Letter of the Day

I have been reading the derogatory letters addressed to the England team. Not surprisingly, it was written by Indians! The writers may or may not have a complete knowledge of cricket, but are undoubtedly sitting happily in their comfortable cubicle wasting precious office hours writing ridiculous articles .And the one who has the NRI tag is the one who is quick to find faults. It is easy to point a finger but I would appreciate it if these writers could also come up with solutions. All we can do is talk. We would be world champions in talk -- sadly, talk of the idle kind.

Why are we suddenly being so particular about an Indian victory outside Indian soil? Why only in the last few months? Has it taken us more than 16 years to realize this fact?

One of the key reasons that have been analyzed for not winning is that Indian cricketers do not have the "Killer Instinct", or they do not "go for the kill" and always "let the opposition back into the game". If this is true, don't blame only our cricket team. Just look back at the history of our great nation which shows several instances of our magnanimity.

Remember Prithvi Raj Chauhan? If only he had not let Ghori go when he defeated him the first time he wouldn't have faced his untimely death at the latter's hands. If the Indians had not let in the British, who came in the guise of a trading company into India, we would not have been enslaved for more than 200 years.

Every sport is very competitive nowadays, and so is cricket, which is a game of glorious uncertainties. A nation of a billion people has not won an individual gold medal in the Olympics. For that matter, when was the last time we won a gold in a team event? More than 20 years ago, right? 20 is greater than 16, right? Why are we laying so much focus on cricket which is not even our national game? And why are people so unreasonably critical about cricketers?

I am a dreamer and I dream of an Indian victory on foreign soil. I wish the Indian team good luck and I hope that our Indian team will make my dream a reality some day. Whether they do or do not, remember Sourav (our fearless leader), Sachin (demi-god), Rahul (rock), Laxman (very very special), S.S.Das, Jaffer, Ratra, Zaheer, Nehra, Kumble, Bhaiju, Sehwag and Agarkar, WE ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

P.S: No wonder Srinath preferred to retire than play for these idle talk critics.

Parthasarathy Janakiraman