A few days ago – Just prior to the T20 World Cup began, the TV pundits flaunted the favourites and the other allied matters of this tournament which incidentally came up right after the BCCI sponsored IPL tournament which was played in South Africa.
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The pundits came up with the notion that there were three direct favourites – the defending champions India, World Cup title holders and the unofficial world champions – Australia and the current ODI table leaders South Africa along with may be England – the guys who were playing in their own back yard.
Ironically the pundits were proven wrong.
Three of the four favourites – England and India reached the second round, but were proven not good enough to reach the semi-final stage while Australia was unceremoniously dumped by outsiders West Indies and Sri Lanka who marched on to the semi-final to take battle forward. Now in the latest even favourites South Africa have managed to choke themselves out of contention in the semi-finals, while Pakistan who did not have a single player in the IPL tournament are in the final to meet the other rank outsiders – Sri Lanka.
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England on the other hand will have a lot of misgivings after their rain hit tie against the West Indies, because they did go through the ignominy of getting booed by a majority Indian crowd who had flocked at the venue in spite of it being played in England. A disturbed English captain remarked after they had put India out of contention of the T20 title defence “To some length the jeering spurred us on as we were booed on our own home ground”.
However the tale of woes in this episode is with India.
Two years ago smarting from their early exit from the last World Cup tie which was held in the West Indies, India decided to dump all its aging cricketers and sent in a budding bunch of kids led by M.S. Dhoni to take part in the inaugural T20 World Cup which was held in South Africa.
Here against all odds India won the T20 World Cup beating their arch rivals Pakistan, thus walking into a wave of tumultuous celebrations back home. Suddenly cricket’s richest citizen had become a chosen, converted disciple of T20 cricket.
Taking advantage of the new wave a section of the Indian cricket gentry tried to hijack euphoria with the ICL, but, BCCI’s Lalith Modi and company was wise to it and bulldozed in with their own scheme that they called the Indian Premier League Tournament – which also had an opened doors for foreign players of stature.
The first edition of the IPL was an untold success. Not only did it have almost all the World’s current and just retired big names, but it was also a huge money spinner that made the rich BCCI, richer.
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As every story always goes, the ups and downs in the IPLs success began to surface. First was the Mumbai attacks which evidently was orchestrated from their cricketing neighbours Pakistan which followed by the terrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan cricketers in the middle of a Test match in Lahore.
More than in the victim state of Sri Lanka, the ripples of this terrorist attack was felt in India and as the country was just walking into a general election and the inauguration of the second edition of the IPL.
By this time the seeming success of the IPL had also raked in its own results with the young Indian cricketers being exposed to the plethora of World Cricket under their own conditions. There were Yusuf Pathan’s being discovered in every nook and cranny and as a result India had become one of the most confident cricket playing nations in the world just overnight and with the given exposure every one knew the results had come there to stay.
As big as it is, India was not big enough to host two major events like the General Elections and the Premier League Cricket tournament owing to security concerns. As a result the organisers packed the cricket tournament off to South Africa after they had encountered some technical hitches in England after they had initially approached their colonial masters to host it there.
In South Africa it were the South Africans who reaped the biggest harvest as a result of the IPL. For instance Jacques Kallis who once was left out of the SA ODI squad accused of being a player in the classical mold turning out for the Bangalore Royal Challengers came out as one of the most prolific opening batsmen in the IPL tournament, thus forcing the South African team management to alter their batting line up and drop Herschelle Gibbs to the one drop slot. Now even at the T20 World Cup Kallis is a success story.
While the IPL was in progress in South Africa none of the Indian big names made a roar of thunder. Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Sing, Zaheer Khan seemingly performed below par. It was only fast bowler Rudra Pratap Singh who appeared for the IPL champions Deccan Chargers and became the most successful bowler of the tournament, who could hold the world at his feet.
Among the Sri Lankans T.M. Dilshan and Lasith Malinga made it their launching pads, back to fame while even skipper Kumar Sangakkara and veteran Muttiah Muralitharan took the opportunity to establish themselves in the T20 version of the game.
Another player who launched himself into T20 cricket was the West Indian allrounder Dwayne Bravo. He is not only establishing himself in this version of the game, but was one of the lethal forces who saw to it that the West Indians beat India very convincingly in their super eight tie.
Even among the Australians it were the just retired Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden who proved that the old fiddles play a better tune while Nannes who turned out for the Netherlands proved that he could be a much better bowler under better management.Upon their return now the Indians are complaining of players’ fatigue and the Indian coach Gary Kirsten said “I don't want to use that as an excuse but it was a factor. We weren't an energetic team, like we were in New Zealand where the levels of energy were really good. We didn't get up to the same level on this tour.”
As we all know the BCCI has managed to get a window opened for the IPL from the existing Future Tours Programme. Even when the IPL was moved to South Africa the Indians knew that the gruelling T20 World Cup had to be defended.
But, the grapevine says that another reason for the exit was the Dhoni-Sehwag spat than any other. |
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