Why did our cricketers let us down?

07 October, 2012

Despite the best efforts of sports ministry and the cricket board, our cricketers dashed our by getting knocked out of the T20 World Cup. It's time that their performance is reviewed so that we don't have to taste the defeat again.

HOCKEY IS our national game but when it comes to international level, we fail to perform and in every tournament, our rankings are shoddy. Every time our team goes on a foreign tour, it returns, not with medals but with heads down in shame.

What is wrong with our national game? Do we fail to select the right combinations, do our players lack practice, coaching or infrastructure or is that we can no longer play better hockey.

Now, let us see how we are doing in cricket, an unofficial national game of India. T20 World Cup being played in Sri Lanka is an example. The Indian team couldn’t go past the Super Eight stage, an it seems Dhoni’s men were thrilled to score a nail-biting finish against South Africa in their last match.

Again questions are being raised – who to blame? Batting, bowling, fielding, wrong decisions or wrong selection.

One can understand that hockey is doing badly because of dirty politics between Hockey Federation and Sports Ministry, but same doesn’t apply to cricket. So much money is being poured into cricket and still we have failed.