India's World Cup HOPES

Hope lies eternal in the human heart. I think this quote should read, "Hope lies eternal in the Indian cricket fan's heart...."
After India's mediocre performance there isn't much left to say! But as an ever-hopeful Indian cricket fan, I still believe (albeit not as strongly) that India has a fighting chance in the World Cup. I knew that I will be looking at the points table, I also knew that we would have our calculators out to plug in the run rates and I was certain I would hope and pray that other teams do badly so India goes through. But I was hoping that all this would happen during the super eights and not after India’s first world cup match.

I believe that winning and losing is a part of the game, but I also believe in putting your best foot forward. I am sad that India lost their first match but I am even sadder that India lost because of what seems like complacency. Bangladesh was never going to be a walk over. They play well and beat any team on their day; they beat Pakistan in the last WC and have since added Australia’s scalp to their growing list of upsets. India should have taken notice when Bangladesh beat NZ in the recent warm up games.
Bangladesh won today because they were better team. But what pinches is that India’s performance was not at par to a world-class cricket team. If this is the best they can play then I guess they shouldn’t be in the super eights.

Sanjay Manjeraker said “India needs a miracle to go through to the super eights” and Dravid exclaimed “we will fight back” and as always the Indian fan is angry yet hopeful. But this time the Indian fan is probably more angry that usual. The Rediff Blog was surprisingly harsh. One Indian fan says the slogan should be changed from “Come on India” to “Come back India”. Another Indian fan is abusing the team, the coach, the captain and finally the board. Some even brought in the corruption and inefficiency in India, questioned democracy and the economy. (Why…because India lost a match to Bangladesh? Hmm interesting how people think). A lone Indian fan in the blog is hopeful that India will go through to the super eights and the semis.
I want to pray, to all my gods but I think people back in India are doing that for me! I reckon nearly a billion prayers should be enough for the Indian cricket players.
The first thing I did after I found out about the Indian cricket team performance was woke my father and I yelled “INDIA LOST TO BANGLADESH” and my father half asleep said…“Excellent….they deserve it!”

Do they? Do they really deserve to be out of the World Cup? Will India be the second biggest upset in this world cup? Will India crash and burn like Pakistan is doing now? What is up with the sub continent teams? Are we too complacent, incompetent, old and rusty, bureaucratic or just indifferent?

Rameez Raja in his comment squarely blames Pakistan’s cricket politics to be the reason for their dismal performance. Is India crippled for the same reasons? Does all India need is fresh blood? I don’t know.

Coming back to the world cup, India needs to fix whatever is broken and fix it fast. All the Indian team needs to do is fix its cricket and know the country is with them, the Indian fan despite all the abuse will still be there in all the cricket matches with their face painted in saffron, white and green cheering them on…
So come on guys we are still with you!! Just get to the super eights and we can take it from there :)