Sad Day For Indian Cricket

I felt really bad after India got beaten 3-0 by Aussies in 1999-2000 series. But at that time everyone knew of their credentials while playing abroad, so the pain sunk relatively quickly.

But a 4-0 pasting by England will leave a mark that would stay for very long. I am not speaking for the Indian Team members, but I speak for the cricket crazy followers like me who have seen the ends of the spectrum in last 3-4 months.

The nailing if you may call it will hardly have any bearing on the Indian team barring someone like a Dravid, Tendulkar or a Laxman, for obvious reasons:

1. These three gentlemen, though aging, take pride in their performance at the higest level and I assume want to exit on a high.

2. Apart from these men, others will take it as a bad dream and focus on the Champions League, which promises them huge moolah. Many like Gambhir and Bhajji have already been named in their franchisee's full strength squad.

I am baffled to see the careless attitude shown by BCCI and the selection panel. I dont think Raina deserves a place in the test setup? The man can't handle rising deliveries on slow and low Indian pitches, how the hell can he face them on quick and bouncy alien pitches. IPL has weakened young cricketer's roots. Youngsters have lost the temprament and patience to fight it out in tough and testing situations. They see pain and testing times of a test match as far more demamding than then the lucrative and moolah ladden 51 days of IPL.

If this is how its going to be, then why can't there be three separate teams for Tests, ODI and T20? Let some one like, Raina, Yuvraj, and other blasters play only T20s and ODIs and groom people like Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for tests. A good test player can play and perform well in any format. Similarly, let a spinner...correction...a darter like Bhajji and medium quickies or utility cricketers in play in T20s and ODI format. Bowlers like Ishant, Praveen, Munaf, Aaron, Umesh Jadav, Mishra and Ashwin in test, where they can bowl more and learn the art of bowling out a batsmen and not be content with containing the batsmen.

This is a time for introspection and to see how things can be brought to back to normality. If like earlier times the issues are swept under the carpet, it won't be long before we find ourselves back in the 90's era.

God bless India.