A team of 11, but One can make or break it

How crucial are some players in a team than the other members?

Quite crucial as some recent events proved all over again.

While Argentina had a galaxy of stars in their Olympic team, the one name everyone kept mentioning all the time was of Messi. He had a largely subdued gold medal match but for that one pass that set up the winner.

Vaughan is touted as the best English skipper of the recent past, but his exit from the team has suddenly rejuvenated that same team. What sort of role did he play in the dismal run for the English team while he was running things and how things have changed with KP in charge. Was he the millstone weighing down the England team? I have a feeling that Vaughan will not be too welcome in the dressing room now. He might as well retire.

And finally for a team that was not given much of chance of doing anything noteworthy while in Sri Lanka, did what no other Indian team could do there, win the series. One man changed things around for Team India and it was that man MSD again. What a difference, a safe pair of hands behind the wicket and a strong mind, makes to a team's fortunes.

But at the end of the day, if that one player can't get the others to play out of their skins, the results will not add up to much. Kobe and the Laker's come to mind.

Is it time to bite the bullet?

Watching India win an ODI series in Lanka for the first time straight after the Test team were humiliated by the Lankans was bittersweet.
While its easy to say that Test cricket and ODI cricket are two different things, results speak a different and universal language. Losses tend to put pressure and wins tend to ease the pressure. Suffice to say that with this win, the much vaunted Indian middle order will be under tremendous strain, while Dhoni and his merry band will be cock a hoop.
In the wake of a series win, its easy to paper over the lack of experience and plump for youth, but it has its downsides. Indian cricket in the recent past has been littered with stories of young guns making sensational debuts and failing to keep it going and fading away from memory. This recent crop needs to be handled carefully. The seniors are not going to be around for ever nor will they be tolerated for long.
How do the selectors manage the transition? The new bunch of paid selectors are bound to have an unenviable job on hand. Do they bite the bullet and banish players who have been the face of Indian cricket for ages and go for youth or do they play a balance game?

Methinks its time to bite the bullet and start the process immediately. There is bound to be pain for a while, but the gains are many to miss out on.

An interesting email forward

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. You lovers of the English language might also enjoy this: There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word.

That is 'UP.' It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special. And this UP is confusing: A drain must be Opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed-UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4thof the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many Ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP ,so... time to shut-UP!

Boys will be boys

They keep saying boys will be boys. I used to wonder why they said that. It came home to me last week in a blaze of childish mails exchanged between two buddies of mine on our yahoo group.
One guy started it, the other responded and soon it snowballed into an immature game of one up-manship. The mails got so juvenile, I had trouble imagining the two of them to be 36 year old fathers. The mail exchange was a blast from the past in every sense of the term. Brought back memories of us in school uniforms, playing childish pranks on teachers and one another, unmindful of the severity of some of those pranks.
I thought we were past all that, until this happened and I had to step in and separate the two. Maybe I shouldn't have. I seem to have lost a friend in the bargain.

But then, boys will be boys....

The value of experience

It was heartening to see an Indian batsman handle Ajantha Mendis with confidence and sure footwork. I don't think Badri was in trouble against Mendis at all yesterday, which augurs very well for Badri and Indian cricket in general. The middle order needs some new blood and Badri should be in it soon.
The likes of Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina would do well to go play some domestic cricket. Badri showed the value of having experienced the domestic grind for years before getting his chance. It has come too easily to the others mentioned and they don't seem to value it enough. This has more to do with Sharma actually. He had the worst possible Ranji season and he is still touted as the next Tendulkar. He has the talent, but he would do well to not let early success go to his head and focus on cementing his place in Indian cricket's future. A look at his fat rotund face tells me, he is not too worried about his fitness and suspect fitness usually leads to loss of form pretty quickly.

I just hope Badrinath becomes India's answer to Hussey. We sure could do with some solidity in that middle order.

Insecurity

Why is it so common?
Why do so many people who have no reason to be insecure, turn out to be the most insecure people?
Is it a lack of self belief or is it just plain cussedness?
Seemingly confident and successful people turn out to be the most insecure.
I wonder if the shrinks of the world have an answer to this question?
I would love to hear it.

The next step

Why is it so difficult for so many of our talented sports stars to step up to the next level? Sports star after sports star makes a dent in their chosen sport and when the world notices them, they suddenly begin to stagnate.
The exceptions are so few and far between, its depressing. What will it take to get a Saina Nehwal to step up to the next level? I hope Gopichand has some ideas, because Saina looks like someone who can step up.
While less said about the great Indian Tennis hope the better. Sania has been underachieving forever now and she continues to act as if she is the best thing that happened to Indian Tennis. What infuriates me even more is the way the country fawns over her.

Lets face it, she ain't gonna win Wimbledon in this lifetime.