The hullabaloo over Sehwag’s missed century
It is generally believed that cricket is a game about team spirit and not about personal achievements. So many times in the past have cricketing legends, declared their innings despite them being on track to make a career statistic for their own good. But India has to be different. Why this hullabaloo over a missed century when the eventual outcome was in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750’s favour. Sometime’s the frenzy about Indian cricket makes everyone flip over completely.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429 played a spectacular innings. However, all great batsmen focus on the win and not personal achievements. The deliberate no ball by Suraj Randiv was most certainly in bad taste, but since when has the hurting the spirit of the game been such an issue, with batsmen not walking to the pavilion unless given out by the umpire, even if they know they are out. A fielder would try to conceal a dropped catch, as long as the opposition player is getting out, the bowler would aim at the bowler standing in the crease, hitting the bowler or getting him run out. Such incidents have always been part of cricket for as long as we know – but not India.
What about sledging? It is now being argued that sledging is supposedly an “art” that many cricketers have learned and acquired over time, which includes abuse and swear words. It is hard to fathom how this could be an art and lewd comments on people’s wives and girlfriends are considered an integral part of cricket. Now, that cricket has allowed all of this to happen for such a long time, why this hullabaloo over Sehwag’s missed century? All teams, in fact all cricketers go in a particular match to win and nothing more. As long as their performance is instrumental in the success of their team, nothing else should divert their focus.
This developing culture that where cricketers are acting like whiny school girls is one that the cricketing world must detest. For it is nothing less than preposterous to have international players cribbing over petty issues. Firstly, Randiv had gone over to him to apologize and that is where it should have ended. The demeanour of Randiv and the way it was played out seemed like a deliberate attempt to deny Sehwag a century. However, that should not have been an itch for a player of Sehwag’s calibre and talent. He played a winning innings. He devastated the Sri Lankan side and found his superb form. Then why still complain for the candy he never got?
The Indian media was expected to play this out in their usual manner by sensationalizing it. But even sensationalism has its limits. Once the Sri Lankan Cricket Board apologized for the matter, why go overboard about the matter and start conjuring theories to suggest as if the entire Sri Lankan team was part of this plan to deny Sehwag a century. Attempts were then made to somehow placate Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara in the matter who had to come out to defend himself.
"He deserved the century surely. They played really well with bat and ball, 230 would have been a decent score but then Sehwag batted all the way through. He was the most important factor," exclaimed Sangakkara.
The spirit of the game is somewhat of a zombie that left for the house of the dead to never come back. Controversies and allegations have been part of cricket for a long time. In the 1987 test match win against England by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Khan-c71319 along with Waqar and Wasim had perfected.
However, it should be understood that most of the time when players are not acting in the spirit of the game does not mean that they are breaking a cricketing law. Randiv has not broken any cricketing law. At best, he has merely helped identify one more issue that the cricketing gurus can try to resolve and fine tune so that it does not repeat itself. But petty comments by Sehwag blaming the Sri Lankan cricket team for what had happened was nothing more than a school boy crying for candy after having been denied one by his friend.
"It happens in cricket. The other team doesn't want anybody to score a hundred against them. They tried their best.” Sehwag said.
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