Another day in purgatory for Indian cricket fans

Another day, another match, another dream, another annihilation at the hands of the opposition.

Sometimes I wonder if everyone in the world (players, analysts, coaches and journalists alike) looks at the Indian batting line-up through rose-tinted sunglasses - they can never quite get over the "famed" Indian batting line-up and its "potential" destructive power. If you were to believe the reams that have been written about them, you would be forgiven if you felt that this was one batting line-up the Gods themselves had chosen.

Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag, Ganguly, Yuvraj, Kaif, Laxman, Dhoni - its enough to make anyone go weak at the knees thinking of what would happen if all these guns fired together. Yet, dear reader, do sit back, pause, and ponder - when was the last time that you saw this batting line-up realise its full potential ? Every chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and right now, we have more weak links in our chain than a centipede has legs.

It makes me sad that I have never quite had the pleasure of seeing the whole team contribute in a single match, together, as one, consistently - where is the Indian team of 11 ? Why does Sachin have to depart at a pathetic score of 1, or Sehwag, and Kaif make a fighting 70, with Yuvraj promising so much, only to depart at 11 ? Why does Ganguly fail when Dravid succeeds ? Why, at any given point of time, do only 1 or 2 links of this great chain perform ? Why do we call a batting line up mesmerising if all it does is flatter to deceive ?

I am not one who can quote the stats book backwards, nor am I one of those gurus who lord over the proceedings with their masterful insight through every possible media channel. Hell, I can't even hold a cricket bat straight enough to punch a ball through the covers. I am not the one in the firing line, I do not stand in the shoes of our players, and have never been in the middle of the stadium on the pitch facing the crowds, the bowlers, the hostility and the hopes of a nation. So does that make me unfit to comment ?

O defender of the Indian cricket team, pause, and read through the rest of it before you give vent to your feelings about how immature I am to criticise our own players.

I dont stand in their shoes, but they do - to be privileged enough to wear that Indian cap should also come with a heavy accountability - you carry the hopes, the dreams, and most importantly, the pride of your nation on your shoulders.

Take a leaf out of the Australian book - they actually have a ceremony right in the middle of the field when someone is baptised with the baggy green cap. To wear your nation's cap brings with it a terrible burden of responsibility - O Indian cricket team member, be man enough to live up to that responsibility, or forever forego your right to touch that sacred cap. Forget the money, the filthy lucre, the advertisement campaigns, the sponsors, the selectors.

Therein lies the single most important failing of our players - do not fear the coach, do not fear the selectors, or the sponsors - fear, instead, the wrath of that poor villager who pays his last penny to come watch his heroes bat ; fear, instead, the horrible feeling of despair in the heart of that little 8-year old, waving Sachin's poster in one hand, and a board with "6" written on it.....

If only they who play can criticise, then the sport would lose its charm. I criticise, not because I want to, but because it is through the heroics of our team that I revel in that vicarious feeling of achievement that engulfs my soul, when I see the Indian flag on the victory podium. And it makes me sad to see our "boys" capitulate meekly, time after time after time.

I cannot bat on a pitch which is a minefield, but Sachin can, which is why he is Sachin, and I cannot accept that he can fail.

I cannot step out to the spinner and loft him way over long on, or slap the ball with disdain through the offside, but Saurav can, and I cannot accept that he can fail.

I cannot bat for hours on end with the stoic fortitude and grim sense of survival, but Rahul can.

I do not possess the hand-eye co-ordination which makes a bat look like a trained king-cobra, but Sehwag does.

I cannot make the ball rear up and hiss like a venomous snake, writhing this way and that to spell the batsman's doom - but Pathan and Zaheer and Kumble and Balaji and Harbhajan can.

I could go on forever.

All I am, at the end of the day, is another of those millions of cricket fans - Indian cricket fans - who thirst for Indian victories more than a dying man in the desert could thirst for water. The want, the sheer aching desire in our hearts, to see the Indian flag flutter head and shoulders above that of the other teams, is an almost tangible yearning.

Every pair of lips moves in silent prayer as Sachin walks out onto the turf ;

every eye glistens with a moist tear when Dravid battles for survival in the most grim of conditions ; every face lights up with joy when Ganguly crashes a ball through the covers like greased lightning and the fielders can only stand and watch ;

every vein pumps adrenaline and every fist punches the air when Sehwag, Dhoni and Yuvraj send the leather flying to every corner ;

every hand salutes the elegance with which Laxman penetrates and pulverises the field ;

every heart eggs on Kaif as he scampers for every single run as if his very life depended on it ; every back is arched straight back with pride when Kumble bamboozles another batsman into playing the wrong line ;

every nose smells blood when Pathan and Zaheer hit timber and send the stumps cartwheeling, when Balaji runs in with hair flying all over the place and draws the faint nick from the bat as if he were almost coaxing it like you would a child.....the stories could go on forever, the images would keep flashing like so many colours of a kaleidoscope.....

Make no mistake - the day this Indian team is on fire, will be the time when any opposition - kangaroos, kiwis, stiff upper lips, et al - will be strangulated without mercy ; we have the power within, all it needs is for that power to be married to the belief, the faith ; all it needs is that animal instinct, that primal lust for blood, the fire in the belly, that hunger, that starving raving hunger for winning - stoke the primal fires inside yourself, and the world shall surrender under your all-conquering tread.