by Bushra Khan

Created on: February 20, 2007   Last Updated: March 02, 2007

The Indian team is indeed a formidable one, with some of the greatest cricketers of all time. It goes through its share of ups and downs, and here are three reasons why there are those downs.

First of all, the inexperienced players should be given chances when they are introduced in international cricket. First of all, they should be well groomed and ready for the pressures of the international scene before they get there, and once they do, they should be allowed to play a few games at least to prove themselves. But people tend to be too hasty and as soon as the new player fails in the first match, he is dropped. It is vital that he be mentally relaxed to a certain extent, and by forcing him to perform from his very first match, we are putting tremendous pressure on him.

Secondly, Indians tend to rely too much on their experienced, star, players. Take the example of Tendulkar for one; despite his bad form that spread over months, he was kept in the team. He was in the team not on merit, but only on the basis of his name and fame. I know that he is indeed a legendary player, one that has pulled India out of many tight situations, but he should have been given a break earlier, because the most important thing is that players perform when needed. Therefore, players, even the experienced ones, should be dropped for a few games when they are out of form.

Also, people's vision tends to get blurry and does not see the faults whenever the team triumphs and wins. They only rejoice in the victory and forget about all that went wrong, those dropped catches, the extras, the lazy fielding, the thrown away wickets True, emotions have a lot of power, but we need to make sure we solve the small problems even when we win. Not only when the team loses should we try to rectify the mistakes.

The Indian team has the capacity to win against any team in the world. It has more than its share of talent, determination, passion, and love for the game. India being my second favourite team, I hope to see them do well in the near future. And good luck to all those future cricketing stars of the world!

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