A new season of Indian cricket begins

Amid all the hoopla of the Ashes and the Tour de France, the start of the Indian cricket team's new season had totally escaped my attention. The new season starts off with India playing Sri Lanka and West Indies in back-to-back ODIs this weekend. Though it has been a couple of months since Greg Chappell was appointed the coach of Team India, these will be the first matches they play under his tutelage. I believe rather than the Aussie spirit rubbing off on the Indian players, it is going to be the case that the coach will be driven to frustration. I can already visualize the press conference at the end of this series. The news-hungry wolves from the media will be at Chappell's throat for explanations as to why India did not even make the final of the tri-series. And, I am sure Chappell is not going to spare any words in ridiculing the Indian players. Hehe ... should be fun :)

The thing that has pissed me off though is BCCI continuing to drag the issue of Ganguly's suspension. The ICC's rules when a team fails to keep up with the over rate were known to all and the Indian team has been guilty of this offence quite often in recent times. So, when the 6-match suspension was slapped on Ganguly it should not have come as a surprise to anyone. The Indian board could have just accepted this decision and moved on. After all, who the hell cares for the results of ODIs anymore. But no. How could the Indian board back down so easily? Dalmiya defended Ganguly so stoutly as though he had been handed a death sentence! The ICC looked into the matter once and said "Sorry guys! He's got to serve the suspension". But, the BCCI refused to be cowed down and persisted with the issue. I don't know what's taken the ICC so long to give a verdict, but the final decision is expected to be out tomorrow. In contrast, when Inzamam was handed a one Test ban after the ODI series in India, he accepted it without any cribs and Pakistan even managed to lose that Test to the West Indies of all teams! The sad part of this whole controversy though is that even if Ganguly's suspension is not repealed tomorrow, the two matches he missed at the end of the Pak ODI series will be counted as part of the suspension :( The more matches he misses the better for the team :P

BTW, talking about Indian cricket, here's a really sorrowful story that I came across today via Prem Panicker's blog. Koneru Humpy had Bank of Baroda as her sponsor for funding her training, travel, etc. Not just for making money by endorsements, mind you. And now, BoB has decided to instead sponsor Rahul Dravid and make him their brand ambassador. What a load of crap! Why the *@&! does a bank need a brand ambassador? As though every time one thinks of Bank of Baroda, he is going to remember Dravid and think - "Oh! This bank must be solid". No way. The bank is wasting money either way. They might as well fund Humpy and ensure that the money is put to good use. I'm sure Dravid couldn't care less if he had this one additional endorsement under his belt. Anyway, let us hope she does manage to find a sponsor and put up a good show at the upcoming women's world championships.

Huh, reading over my own post, it looks like I don't have anything positive to say about the state of Indian sport! Let's see how the Indian team fares over the next couple of weeks ...

Update:
Just realized that the West Indies is playing with a bunch of jokers in this tri-series. If the scenario I predicted above of India not making it to the finals does arise, I think Greg Chappell will have to take more drastic measures than just ridiculing his players in a press-conference!

Cheers,
Harsha