What goes around, comes around

India has virtually been eliminated from the World Cup after their loss to Sri Lanka. Make no mistake, barring a surprising loss by a motivated Bangladesh (a Test playing nation) to a team of "weekend cricketers" in Bermuda, India is out. And even if they do make it to the next level, it'll be a shame to sneak in on such an embarrassing note. While everyone's quick to blame the team for the loss, let's not forget the shockingly bad LBW decisions that were missed by the umpires. The bowlers bowled their hearts out with special mention to Ajit Agarkar. But the batsmen failed their tasks once again. How you go from scoring 413 to failing to chase 250 (regardless of the opponents) I'll never understand. Or forgive.

(A bitterly funny fact here is that two of the largest cricket playing nations have been eliminated from the World Cup at this point. Which is a huge hit for the sponsors. So there is talk that the crucial match between Bangladesh and Bermuda will be fixed by the sponsors to keep India in the Cup and hence the one Billion strong market still biting at the ads.

India is the largest cricket playing nation in the world. Calling it an obsession here is understating it. People live and die by it. The recent successes and huge TV contracts led to the players making obscene amounts of money. They're more visible in the streets and on TV in ads than the movie stars. But of course, the adulation they received is nothing compared to the brickbats they received when they lost at first to Bangladesh and now to Sri Lanka. People went as far as protesting in front of the house of a former player Venkatapathy Raju. Why? Because he's on the selection committee. In fact one of the questions that was asked of the captain Rahul Dravid was if he fears for his safety when he lands in India.

A very relevant question in light of the death, and what has now been termed a murder, of the Pakistani Cricket coach Bob Woolmer. Woolmer, a world renowned strategist was found dead in his bed. At first it was announced that he died of a heart attack, attributed to the high stress of his job. I for one took the news at face value. But almost everyone I talked to India (my family and friends) immediately started referring to it as a murder and half-jokingly make comments about "those murderous fanatics" (Pakistani players and fans). A few days later speculation turned into certainity as the police announced they would treat it like a homicide. Woolmer's wife who at first denied all "conspiracy theories" about her husband's death, soon recanted and said that she did not rule out foul play. (Me thinks she was threatened too. You say "Duh!"?)

It's a really sad state of affairs in the subcontinent. The rivalry between India and Pakistan has always been intense and one that I personally have enjoyed a lot regardless of the outcomes of each game. While their World Cup victory has been more recent than ours, I've always enjoyed the fact that we've always beaten them in World Cups. Even now, the only reason the reaction following the Indian loss was more sober was because of the Pakistani loss. Nothing cheers up an Indian fan more than a Pakistani loss, probably even more than an Indian win, to the point that the sentiment has been "I don't care if you don't win the World Cup, but don't lose to Pakistan there." (I'm sure the sentiment is reflected in Pakistan.) But a sadder way in which the Indian scene is better than the Pakistani one is that they're a few degrees more obsessed with cricket than we are. While we burn effigies and destroy property, they take lives. Last World Cup a fan shot himself after Pakistan lost to India. Their coach was murdered a few days ago. Not that we're a whole lot better - a fan in Hyderabad (India) died of a heart attack the night of the loss to Sri Lanka. It was really sad to see the picture of his young widow (the guy was only 28) in the paper today, such a meaningless death.

Let me echo the sentiments of countless editorials in the papers here. It's just a game, people really need to stop taking these losses so hard, just like they need to stop worshipping all the players after every single knock of 50 runs. They're mortals, and it's a team game. So slow down and just enjoy the game.