T20 World cup to IPL

Only a month back Yuvraj was in limelight for bagging the highest IPL contract. He was bought by RCB in the IPL auction for an amount that's worth much more than what Indian captain Dhoni gets from CSK.

Now, again Yuvraj is in the news but for a very different reason... Stones are pelt at his residence... Everyone is blaming him for sucking out all the momentum from the Indian innings in the T20 World cup between India and Sri Lanka...

In the T20 final that was played between India and Sri Lanka last Sunday, India scored 19 runs of their last 4 overs including 3 extras. No need to say there was not even a single four or six! Ofcourse Indian team was crushed by Sri Lanka by 6 wickets to win their first T20 World cup!

Now, there is too much criticism about Yuvraj not hitting big shots in those final overs. Ofcourse there are few people who say Sri Lanka bowled well too, which is infact very true.

But don't we know that a team with the bowling strength as Sri Lanka will bowl well in the death overs? And don't we have any good batsmen to strike big shots of good deliveries?

Being a cricket fan for the past 25 years, I was also disappointed. I watched the match and was completely fed up by the way India finished their innings. The one thing that I couldn't digest was we had so many wickets intact with us... I understand someone playing slow to settle down and not taking any chances...

But why should you do that at the end of the innings? Whether you are in good form, whether the ball is in the slot to be hit, whether it is a good or bad ball, in a T20 game you are expected to opt for bigger shots. And what else should a professional player do in a World cup final?

Interestingly that didn't happen in the match...

A very interesting plot by the Indian tema management indeed!

But is it correct to blame Yuvraj alone for the mess?

Here's the pattern of last four overs from the match:

Y Y Y K Y K | K Y Y K Y Y | Y K D K K D | D D D D D K

Legend:

Y - Yuvraj
K - Kohli
D - Dhoni

So Yuvraj faced 9 balls, Kohli faced 8 balls and Dhoni faced 7 balls. This looks very much even-steven for me!

But considering Yuvraj's form, it's not wrong to expect him to give the strike more often to the in-form Kohli.

And here's what they scored of those 4 overs:

Over 17 - Y - 2 (4) K - 2 (2)
Over 18 - Y - 2 (4) K - 2 (2)
Over 19 - Y - 0 (1) K - 2 (3) D - 2 (2)
Over 20 - D - 3 (5) K - 1 (1)

That looks very interesting doesn't it! I won't blame you if the recent rumors about IPL match fixing and other cricket scandals come in your mind.

Now, would you be surprised if the so called out-of-form batsman returns to form in IPL? I wouldn't be! After all cricket is their profession. Though we talk about the sentiments of playing for country extra extra, we should also see our cricketers as human beings. There is nothing wrong if someone plays for their own benefit...

Now you might ask me is it not proud to play for your country? Yes it is! But should we have this patriotism only in sports?

How many of us know and really bothered about the crash of Indian Air force's C-130 J Super Hercules aircraft near Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh two weeks back? The crash killed all five crew members and interestingly the C-130 J that crashed was part of a batch of six that were purchased from the United States for $1.1 billion four years ago.
Yes, that's approximately Rupees 1100 crores of our tax money and of course precious lives lost too! That's really sad!

Coming back to the topic, in a way our addiction and sentiments are one of the many reasons for spoiling the previously called Gentlemen's game! If we start watching cricket as a sport, then, there will be no match fixing, no scandals and ofcourse there will be only better performing players in the team...
But right now we are taking it too personal and mixing sports with sentiments which is helping so many people to make loads of money for very wrong reasons and spoil the game too.

All said, it should be accepted that the team that played well won the final. Congratulations to Sri Lankan team!

And ofcourse Indian team too had a very good tournament apart from the final match. It sounds a bit harsh to blame a single player for the player and even Sachin Tendulkar has come out in support of Yuvraj, reminding us of the Indian team's past success at previous world cups. That's quite true too!

Let us hope that our team will cotinue to perform consistently in all formats and keep us all happy!