THE FAN WHO IS NOT ?!

Unbearable excitement, Heroes of the world, Flurry of endorsements, Celebrated by media, worshiped by fans, streets filled with cricket & Bragging statuses are the symptoms of a victorious team India. Ruthless headlines, brash comments, provoked fans, mindless panic, senseless sensations by news channels, Insulting statuses, Blowing things out of proportion, Burning effigies, pelting stones & the agonized but ever hopeful fan, are all the symptoms of a poorly performing India. All for what ? For a game of cricket, having an equal probability of Winning and losing?  But when the latter is consistent, the progressive reaction is geometric with an average Indian fan, which pops up a series of self interrogative questions.That can be mainly due to their insane inclination towards this game, where it is treated as a religion by itself.  Is it a bane that, a pure cricket fan has to face the wrath of a prejudiced Indian cricket fan ? Have they lost the ability to look at this game objectively? Given the fact that media plays its part in influencing the frail hearted Indian fan, can we ever take a failure in the truest of its sense ?  

Cricket has always been a sensitive issue, especially with the fans & Media. After a run of poor performances in England & so far in Australia, the players are receiving stern reactions from fans & Media. Though the players enjoy the high during a winning spree, they have to come to terms, when their performance is being questioned at the times of defeats. But the quintessential fact remains that, majority of the Indians have an extremist attitude towards cricket. A win can take the players above their heads & a loss can bring them below their foot. It is also important for the player to come to terms with this fact - India is like that. The average consumer of cricket, looks at this much more than just a sport, and that gives the player much more importance. Probably that's the difference between a country which looks at cricket as a sport & as a religion. The status of demi-god is achieved only when a certain landmark or a heroic act is performed. In such a case, one is made to think about the reasons, when players are in pursuit of their personal milestones. Atleast they've got a goal to play for.

The class has always been there, but the application in the recent tours has been marred by some kind of sub conscious predetermination. The confidence has taken a beating  and the urge for them to come over it is to prove a point. Often that is epitomized with reaching a personal milestone, that helps the team in a winning cause. What that does is, it reassures themselves & the people who follow them about their ability. Thus the responsibility is doubled for an Indian player. You can expect a similar gesture of Michael Clarke being performed by an an Indian (if he got there), but spare a thought for him.   The media & fans would have overcome the fact that he has put the team ahead of the personal milestone, and probe their ways ahead into why he didn't go for the personal milestone. With double standards, a much easier option, the player is bombarded with such force in the media, also the people who follow that media much more than their hearts. A mild reminder that, an Indian cricketer is also a human being, who succumbs to pressure. The amount of pressure and expectations Sachin has carried through the life span of his cricketing career is seriously a super human effort. Only at the times of distress will we even remember Dravid & Laxman. The players who are plagued by it off-late are Sehwag & Dhoni. Though this is their job to perform under pressure & are being well payed for it, they have their own devilish conscious to answer, which in my view is bigger than the media & fans. The media & fans are an added pressure to tackle. 

There is always scope for improvement, but Continuous application of pressure from all directions, often leads to breaking down or destruction. A simple example: When in our school days, all of us are pressurized from all directions, and when it happens continuously we tend to break down at some point. All that we required was some space for retrospection. A strikingly similar situation are faced by Sachin & rest of the Indians. I'm sure the players are made of much stronger substance to tackle this situation. And I'm sure that they will overcome this phase with a fitting reply. I can't help, but to think like the ever hopeful Indian fan. Empathy is something that's quite distanced from us, when it comes to cricket. Though it might seem that the crickets don't require our empathy, trust me it does make a difference & that happens without our knowledge. I'm sure heart of hearts, you wouldn't want to lose a classic player to wavered thoughts & inhuman pressure. The moment we start looking at it objectively, we start to enjoy the game of cricket, applaud the opposition, take it less seriously & express our emotions in a much channelized manner.   

Recently, it has been the Indian captain, M.S.Dhoni, who's been at the receiving end. A large group of the cricket following fraternity are in shock due to this contrasting performance from the India they've seen a year back. There seems to be a sense disbelief that the man who was known as 'Midas' is way to quickly getting into a slump, much against their liking. Not many people would expect this from a man who captained the country to win the Worlc Cup just 10 months back. Constant comparisons between him & Ganguly have risen & I personally have been a part of that. It is easy for a passerby to drop comments at his will, which isn't much weighted by himself. But for a cricket fan, the thought is hauntingly recurring. There's obviously a sea change that has taken place in the way cricket is being played & the way it looked. The mindsets of the cricketers have moves more towards aggression & result oriented thought process. To simply put it, cricket has evolved. But lets come to terms with the teams, Ganguly & MSD have led respectively. With due regards to Ganguly, the team he dealt with had the Invincible middle order (Dravid,Sachin,Laxman & Ganguly himself), with Kumble, Harbhajan & Zaheer khan at their peaks. Peaks might be an understatement. But with MSD, though the invincible middle order more or less stays intact, its the remaining of the team that he's given to rebuild. 

Though MSD has slipped up at key moments, just like any other captain, to term MSD's tenure as a captain to be over, is a bit mind numbing & premature. Yes, he has had a poor run overseas, he has missed the opportune moments, but to propagate talks of the demise of his captaincy is silly, if not insane. The true test of MSD, can be ascertained only when the big guns move away from the tests, when he's given an entire team to build by himself. At the moment, he's in a bit of cusp to jell the experienced and to promote the youth. Though one side of the argument stays, that its not about the loss, but its about the manner in which we lose. Though it is true, these are testing times, where we have gone in with an inexperienced bowling line up & backed up by some poor batting displays. Having said that, this brain was the same brain that was taken as a case study for reactive leadership, but for a normal fan who follows the score only on social networking sites &  takes pride in only victories, Dhoni's leadership will be termed as mere luck. I then realize that Ignorance is bliss & their IQ is naught. 

As a country or a fan, to doubt the ability of a captain who's taken India to different heights in such a short period, especially after the 2007 world cup debacle, you've got to give it to this man. For the calm & composed approach, irrespective of defeat or victory, for speaking his heart out without a full stop, for admitting the mistakes, for encouraging the players, for deciphering a new way of cricket for the generations to come, the least one could give is respect. You can probably dispose the Midas' touch, but you can never dispose Midas himself.