Let me first put things clear…this blog is not intended to underestimate the wonderful efforts of Team India or criticize them , but to put across a point to the majority of the media and fans who have woken up from a long slumber , missing in between the disastrous World Cup where India was bundled out in the first round .
The headlines then are still crystal clear in my mind . “Disaster Strikes India” read the frontline of Deccan Herald .
The headlines yesterday read “The world at Indias feet” . It seems bizarre that the media is ready to forgive very soon . Its stranger that until a few weeks ago , Dhoni’s house was being targeted for an extension of a swimming pool , and in a couple of weeks he is to be conferred the Jharkhand Ratna , the highest honour of the state for this World Cup win . TV channels have nothing more to show , except the prize money and endowments the team has got , along with the increase in brand value and new advertisement catches of the Indian cricketers . And yet , if ( I hope not ) they lose in the soon–to-be-held Australia 7 ODI series , the headlines will come back baying for the blood of Dhoni and to be sacked as captain . The media and fans must learn from an incident I read in another blog , that happened after SA’s traumatic exit from the 99 WC in England and involves Lance Klusener , popularly known as Zulu in the world of cricket and Allan Donald .
After a run-out with Allan Donald spelt an end to South Africa’s World Cup campaign in the semi-final against Australia, everybody went for Klusener in a typical media rage .They went at him with questions as “What did you do, ‘Zulu’? Didn’t you talk to Alan? We needed only one run to win. There were still three balls to go. Where was the hurry? How does it feel to drown an entire nation’s hopes and dreams like this?” etc etc .
Klusener, later adjudged the tournament’s Most Valued Player (MVP), was a farmer from Natal. His cool reply is something which only a farmer could have uttered: “So what? No one died.” was his response .
I hope the media and Indian cricket fans learn from this example . We must be able to handle defeat with grace and wins with simplicity , not to get too carried away with our wins and neither with our losses . The so called fans must support the team in times of distress , stand by them and not leave them to despair , worse still venting their anger on their homes and families . Would we do the same thing if a cricketer was a member of our family ??? Would we leave them to fend for themselves and add salt to the wound if someone in our family had the same fate ? Surely not . After all , they just had a bad game/s . Nobody died…
This is where we must exercise restraint and impose calmness and sense into our heads . Only then , will the true winner emerge in ourselves. Otherwise sportsmanship is the loser. Sports is not only about winning as a saying goes “ Strong is not the one who pulls a wrestler down , but he is the one who controls his anger” .
