New Delhi, Feb 13: We buy cars and motorcycles and TV sets because you say they're good. We spend money on absurd blue beverages that we'd otherwise have mistaken for stuff in a toilet dispenser so that the game gets some (money, not soap water). We don't grudge you the cash you get as appearance money for gracing functions you wouldn't otherwise be caught dead attending. We enter silly SMS contests ("how many Holland players will not wear a helmet against India?!"). We register for stupid online competitions…
But now it's time we registered our protest.
For the Indian cricket fan, there has seldom been anything worse than having to watch the Indian batting performance on Wednesday.
The home loss to Kenya a few years ago competes, but this, remember, is the World Cup. And this, remember, is Holland. A country with a truly staggering 6,000 registered cricketers (the average Indian city would probably have more). Holland led by a man pushing 40 and a strike bowler whose name we got to know just this morning. De Leede: 4 for 35).
And so we find what's arguably the best batting line-up at 114 for five after 30. Ganguly, gone. Playing a shot he's perfected of late: the edge to keeper or slip. Sehwag, gone. Off a full toss. Playing a shot that Gavaskar asks him about in an ad: "Square cut mein problem hai?" In the ad, no. In the middle, yes.
With the discount Tendulkar out, there remains the sorry sight of the real Tendulkar grafting away. Forgetting class for a while, foraging for form. One banner in back-of-beyond Boland Park said: If cricket is religion, then Sachin is God. Wrong. On today's evidence God has a different nationality. So Sachin pats a leg stump full toss lobbed at him as if it were a priceless piece of crystal. To square leg. For a single. At least he got a 50.
Everyone's blaming the pitch. The ball isn't coming on to the bat. It's stopping and bouncing awkwardly. Look, Sachin has just been surprised into fending off a 125 kph snorter from Schifferli!
And is that Adeel Raja? Can't be. The best players of spin think he's Muralitharan. Are we watching the right match?
This, after the long commentary box debates in the morning about why we should play seven batsmen - "what's Mongia going to do coming in at number 7 against Holland?"- when the score at the end of 50 would surely read something like 360 for two.
Mongia may have played a match-saving innings today. Because by the end of 35, we were reduced to discussing Harbhajan Singh's skills as a batsman. Wonderful eye. At number eight, he's our hope. An ad appears: Bhajji is told he needs some serious batting practice.
Sometime before India is bowled out, you can't but get the feeling that somewhere along the way the deal between the Indian team and the Indian fan has gone sour. We (the fans) talked about the blighted tracks in New Zealand after the dismal tour. Forgetting, for a while, that in a cricket match, both teams play on the same pitch. We stood by them through all wrangling about contracts and endorsements. We even lined up to cheer them on when they went in to submit their urine samples, for God's sake.
But today, one by one, all eleven of them walked back to the pavilion - and walked out of the deal we had with them.
It isn't about winning or losing. Maybe a loss would have been better. By winning they have left behind a residue of hope - like hot dung on a tiger's track. We'll follow the scent. Rethink the deal. Probably strike off the non-performance clause. We're the suckers. It's not their fault.
Bureau Report
