Going Good

I have been staying true to my earlier post and not reading about the ongoing India-England series. Here are my new favourite links:

www.indiancricketleague.in - this is enough to put BCCI to shame. The sport's richest body does not have a website to reach out to cricket fans. It is a shame if you call their existing portal www.bcci.tv a website.

One Less Fan!!!

Finally I got over myself and decided to get over Indian (read BCCI) Cricket. I have been trying to do this for a while but was a die-hard cricket fan. I have been a faithful even after enduring the betting scandals - not anymore, I have lost my patience. BCCI is just a crazy organization going in a direction which no logical person can comprehend. I have a strong belief it is not going to change its ways. Added to it - the team is run by self-serving players as much as it is stupidly administered by the board. The place in the Indian team is like a government job - get in once and you are assured to play for a lifetime, until your kid is ready to play. I tried even changing allegiances and cheering for another team and that did not work. Cricinfo and Rediff Cricket links are no longer in my Favourites Links list. I have taken a resolution to not actively follow Cricket at least until Sachin, Sauruv and Agarkar are out of the team for good (not rested). I will not read anymore articles on cricket while I might check scores and follow other tournaments not involving India. One less fan - nobody will miss me - but what the heck, no more money to BCCI from me.

I am confident that I will be able to keep up with my resolution since there are other things that will keep me busy and interested, at least for the next 8-10 months. NFL is going to kick-off in a couple of weeks. I have a new found interest in US College Football and the season is already underway. By the time these two seasons come to an end, NBA will enter the second half of the season and I am an avid follower of the Pistons. This was not the case before, I was only into Cricket, now I have other choices.

Outside of these sports, I am eagerly waiting for the Indian Cricket League to start. The way it is structured it is likely to develop similar to American professional sports leagues. I am assured of quality from them since they need to prove themselves against the BCCI and gain public following. At least until I get convinced it is another BCCI, I will follow them. GO ICL!!!

BCCI - Excellentesto!!!

Really - we are all running out of adjectives to describe BCCI's inabilities. So I had to create one - a superlative form of excellent - excellentesto!!! The name BCCI itself is in the danger of becoming an adjective of describing other such organizations. In a future dictionary, one might read:

bcci [buh-ki]
- adjective
(administrations, organizations, boards) possessing most of the following qualities
1. the head (of the body) knows doodly-squat about the organization, the organization's product and the organization's mission
2. might not have a mission in the first place
3. a constitution (if it exists) that gets amended very often
4. provides very little or no customer service
5. has a proven track record of not executing its promises
6. has corrupt practices
7. governing body is elected by a dummy electorate
8. governing body members are required to be illiterate or have very little (or no) experience/knowledge in the organization's field


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This posting is subject to be modified - comments are most welcome

Don't Blame Ford - He Came, He Saw, He Rejected

Graham Ford, appears to be a smart guy (he took a smart decision) and I am sorry he decided not to coach us. He has done nothing unprofessional for fans and media to lamblast him.

He came - because he was invited, and naturally anybody wants to find out new opportunities
He saw - the state of Indian cricket affairs, the bunch of jokers that run BCCI, the media and fan frenzy
He Rejected - for his own reasons

And Mukul Kesavan's blog in Cricinfo reads "But rumour has it that Ford was appalled by the Indian Board officials and the state of cricket training in India—which isn't hard to believe. And not being given a free hand in selecting his support staff was, apparently, another turn-off". If that is true, BCCI has itself to blame for the situation.

World Cup Final.....

A few days before the world cup started I told my friends that my favourites to make the semis were Australia, South Africa, NewZealand and West Indies. Though I am a die-hard Indian fan, I did not have enough confidence in the team that they would make it to semis. The team went on to surprise everybody by not even making it to Super 8s.

In the last two world cups, Australia defeated Pakistan and India to become the world champions and now it is the turn of another sub-continent team to challenge their supermacy. Sri Lanka deserves the place in the final. They played very well through the tournament and I hope they pull a stunner and dethrone the current champions.