The League of Champions!
July 26th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Remember those days at school when there was this particular chap who would get always get the highest marks in everything, no matter how hard everyone else tried? As far back as I can remember, I lost the desire to compete for that 1st rank because of that. Remember the 2004 Formula 1 Season where Schumi went on winning every bloody race and bored the hell out of his own fans, forget the others? What does such a thing do to the sport? It kills it. Competition is necessary. A certain amount of challenge is always good, even for the best. If there were two three people competing for that 1st rank in class, would it not bring the best out of them?
The point I am trying to drive here is that, “Rank 1″ is just a number. It is an accumulation of the good work done by a team over a period of time and not valid on every single day. To catch hold of Dhoni and say “You are No. 1 in tests, now go beat everyone around the world” is silly. A little chaos, a little uncertainty, a proper challenge, a loss here and there, an underdog victory, isn’t that what a fan wants? I would like to assume that we are fans of the sport first and then a fan of the team/player. Sometimes though, the fan of the team/player in us overpowers the fan of the sport. The 100th 100 of Sachin is a classic example for this. With a test match to win/save on the 5th day and a viral fever pulling him down, there were people on twitter still rooting for the 100th 100.
Rahul Dravid after his century at Lords
There is this concept a friend of mine talks about very often. In a friend group, ideally 3 to 5 people, everyone is equally talented in something or the other and the group can roughly be termed as a league of equals. Let me explain this with an example. Look at Dil Chahta Hai. All the three friends there have some skills and at no point does one feel that any one of the three is a misfit. Extending that theory to sports, there is no best player or best team but a league of brilliant players or teams.There is no best batsman or bowler, but a league of brilliant batsmen and bowlers. It is the healthy competition between these teams/players that brings out the best for the team and excitement for the viewers. How would the World Cup 2011 have been if India did not have to beat Aus, Pak and Sri Lanka but instead Zimbabwe, Holland and Kenya? It would be a bore if India won every match everyday like the brutal Aussies did in 2007. The sport will die, much like that year’s World Cup.
India lost to England in a test match at Lords. My point is, chill maro. Dravid is back in form; Swann doesn’t look as threatening as hyped; Raina, Praveen and Ishant seem to be in the form of their lives; Sachin & Gambhir will be fit by then. And most importantly, India is now the underdog.
