Indian Cricket Fans

Indian cricketers have the largest support base in the world with a billion people living in India and a few million overseas. Here is a look at some of the major fan clubs supporting the Indian team around the world:

The eternal optimists: These fans think that India will win the World Cup, even if they start with a loss to Bangladesh. They think that India lose matches because of bad luck, not poor performance. To them, the umpire is evil, Sachin is God and oh yeah — Azharuddin is innocent.

The Pessimists: They call themselves the realist-club, but they are the exact opposite of the optimists. They think the Indian team is good for nothing. Sachin needs to retire. Dravid bats too slow. Ganguly is no good. And Sehwag should be dropped. But hey, they still support Team India. I am still trying to work this one out.

The pendulum club: These are the fans that think that India is the greatest team after every win and shower praise on the players who performed in the win. After one loss, India become the worst team in the world and should stop playing cricket… that is, until the next match starts.

The “secret admirer” club: A lot of people belong to this group. They admire a certain cricketer, but will never accept it. For some reason, a lot of Ganguly’s fans are members of this club. This club has also branched out to a sub-club: Members of this club think that if they keep criticizing the player they like, they will somehow score runs or take more wickets.

The Super superstitious fans: These people think that they magically control India’s fortunes based on the place or position they sit in. Even a slight shift from this position will cost India a wicket. This is “the butterfly effect” — the theory that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings affects a tornado half way across the globe — taken to the extreme. Oh yeah, they also try and repeat the winning formula — i.e., wear the same ‘winning’ clothes while watching matches, or do the same things repetitively while watching a game. People (like my own mum) have been known to not watch matches, because India loses every time they watch — Observation of an event changing the event outcome itself? Isn’t that somehow related to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Hmm… I may be on to something here!

“Hang ’em high” fan club: This club is also known as the “knee jerk reaction” club. After one failed (or even a few failed) innings or matches, they want the player’s head. They are often known to have advocated that the whole team be sacked (and replaced with whom, we do not know). The coach is usually the first on their list of people to be sacked, followed by the players, the selection committee, BCCI and so on. Sadly, a lot of members the media (or the braying mediocrity of Indian cricket, as Mohan calls them) and some ex-players belong to this club as well.

The radicals in this club go as far as burning effigies of players and stoning their houses.

The database club: It is amazing how some of these fans can spit out records and statistics faster than you can say “database”. They also have a photographic memory of innings and events. If only they put these skills to a much better use…

The arm chair pundits: These are people who have never played the game, but analyze the game and the players inside out. These people discuss things like Sreesanth’s wrist position during ball delivery or Sehwag’s bat angle when it makes contact with the ball. Was it not very simple? Something like “See ball, hit ball”?

The Internet fans: These fans, armed with Google, Wikipedia and a zillion RSS feeds, scour through hundreds of sites looking up data and articles about the Indian team and their favorite players. A majority of them live overseas and these sites help them keep in touch with the sport and the team they have come to love. Some of these fans have even started blogging about cricket – providing an alternate viewpoint of the game and its players. Professional writers, watch out!

Which ones do you belong to? Like me, more than one, I am sure.

-Mahesh-

News in brief: Saturday 10 March 2007

• The ICC World Cup Trophy itself has been damaged while being taken on a “Cheer for India” tour around India!
  
• For a while it seemed as if Sourav Ganguly would not play todays’ game against West Indies — after being struck by a ball from Sreesanth. However, he played in India’s final warm-up game.
  
• Waqar Younis backs subcontinental teams!
  
• Peter Roebuck agrees. In his view, India and Sri Lanka cannot be discounted.
  
• Brian Lara is quietly confident and eyes a Test career beyond the age of 40!
  
• This was before the West Indies were crushed in by a huge margin in their warm-up game agaist India. The massive victory, however, still left a few Pathan-Sehwag questions unanswered for India. Sehwag played a loose drive and Pathan, despite his 3-wicket haul, sprayed and rarely touched 125kmph — while speed (or the lack of it) in itself is not a bad thing, it is the way he bowled that remains a concern.
  
• After the game Lara was livid; Dravid was happy.
  
• Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell have hogged the media-interview column-space lately. Here is another one. Prannoy Roy talks to Sourav Ganguly. Prannoy Roy also talks to Barry Richards, Dean Jones and Imran Khan.
  
• Rediff have a statistical basis for evaluating the set of the most valuable set of players in the game today. Slightly different to the method we adopted for selecting the current best World Team.
  
• Virender Sehwag says he would like to play a tighter game and repay the faith imposed on him by Dravid, his captain. But he’d need to do better than his effort in the warm-up-game against the West Indies.
  
• Ganguly, meanwhile, is happy with the rapport he says he shares with his coach, Greg Chappell. “The past is forgotten”, he says.
  
• Sports psychologist, Rudi Webster, says that Irfan Pathan and Virender Sehwag will emerge stronger and come good.
  
• It is likely that the low-slow-turning wickets could stump the games’ big hitting players like Kevin Pietersen, Adam Gilchrist, et al.
  
• Shoaib Akhtar is going through hell by not being part of the World Cup activities. What did he expect?
  
• Meanwhile, Pakistani players have decided to address the media only in Urdu, their national language — a language they are most comfortable with.
  

Impressive win against West Indies

I agree the warm-up games are meant to be, well, warm-up games and do not count in the statistical scheme of things. Having said that, India played extremely well to win their game against the West Indies today. Importantly, these warm-up games have turned out to be extremely valuable for the likes of Irfan Pathan and Dinesh Karthik. Irfan Pathan impressed me quite a bit this morning with his spell of six overs. He mixed it up well (with the occasional real wides ones!) and, as he himself said in a interview with Jeff Dujon, he was able to get some swing and his in-dippers were beginning to reappear. Most satisfyingly, he is back at his best taking wickets. Munaf Patel bowled beautifully and I continue to maintain that he will end up being a true great (assuming he remains fit). Indians were at their smartest fielding and catching.

Virender Sehwag continues to be the disappointment. With Robin Uthappa more or less establishing himself a place in the eleven at least in the early part of the campaign, I would not play Sehwag in the XI especially as an opener. Dinesh Karthik played and missed quite a bit but hung in there to see India through. Michael Holding and Tony Cozier had very nice things to say about him — considering him as an “important” player for the future. He spoke very well at the end in an interview with Tony Cozier — a possible future India captain in the making?

Well, India walk into the tournament in the best position they can be in with respect to form and mindset. Good luck to them. My XI for the game against Bangladesh would be:

Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, M.S. Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel.

– Srikanth

Imran, Barry & Deano — predictions on NDTV

This morning I was watching a program on NDTV where Prannoy Roy was having a chat with Imran Khan, Barry Richards & Dean Jones about the World Cup. Here are their ratings of the top teams.

Top teams

Imran Khan – 1. Australia 2. India 3. Sri Lanka

Barry Richards – 1. Australia 2. India 3. Sri Lanka

Dean Jones – 1. Australia 2. South Africa 3. India

Top Batsmen

Imran Khan – Ricky Ponting & Yuvraj Singh

Barry Richards – Ricky Ponting & Jacques Kallis

Dean Jones – Adam Gilchrist & Ricky Ponting

Of course since the program was aired on an Indian channel, India featured prominently on everyone’s list! But I think this is an indication that the experts think. The wickets might just favor sub continental teams — Bangladesh’s recent win against NZ is also an early pointer.

– Sanjay