Its sad but i feel its true.. India is only as good as a team like Sri Lanka, whose lone claim to fame was a by chance World Champions title. I am in sync with Mr. Malcom Speed who said India's last major victory was 1983 World Cup. That bought entire world's attention to India and thanks to some apt marketing techniques and some real real talents like Gavaskar, Kapil and Sachin, it stayed here. What have we done special apart from the lone victory?? A few tournaments here and there.. sparks of individual brilliance.. and rare sightings of TEAM INDIA.
Indian cricket doesn't need BCCI. It needs people like Saurav Ganguly, who provided us a glimpse of team India. In the current Indian team there is no one who can take on the mantle like he did and i see no promise in the near future as well. I feel Indian cricket is going Indian tennis way. Gone are the days when we were so so confident about them. In fact i feel more confident about our tennis players than our pack of blue. Its just so sad to see a country with richest cricket board and best talents to falter at each and every step.
"Phir se aayega India" claimed a US based MNC. They care shit about cricket in general and Indian cricket in particular. They need visibility and India's success and failure provide them with ample opportunities.
We are a nation of billion and some of us will always believe that India is one of the world's best team. They still belive that India can do it in 2007. BCCI can only promise. They can never deliver. Guys.. we could be world's richest team.. we could be world's most endowed team.. but in no way world's best team.
Politics plays a very big role in india and its really really sad that its has ruined our opportunities to become a world class team. Kapil's team bought hope to millions, which produced a Sachin,a dravid and a ganguly. But we weren't able to build on that. What we really built was BCCI corpus which benefited all but Indian cricket and Indian cricket fans.
Our generation is still being deprived of what generation of 1983 did. The joy and proud to be Indians. I feel Sania, Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi have not cheated us in this respect.
I feel that we should look beyond cricket.