects of the Indian cricket team which is in transition and by restricting them or any other players the BCCI has only shown that it does not care for the  Indian cricket fan, media and country at large. Even the current sports bill cannot be passed in the parliament as the BCCI does not wish to come under the RTI act. The reasoning given by the BCCI is fairly simple in that they do not take any financial aids from the government of India and being a private organisation, they are not accountable to the public domain. If the BCCI does not agree with the points in the present sports bill, there could arise a situation where  the team which would be playing on the park would be called the BCCI team and not the national team. This would be a very sad state of affairs in the long and illustrious history of Indian cricket. Whenever a player or a group of players have tried to form a players association   or try to revolt against the dictatorial regime of the BCCI, all the so called factions of the board have come together and played manipulative games and safeguarded their own centres of power in the Indian cricketing circles All the players know very well that if they go against the board their flourishing career could   be jeopardised in the long run. Such is the vindictive nature of   the board that even former great players like Kapil Dev and Gavaskar also cannot go against the whims and wishes of the BCCI.

By ordering media gag on these players who have tasted phenomenal success in the recent past, the BCCI is not doing any favour to Indian cricket. The media and the cricket fans have a legitimate right to know the success story of these players and so the next generation can draw inspiration from its cricketing heroes. By banning the media which was very rightly hounding   N Srinivasan for his lackadaisical attitude in the betting and spot fixing matter which had emerged during  the IPL-6, the former board president has turned vindictive  against the media and even though he has stepped aside as the board president for now, everyone who knows the BCCI is fully aware that Mr  Srinivasan is calling all the shots off the field. The BCCI must understand that they have taken the word  “control “ a tad too seriously and in actual circumstances it is the average Indian fan who is the real controller of cricket in this country.