...or at least follow it suspiciously in the beginning and hope for the best without being as enthusiastic as I was this year.
I may be ignorant on all things cricket and I don't subscribe to the seven-point theory, but it doesn't take a cricket genius to figure out that KKR is at the lowest position with only 7 more matches to go. Forget the semis, right now my prayer for them is that they don't end up at the bottom rung by the time IPL 2 is over.
Hey, I'm a SRK fan but like I wrote before... I don't support a losing team. I don't think Buchanan is ever gonna let them take the trophy back home and if Shah Rukh doesn't realise that soon, he has no business keeping a team that's only gonna bleed him dry, emotionally if not financially.
Mr B may have awesome credentials, but I want to throw SRK's words spoken to Gavaskar at him (I've modified it to suit the occasion - source): "I respect Mr B - his knowledge about cricket is a billion times better than me. But this is an era where Mr B has not indulged in."
He even says something to this effect on an interview: "The intensity of it is higher than any one-day or Test series I have been involved in."
And what in the world did Mr B mean by this one?? "“We didn’t finish on the right side, but the game has been the winner... The outcome will help lift the tournament."
I intensely dislike someone who can't admit he's wrong, goes forward with his proven-to-be-a-failure strategy and in the process, drags everyone down with him. On that note, why must McCullum wait until the whole schedule is over to get the idea that they'll never make it to the semis? Why can't he save the team from being 8th by giving up the captaincy now? I'm not a a Dada fan, and the reports I read of his performance in IPL 2 has not succeeded in making me one. I don't care who'll be the new captain but I hope he'll serve the team better than McCullum has so far.
I still want to know more about cricket. I just found out that my univ has a cricket team (this after studying there for years). I'm intrigued with all the numbers being thrown around in comments and articles... sixers and fours, decimals in overs, +ve and -ve in net run rate, etc. Look up this answer and tell me that the numbers are not turning you on. It sounds like a really compelling game. I'm quite pissed that no one has ever tried to sell this game to me when I was at school.
So yeah, I hope I'm gonna be eating, drinking, and talking cricket come next year. But I've never been in favour of supporting a personality when a game is at stake. Especially if the personality is the owner, and not one of the players.
Not being Indian and certainly not a Kolkatan, forgive me for not caring that the team may move to Ahmedabad due to some money-grabbing officials. I just want the team I'm investing my time and mental/emotional state on is worth all my tears and cheers. Ever since my last view of the points table where KKR is at a measly 3, I'm not following the scores anymore, as you might have noticed from the absence of my live feed table in this blog. What's the point? They're never gonna get to the semis.
I'm angry at Mr B for messing up with the strategy from early on. Heck, even though I know it's redundant to be angry at an owner when it's the team management (or lack of it) that's at fault, I'm a tad angry at Shah Rukh for letting the dismal show carries on like this when it was clear from the 6th match that a fundamental change in formation (be it at the directive or player level) is in order. Maybe it's because I'm so used to him being a take-charge and in-charge person in his own professional life, seeing him give full reign to someone else seems so uncharacteristic of him that it jars my sensibilities.
On another front, the media has done it again. They couldn't get enough of dissing SRK when it comes to KKR and IPL but once he's on home ground and in his own element, they're all over him and saying things like KKR has disappointed him and that he's looking to sell it to the highest bidder. Losing two seasons does not make the franchise a dud, you idiots.
Having said that, I'm looking forward to improvements in the line-up, i.e 80% weed-out of current strategists in Mr B's camp (and if that includes Mr B himself, it's even better). After all, they've not given Shah Rukh value for his money and in the corporate world, which T20 is always made out to be by the critics, this kind of non-performance would have resulted in sacking. Is Shah Rukh going to be his regular softie self and retain this failed coterie for the next tournament??
This vent is good for letting out my angst. I feel calmer already. And if any cricket lover were to take this post so seriously as to quote it anywhere else, he (it's always a male) deserves a whack on the head.
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