We deserve to lose

9/29? We deserve to be on the losing side

I decided to do something I have never done in my life today.
I watched a cricket match on a gigantic screen at a mall.
The experience was interesting and like many other cricket-crazy Indians, I was cheering for the wickets and dot balls and sighing every time we made a mess of things.
And then Ashish Nehra bowled the last over.
I swore at him like the rest of the fans when we lost.
But then rationality took over.
We lost 9 wickets for 23 runs.
Had the top order not clicked, we would have beaten Zimbabwe for the world's lowest total.
So I don't even feel bad that we lost the game. We probably deserved to anyway.
The experts in the studio will have their own post match analysis as to what went wrong, but I met a guy after the game, who told me where we went wrong and how we should have selected R Ashwin over Munaf Patel.
This expert happened to be my rickshaw driver, who had a very interesting point. He said, "The reason why they're not taking Ashwin is because he's another off-spinner and with Harbhajan in the side, it makes no sense to have another off-spinner."
Accurate analysis, my dear Watson, but Harbhajan keeps bowling the doosra, while Piyush Chawla, who wasn't in this game usually bowls googlies. This changes their role in the side.
But the rickshaw driver is one of a billion disheartened Indian fans, who wanted to see their side win and ended up in tears after Nehra bowled the last over. Suddenly poor Nehra's Facebook page has gone berserk, with people blaming him for the loss. The rick guy went on to add that Dhoni was probably paid to lose this match.
Speculations like these always arise. My father says that cricket is a whore that has money being shoved into its vagina, while other and colleagues friends say that they lost interest in the sport ever since the match fixing scandal broke out.
I think that we're just a bunch of poor losers.
I'm not talking about the team only. I'm talking about the general culture of the subcontinent. We can act in mobs. Otherwise we behave like pussies. The 1996 Calcutta semi-finals and the pelting of the West Indies bus at Dhaka are just two recent examples that I can think of. Ray Robinson's book 'The Wildest Tests' speaks of several mob outbreaks during the couse of a cricket game and many of them happened in India and Pakistan.
The sad thing is that when we taste success, we get drunk by it in an almost Macbeth-like way. And that's what's generally been the case of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I cannot comment on the Sri Lankans because I've not read any Sri Lankan paper criticising its players of letting success go into his head. Maybe I haven't read enough or maybe Sri Lankans are far more disciplined that her other South Asian counterparts.

Nehra suddenly became everyone's favourite whipping boy because of his
Chetan Sharma-like last over

I think what my auto rickshaw driver said at the end summed it up beautifully. He said, "Kya kare, boss. Hum log chutiye log hai aur players bhi hum logon ko chutiya banate hai.' (What can we do. We're a bunch of cunts. And the players use that to their advantage and make us feel like bigger cunts)
Maybe someday - and this is the optimist in me talking - we'll finally get to a space where we'll evolve as sportspersons, but that day sadly will be very far away.
But yes, losing 9/29. We don't deserve anything, but to lose.

The Australian Phoenix

We're two test matches down in the Ashes and England has the psychological advantage going into the third test.
England have been playing really good cricket off late. They drew a series in South Africa; they did well against Pakistan at home and they even won their first international tournament in the form of the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.

Although this may be the end of Ponting's career, Australia
will be back to the top of the summit sooner than later

Australia on the other hand have been on a downward spiral. Several of their best players retired at the same time, making their shoes hard to fill. Their captain is woefully out of form and their vice captain is batting like a cunt. Even that 80 was a piece of shit innings. He has batted better than that and he knows it. Hussey is doing a good job in the middle, but he needs to convert those 50s into larger scores.
The bowling is rubbish.
Siddle is good in bursts; Harris is good, but very unlucky; Johnson and Bollinger are inconsistent; Watson is a bits and pieces bowler and batsman, come to think of it and there is nobody in the side as a specialist spinner.
I heard someone tell me today that this is like the decline of the great West Indies.
But I disagree.
Australia may be playing like crap now, but they've always been a side to rise from the Ashes. I still maintain that they have a chance of reaching the final four of the 2011 World Cup in the subcontinent. I will not rule them out of anything.
Let's face it: I watch cricket because of this side and the way they've played the game over the years. They've played it tough. Yes, it's been dirty at times, but it's been tough cricket. They never say die and although they may lose this tournament and Ricky Ponting, in the process, they'll be back on the top of their game by 2015, if not earlier.