Cricket Without Its Federer

Written on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 by Unknown

Sample this. Headlines taken from Cricinfo in last 10 days.

Stunning McMillan seals whitewash.

Australia must find answers quickly.

Australia crash to 10-wicket defeat.

England snatch upset series win.

Superb Collingwood seals tense win.

The common link? Australia on the losing side!!!
Mate, you must be kidding. No i am not.
Welcome to the new age Cricket. It is exciting, suddenly!! Australians are being plummeted. Gone are the days when you started reading the ranking table from rank 2. I wonder if Sunita Williams has access to news out there in space or else she might report a malfunction of landing on the wrong planet.

Schumachers, Tigerwoods, Federers and Australians come once in a millennium. They redefine sports, they awe people and then they make it boring. Wasn't winning and losing supposed to be integral to any sport. But these people defy the later aspect of it, arrogantly. So it is always heartening to see rise of Alonsos, Singhs, Roddicks and Kiwis. They redefine sports, they awe people and then they make it interesting.

Piles of paper and bandwidths is going to be devoted (read wasted) in coming days on this changing face of cricket, especially with the world cup around the corner. Who are you going to put your money on? Suddenly the streets are going to be buzzing again with speculations, And no am not talking about only the Indian sub continents streets, they would have been buzzing anyways. We have a reason, and a very good one to start watching cricket again with same kind of anticipation and excitement which we did some three or four or five , grrrrr.... probably million years back.

Having said and done, write off Australians at your own peril. As Rohit Brijnath aptly puts it.

"Will Australia win this World Cup? Of course! It's what they do."

And on a second thought probably we are very harsh when we accuse them of bringing monotony in the sport. They raise the bar for lesser gods. For instance watch this awesome display of ruthlessness by Federer. Did i hear you say Cricket is not that bad with its Federer!!!