Letter of the Day

Face the fact!

There has been much hype & hoopla in ads shown on television about the current Indian team returning from South Africa with the World Cup 2003. Even renowned commentators are talking seriously about the possibility of India repeating 1983.

The talk of the town is the famed Indian batting line-up which bats right till No.7 The popular opinion is that we will bat our way to win the coveted trophy. But, let us just give a thought about the other teams in the fray. For starters, can we name a few teams that do not bat till No.7? The truth is almost all countries have stacked their teams with batsmen.

Hence, the teams which really have a chance of winning the championship are the ones with a strong bowling attack. As of now, only Australia, South Africa & Pakistan seem to possess the firepower to dismiss or contain the large array of batsmen any opposition is going to throw upon them. Sri Lanka may have Muralitharan, but they have only him, eventhough he might single-handedly turn some matches upside down.

India have only one world class bowler in Zaheer Khan. As Hooper repeatedly tried to point to the Indian media (for reasons known only to himself) during the test series, the Turbanator is not even half deadly abroad as he seems to be at home. Srinath is at the dusk of his career. Maybe, he would want to retire in style, with a fine performance in South Africa. But, age is definitely against him. During his prime, we wasted him for the sake of Kapil getting his 432. Now, we would better do without him.

Bishan Singh Bedi says, "If Agarkar is an all-rounder, then I am a batsman". Well, I say "If Agarkar is allowed to play more than 100 ODIs, I should be given my 50". And even a kid knows that Kumble cannot turn the ball abroad. To sum it up, the bowling looks spineless. These bowlers would struggle to dismiss even Bangladesh. No kidding.

What we need to do is stop expecting too much from this Indian team. Let us face the fact. They simply can't win the cup. Let us give our total support to the batsmen who are doing a splendid job. But, they themselves can't win a tournament as big as the W'cup, without some help from the bowlers. Let us just enjoy our world class batting that is going to be on display & forget about bringing World Cups from abroad till we find bowlers with lots of fire in their hearts & some tricks in their bags.

Kamalesh