Stop Wailing! It is the BCCI XI which lost

Dear Cricket fans wake up. The World T20 cup is over and Pakistan is the winner. This is the team which had not played much cricket in the recent past; none of its players were part of the so-called melting pool of talent called IPL 2009 (thankfully that is why all their top cricketers were injury free).

Pakis had a home grown coach yet they won. Just wondering, Lalchand Rajput was the coach for the victorious T20 team of BCCI during 2007 and this guy is an Indian, isn’t he? Maybe the sub-continent former players who believe that cricketers should play cricket and not basketball, rugby, gymnastics, etc maybe after all right!

First things first, it is not the Indian team which lost but only the BCCI XI which lost. Here are the reasons:

The Counsel of BCCI and senior advocate, Mr K.K. Venugopal, during 2005 in the BCCI vs Zee Telefilms case has remarked “If India plays England, it is a match played by the official team of BCCI and not the official team of India,". If that is true, why don’t they market their team as “BCCI XI” and not as “Team India” Even the score sheet should reflect “BCCI XI” and not “India”
The Government of India in any manner has not recognised the BCCI XI to be the Indian Cricket Team. I have obtained this information from the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs under the RTI Act, 2005.
If the BCCI truly represents the interests of Indian Cricket, it would have not banned certain players from representing the country just because they played in the ICL. Just imagine, if the Government denied you a passport because you worked for a private airline, how would you feel? To play for one’s country is everybody’s right and nobody can deny it for the simple reason because he played for a private league.

India did not deserve to win. MSD seems to have got an opinion that there will never be bad times for him. He also seems to believe that the team is winning because of him. His strength and reason for entering into the team was he could hit the ball like an ox. From nowhere, he found this concept of “controlling” an innings. What do you need to control in a Team with so many big names? 11 of 20 odd balls is not acceptable in a T20 match especially if you have batsman like Yuvraj and Yusuf waiting in the dug-out. MSD made his name as a hitter and should stick to that. It is just the fast bowlers in India, who start off as tearaway fast bowlers and later become medium pacers to prolong their careers. MSD as such is an over-hyped captain and this defeat hopefully would put him in his place.
A draining tournament like IPL before the T20 World Cup was a recipe for disaster given the killing distances that were traveled in South Africa. Neither the players nor the BCCI were willing to forsake the big bucks. Not even one player came ahead and told that they want to restrict their exposure to IPL.

Here are some suggestions to improve BCCI
More than the coaches and supporting staff, we need to have foreigners as Board Members. Maybe somebody like an Allan Border, Rodney Marsh, Steve Waugh, etc will be ideal to progress BCCI in the right direction!
The BCCI can afford a professional media manager and certainly they don’t deserve Mr. Chamundeshwar.
BCCI should stop believing that it is the sole custodian of cricket in India. It should stop trying to sabotage alternative cricket formations like the ICL. The Government should explicitly prevent the BCCI from using the “Team India” tag if it attempts to behave like the landlord of Indian Cricket.
Stop believing in flat track bullies like Suresh Raina as the future of Indian Cricket. Such players cannot play a bouncer from Malinga or Fidel Edwards even if they are bowling after a Kumba Karna slumber.
The BCCI should restrict the number of teams in the Ranji Trophy to 8 or 10. The state associations should be compelled to prepare fast, bouncy and hard tracks.
The BCCI has to be compelled to invest 30% of its profits in Olympic Sports.

Indians should stop being obsessed with Cricket. Mad amounts are being paid by the public just to watch matches. The facilities that they get inside the stadium are appalling. The BCCI is always shrouded in realms of mystery. Why does it not make public the Physio report which claimed that as many as five key members playing in the T2O World Cup were not fully fit? It feels it is not accountable to the public so be it, you can repay them back by treating it as another entertainment package and not a national passion or religion.

Balu