Musings of an outsider

[The Outsider]

I try to follow as much test cricket as I can, specially involving India and then some other competitive test series. Over the last few years, I have felt the Indian team has given me more joys than let downs. There have been the occasional poor performances but given the domestic structure and cricket management authority we have that's expected. Also, it's a sport - there will be days when people won't be able to raise their game, there will be days when the opposition will be in a zone and things won't always follow a predictive path like some precise mathematical function. But the bottom line is that the test team has won more than we have lost, at places where we had never won before, over the past few years. They've produced batting and bowling performances which will go down in history as some of the very best. I have enjoyed following our team, despite some heartburns. There has been a T20 and an ODI which have passed through over the last few days. Didn't capture much of either matches except to take a look in at the potential future Indian batting stars. I was left with a mixed feeling about them on the little evidence I saw, but that's not the point of the thread. It's the unbelievable excitement, criticism, praise, adulation, and vilification that has been generated on these forums during these two games. I was not able to post much because of other time constraints as well, but even if I was sipping a Pina Colada in the Bahamas I would hardly have posted as much. Now there is nothing wrong in getting excited over these matches - each person has the right to pick and choose what he feels passionate about, but I find myself as an outsider during these times where I fail to see the skill or the excitement in an one off T20 match and the opening match of what is going to be a long drawn ODI series to speed up the blood in my veins. I feel out of sync with the bubbling enthusiasm on the board during these times. I still see myself following the new generation Indian line up during the series but am not fretful of the results. There are no butterflies in the stomach that I felt when Lee started charging in at our batsmen at Melbourne or the nervousness when I ate an entire cushion during the last day at Sydney or the exuberance expressed by pumping fists at the fall of every Aussie wicket at Perth. And no, the post is not meant to damper the spirits of people enjoying cricket here, just an expression of my feelings as an outsider. Go team India!:two_thumbs_up:

[Desi Cartman]

:dito: but I also feel that Dravid , Ganguly , Sachin and Kumble deserved much more success than they actually had

[Chandan]

Wow Shwetabh!!!! These are exactly my feeling too. The disappointment for a loss or the excitement for a victory has just vanished for me for ODIs or T20s. Sometimes my mother-in-law has to look at the TV twice to ascertain that cricket indeed is going on because there is hardly any yelling and shouting from me as it happens during a test match. I watch these matches being very relaxed, not worrying about the result at all. And I noticed this change in myself since that WI tour in 2006.

[Dhondy]

Wonderful post, Shwetabh. Just love it when you write close up and personal like that. I do so feel in so many ways as you do. However, I do see the ODIs as a testing ground for the players' temparament, stomach, a means to assess fitness of returning players like Sreesanth, a gauge of the incumbents' intelligence and sang-froid when attacked, and a measure of our future captain-in-waiting. The result doesn't influence me that much; of course I love it when India wins, but this is one form of game where I can truly say that the much maligned "processes" matter more than the outcome itself.

[The Outsider]

The result doesn't influence me that much; of course I love it when India wins, but this is one form of game where I can truly say that the much maligned "processes" matter more than the outcome itself.

True. No one is going to care or bother about how many matches we won in the CB series even a year down the line, but if we are able to get even one batsman to rise up and successfully challenge other teams on Australian pitches it would count as progress. An Indian win is always a feel good but a loss is not a let down in this scenario. I just hope our selectors can stick to this policy in the future even if we have the likely poor tournament results wise.