Trent Bridge and India

Sat brooding at the Nagpur airport for a hopeful announcement of the flight (Kingfisher) delayed by over an hour.  IN the morning they had also cancelled the flight from Hyderabad to Nagpur. Some tech snag sang the official version.

Beyond the security area could see the Indian team make a mess of its cricket.  In the check in area we had some news channel telling breathlessly about some Lokpal bill.  We could hear some precious sound bytes from the Naya Champ- Anna .

Time to be critical and angry at the manner in which the Indians folded up at Trent Bridge.  We all can loose, but to fold up without a fight. As a nation we feel slighted that the pre test series comments have proved right. It is all very fine to blame the 11 at Trent bridge and also say that it would all have been a different story if only we had Virender, Gauti and Zak.  Look around and we can see how we love to duck without an explanation and blame some one else.  Flights go late, trains have stopped running on time, our media has guys like Arnab, our cinema has the mediocrity of  Murder 2 being a success!! We have leaders of the brilliance of Yeddy and Kiran Kumar, not to mention Man Mouna Singh. We have politicians swallowing crores and traffic cops clearing way side vendors from their occupational units and or collecting un receipted fines for traffic violations!! This happens only in India- Govinda!!

Watch how a few millimetres of rain is enough to get our traffic stranded, and how we don’t have power because we don’t have rains and of course we don’t have power because it is raining.  We have a Civic bodies that fells the maximum of trees, a government that is the cause of the largest litigation, hospitals which is the breeding home of disease and schools where children are not even physically safe.  We have people garishly dressed in palace like homes eternally scheming at one another, in the name of entertainment. Here Sheila ki jawani vies with Munni badnam hui for the best song of the year, we have to choose between Katrina and Deepika for the best actress and Shah Rukh in this film with Shah Rukh in that for the best actor.  Award show after award show, mediocrity is garishly dressed to celebrate itself. This happens only in India- Govinda Govinda!!

          Trent Bridge is a syndrome. Dhoni and his men are Indians- Bhajja Ishant, Dravid or Mukund all are Indians.  They are just as good at their office as we are.

          I’m angry not because India lost and lost without a fight to the Englishmen but because they tend to have the last word.  How dare they talk about Vaseline.  Is it that their memory is short or is it open defiance.  Let’s recall the Tony Greig series: Late evening at Firoza Kotla John Lever got the ball talking as if he were Waqar.  There was something amiss. No, not Denis Amiss. Wickets fell as if to prove Newton right. We took the humiliation with the ease that accompanies habit. We then moved to Chennai. Lever moved in with his habit. Bedi called the bluff. Promptly his contract with his county was not renewed. We remember. Great Brit and Vaughan may have forgotten this.  It is in this back drop that the Indian defeat hurts.  There will be another day when the smile will return on the faces of SUNNY AND Saurav.  Dhoni and his men let down the two guys who had the gumption to talk about the Angrez and how international cricket is racist.

Lets not blame the eleven guys. We have no business to expect of them what we expect of none others.  Bad politicians, mediocre education, poor engineers, plagiarist art, careless citizenary, all in unison call for world beaters on the cricket field.  Expect an anachronism to reveal itself and then hurriedly curse it for not happening. To repeat: this happens only in India!!