TALE SPIN...

As the Indian Cricket Team (or is it Team India?) displays its kaleidoscopic talents, English alphabets are tuning into the wrong frequency.
With the Videocon series clicking for the hosts, the disintegrated unity of this nation has come up. Internet hate campaigns for Sourav Ganguly may be cowards wagging their tail behind the ethereal screen but what about the stinging remarks in the morning daily?
‘He (Harbhajan) had found himself in the disciplinary front by unwisely taking sides in the Chappel-Ganguly showdown’, S. Dinakar attempts a reverse sweep at the former captain.
The picture portrayed is that the man management of ‘gentleman’ Dravid brought the magic back for ‘turbunator’. Does anyone care to remember who created this magic? Not just in an individual but in a gang who could dream outrageously and perform to that extent? Can the meek, boyish charm of Dravid save the team from an Australian glare or an English hara-kiri? It’s just one series and the bad breath that steams from the sports section is heartening. Getting together some forgotten ‘greats’ of Indian cricket to dump their lofty ideas ‘Mixed reactions to exclusion’( The Hindu,30th Oct) is appalling. Combining all, would they have made 10,000 ODI runs? Have they showed courage, comparable to defying the English at Lords, giving a befitting reply to the high handedness shown in our country? We still seem to find comfort in the silence of back door politics where cricket is a mere tussle to fit in a south zone rookie for an east zone handicap! And what more can be more relishing than the captain’s blue? Ganguly had to be excluded but not with this amount of rancor. Did Sachin, the darling of cricket fraternity exude so much pulse when he just could not pull his act through?
Dravid never tried his cricketing acumen as a make shift captain, says Dinakar, cause of respect for the regular man! And just when a Dhoni spark lights up Diwali eve, its all attributed to the newly instituted captain- his cricketing brilliance!
We should not dwell in the past or try to bask in the glory of the days bygone but the southpaw deserves a lot better than words dipped in cruel intentions. End of an era, asks Nirmal Shekar (The Hindu, 20th Oct), even when in the first domestic match he played, Sourav had a century to his name- on what basis are expert opinions and views going for print?
There’s no support in the bad patch, maybe this is professionalism being inculcated in the team but somewhere there’s music of the pied piper that Sourav was for them.
Slow over rates and emotional upheavals do give this game the personal touch bringing it close to the common man who can relate to the pride and joy when one dons the ‘Indian Blue’. Sourav shaped this team and there are lots of flashes that call for respect and honor.
For the captain, and his ways of management. With the necessary change, the sudden taunting and mud slinging just shows that we never really honored the man who held the team when match fixing and players’ integrity were question marks! Does Dravid have a more difficult stage to perform? Moreover Dravid has his own laurels that are envied and never comes in conflict with the ex-chief.
He was always neglected and over shadowed during the Ganguly age, is what is brewing and being served in doses.
Its just four matches, maybe one series against Sri Lanka, who certainly does not have the maximum fire power now, and Dravid is man of the year!
The Australians have been doing this for a dozen years now, aren’t we being too fast in making a hero for the commercials?
The new coach-captain camaraderie would take India to the numero uno slot but again the tale of cricket’s treasured moments would always have space for the ‘dadda’.
Ganguly has served the national colors with passion, with courage, with a lot of heart. And we have all basked in the glory. So, in the tale spin of Indian cricket, the ignorance for the Prince of Calcutta would just be tomfoolery.
There’s no one to write him off, no one to pen down a fairy tale for the new man in office but only for the betterment of cricket, the contribution of individuals, can we pledge.
Sourav Ganguly as a cricketer has given us a lot of prized moments, in return he deserves more than the arrows of smirk and disdain.
For every time Dravid would bite his nail on field, analyzing, making a crucial change, eyes hidden behind the reflective glasses, be sure flashes of his ex-team mate, his ex-captain and a cricketer par excellence would make him a wiser man.

ps: this a relatively old scribble of mine n it might be ill timed now that indian cric has gotten used to the new charms... am not a ganguly fanatic, but somehow i hoped cric is still a gentleman's game with no strings attached!!