Incredible Indians and World Cup

By John Cheeran
Rahul Dravid and his boys have emerged as truly incredible Indians.
None would have believed that Indian team would not progress into the Super 8, before India played their first match in the 2007 World Cup against Bangladesh. India reaching Super 8 was a given.
Two losses against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have changed all that. It is disaster in terms of runs and wickets. We all believed, justifiably so, that India will make into the semifinals.
For a change, the Indian cricket board had given the side a professional coach in Greg Chappell and a no-nonsense captain was handed a long-term brief for the World Cup. Skipper Rahul Dravid, along with coach Chappell should share the responsibility for India’s premature exit from the World Cup.
Dravid has said that he takes the responsibility for the Indian defeat. He has not spoken about any individual letting the team down, but has expressed disappointment the way his batsmen spent time at the crease.
Captain Dravid has failed in his World Cup mission. But as a cricketer he still stands tall among India’s World Cup ruins. Who else played when chips were down against Sri Lanka in Port of Spain?
Yes, Dravid, despite chairman of selector Dilip Vengsarkar’s betrayal, can take credit for asking for Virender Sehwag and having partially vindicated for standing u for his belief.
It is interesting that Vengsarkar, a man who could not resist Karan Thapar during the CNN-IBN interview, has not uttered a single sentence in the wake of India’s stunning reverse in the World Cup.
India lost this World Cup, I must say, largely because chairman of selectors Vengsarkar sold the team management his theory of how important experience in winning matches. Vengsarkar used experience conveniently to bring Sourav Ganguly back and to retain Sachin Tendulkar.
Ganguly preserved himself while letting Bangladesh bowlers dominate and in the crunch game against Sri Lanka played a silly shot to get out for 7. And what about the most experienced campaigner in the Indian side, Sachin Tendulkar? How can Team India progress beyond the group stage when Tendulkar scores ducks against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Tendulkar, who was peeved and jumped to speak to media in Pakistan when he was denied the opportunity for getting a Test double century by skipper Dravid, should tell the world he is quitting at least playing one-dayers, owing responsibility for his utter failure to score even a single run in two games that turned out to be crucial, against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
But the billboard that is Sachin Tendulkar, seems to have swallowed the cricket balls that rattled his stumps against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and has not said a single word.Team India, however, is not Ganguly or Tendulkar. If experience has failed, so too has the youth brigade. Those who had seen shades of Kapil Dev in Mahendra Singh Dhoni must be busy disowning the six-maker. Dhoni, at least, equaled Tendulkar in scoring blobs against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.And Robin Uthappa, having got the luxury of playing all three matches, proved the biggest disappointment of the tournament. And what good Yuvraj Singh can be to Indian cricket if he cannot get his judgment right for stealing a single?
Leave alone Chappell, not even God can teach dudes such as Yuvraj, who has arrived much too early as a star, anything. It has been a collective failure and each one of the Indian team members fully deserve the abuses that are heaped on them now.