"Gutted"

Saying "gutted" after India's early exit is an understatement but that is because I can't think of any other word to express my feelings. The defeat is not always unwelcome. We lost in 2007 WC in first round. But that defeat helped us improve. We found victory in Twenty20 WC 2007. We also got a deadly combo of Gambhir and Sehwag. Harbhajan was back to his old ways. RP Singh and Sreeshanth were clocking 140ks. As if this was not enough we got new talents in Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar. Rohit Sharma batted with gutso and elegance in Australia, that place for ultimate test. Less than a year had passed since our World Cup fiasco but we were right at the top.

All this was followed by the IPL 2008. An event which was thought to give impetus to Indian Cricket. It gave. It gave money. It gave Yusuf Pathan, Manpreet Gony, Swapnil Asnodkar etc. Rohit Sharma was a major success here also. Yusuf Pathan and Manpreet Gony were drafted into Indian squad. Gony lasted as much as his abilities but I am sure that Yusuf Pathan has outlived his ability. Thank God, Asnodkar failed in subsequent editions. After that our 'fast' (forgive me for using this word) bowling resources have taken a beating. The new talents (Tyagi, Mithun, Vinay) have not been tried well. On the other hand Ishant, RP,Sreeshanth and Munaf are so woefully out of form that barring Sreeshanth (due to his state team lacking quality) no one can be assured of place in the state team. Our batters could hit the ball miles on benign pitches but that illusion also gave way after yesterday's performances. They can still hit miles but only against below par domestic bowlers.

Who to blame? MS Dhoni, Gary Kirsten, Lalit Modi, Sharad Pawar, Niranjan Srinivas or Srikkanth? I don't know.

What now? I thought last year's defeat would be an eye-opener but no it wasn't. I do not have much hope this year around. I did not follow the IPL this year and I wish Pakistan wins this time around too. For full two years Pakistanis will go gaga about their performance in all dirty web fora and all those IPL following Indians will bear them. May be that would be an eye-opener because it is cricket following public which needs to open its eye now.