Who gave Shoaib the right..?

What exactly was Shoaib Malik thinking when he apologized to the muslims of all the countries after losing to India in the final of ICC world Twenty20?? His exact words when Ravi Shastri asked him in the presentation ceremony regarding the match were "First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world." What exactly does religion have to do with cricket..for that matter any sport? Religion is one reason why India and Pakistan have split into two different countries and on a great occasion, after a great match it is totally unnecessary to bring in religion. How in the world did Shoaib think, he (or his team) was playing for all the muslims in the world?!

"It is a world where Muslims, Hindus and a Sikh currently play for England, where Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and a Hindu play for Sri Lanka, where Hashim Amla turns out for South Africa, where a Patel plays for New Zealand, where Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus play (and have always played) for India. Why would Shoaib think, then, that the Muslims of the world were collectively rooting for the Pakistan team or that they felt let down by its defeat? Did he stop to think of how Danish Kaneria, his Hindu team-mate, might feel hearing his Test skipper all but declare that the Pakistan team is a Muslim team that plays for the Muslims of the world? It is one thing to be publicly religious—Shahid Afridi thanked Allah and Matt Hayden and Shaun Pollock are proud, believing Christians—quite another to declare that your country's cricket eleven bats for international Islam.." writes Mukul Kesavan in his blog and I agree 100%

scenes from a final

T20 champions..now what?

After a long wait, India has finally won a major tournament, the World Twenty20 Championship. The ICC refuses to call it the Twenty20 World cup, but for us indian cricket fans, it is a world cup. The indian team has played some beautiful cricket. The young players responded well and everyone contributed to the success and all the matches were of the highest quality. Beating England, South Africa and Australia is not an ordinary acheivement. Both the matches against Pakistan were thrilling and the final especially would make a good Bollywood climax. While enjoying the success, especially since we won against Pakistan, it is also important that the indian team and the fans are not get carried away too much. We won both the matches against Pakistan not just because our players played some great cricket, but also because we had some luck. What should have been comfortable wins for India were almost thrown away with some bad overs, but that is Twenty20!

A win in this tournament is a big achievement for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, since it was his first series as a captain. He has also been made the captain of the Indian ODI team which is a big step forward for him in his short career. His captaincy has been great in the T20's, but things tend to change after you taste failure. For now, he has had good success rate and people across the webworld and the media have been projecting him as the best person for that job. Many think MSD would end up as the best india skipper, but isn't it too early. Indian cricket fans and the media are so immature that they take the success and failure very seriously. Often it is more important to them than their personal lives. Eight months ago, after losing to Bangladesh in the world cup game, MSD's house was under attack from fans who were furious at his and the team's performance and now he is lauded as a cool captain. The memory of indian cricket fan is so short lived, that things can change dramatically.

Before hyping MSD and the young players and the success in this T20 world championship, the young players should be given enough time to settle and perform well. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, the three pillars of Indian cricket for over a decade, are being written off all of a sudden. They have been consistently performing for over a decade and a couple of failures here and there, people want them to retire, the same thing will happen to the current bunch of players. The media has taken them to such a height that one poor performance will be a free fall down to the earth. Give them time, let them work hard and earn their place in the team and let the transition of power from the seniors to the juniors be smooth!!