Friday, March 14, 2008

Team Work Naah! its not for us.

As every body knows cricket is unofficial passion of india. It was my passion too till a year ago. I have played cricket through all the three years of my college and can understand the true team work of the Blue Team. While every true cricket fan in india is busy with analysis of why the blue team is not performing, i came up with my own. I am confident of my observations and have practically gone through them. First and foremost. Blue Team is actually performing to its strengths contrary to other peoples beliefs. Surprised. The answer lies in the foundation and tradition of Indian cricket. All the Indian players are true sons of the soil and they uphold the galli cricket values even under the pressure of international matches.
Have you ever seen a player obeying or following captain’s instructions in galli cricket? Most probably not. For that matter all 11 players are their own captains. Who says India is not equal opportunity provider. Again the bowlers at galli cricket are the arrogant lot. They are not worried about weather their team is chasing or defending, all that goes in their mind is they are there to bowl what ever they like and its the duty of fielders to restrict the runs. They even abuse the boundary line fielder for not stopping that six by putting extra effort and converting it into a catch. Fielders are more powerful than captains or bowlers. If fielder doesn’t like a position you can’t make him field there. Looking it from efficient utilization and motivation point of view nothing wrong. The problem arises when all the players want to be incover position are inside the circle. Who will guard the boundary line?
"Ask your bowler to keep strict line and length" Comes quick answer from the all knowing fielder. You don’t even have the rights to reprimand him for a misfield at aboundary. "Modulu aa ragya sulemagne ball sariagi ogi annu.. batsman nayige hoddanga hodilikathana... nanmege yake odaradthi..." Another all knowing fielder at work.Fielders also tend to change their position with out informing the bowler or the captain. "Ninge yava huch sulemaga helida le eekade baa antha..." frustrated bowler
"Nangen goth le.. Isthot thanka alle ninthidde..avnavvna..ball nan kade bande illa.. adakka eekade bande..." All knowing fielder again. Never every try talking to a fielder who has just missed a catch. In most of the cases he will blame it on either sun or say he was lost is concentration due to disturbance. Ofcourse it very though to concentrate on the ball when the bowler is threatening you to cut into pieces if you missed it, the other fielders giving you runtime ( yes imean it. ) guidance on how to catch it and where actually the ball is landing. Wicket keeper just does that. Keeping wickets. He only replants the stumps or collects the ball at the end of the over. Anything more than that is dishonor to the esteemed position he holds. You cant blame him for missed run outs. Reason?
Fielder did not throw ball into his hands to effect a run out. And it doesn’t help that fielders use all their lagori skills to hit the batsmen not the stumps. Added to this the occasional rift between the two teams over the total score. A scorer is assigned from the each team and they keep track of the score. Any differences are sorted out in the ground itself. The more you can yell and threaten to more your scorer is efficient and correct. In a 16 over match the scores are compared at least50 times. Umpires are both from the batting side. Only criteria that can make you umpire is your ability to intimidate the bowling team. You should have the strength (physical as well as vocal) to stand by your decision. Leg umpire is usually a dummy player whose sole purpose is to maintain and supply the important energy supplements to batsmen and fielders in between the overs. These usually consist of cigaretts, gutkhas. No team has fixed batting line up. It all depends on the mutual understanding between the batsmen in the team. And on rare occasions if a bowler had not received enough overs to bowl he can expect his batting position to jump high. Anybody still confused why pathan is at third slot? Normally the opening pair are fixed. They are the best batsmen the team has got. And when batting they are the boss. You cant argue with them for slow run rate or missed chances of easy balls. All they come up with is they are making foundation for a kill. Unfortunately thisfoundation laying exercise is carried on till penultimate ball of the innings if both the openers stay at the wicket.
Once the wicket falls, even before the frustrated batsman is back after his arguments with the umpire, you can see the players in the all natural open air dressing room ( under a tree) fighting over the bat. The next batsman is usually the one who snatches the bat first. Every team boasts of dravids, sachins and dhonis. But ineffect most of them are zaheers. Out in the pitch, each batsman wants to face as many balls as he can. You hardly see them go for two runs. Usually run outs happens under three circumstances:
1. Last ball of the over. Non striking batsman wants to face the ball next over. Heruns for two. But the striking batsman is happy with one.2. First ball of the over. Striker wants two. non striker is happy with one.3. One of the player is getting more runs than the other.
At the end of the match you win or lose. No i don’t mean the victory or loss of the team. Its of individual. That is what matters. Forget the team and team work. We are super performers and we can win matches single handedly and mind you very consistently. Once you understand the galli cricket and how its played at the root level, you wont blame the Blue Team. You will find answers for all the so called evils in Blue Team. Forget Team Work. Its some abusive word taken from western cultures. Ours is the land of super human super natural heroes. This stuff about team work and mutual trust, coordination is for inefficient people. A society that thrives on individual success is doomed to failure. It needs 100 individual performers to succeed but just one failed individual to rot.



Note: This was written at a time when Men in Blue were underperforming.

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