India vs West Indies lacks the punch to excite Cricket Fans !

If things would work as per plan and as per logic, we would now be seeing Dale Steyn running in with full speed and aggression, bowling those thunderous bouncers and out-swingers to our Indian opening batsmen. Alas, the BCCI has to have its way. What we got to endure was a meaningless series against the West Indies which got absolutely no attention from the cricket point of view, but was in the news because of Sachin’s retirement. In our almost hysterical celebration that Tendulkar will play his 200th Test match at home, we allowed the Board to reduce a significant Test series against the South Africans to a farce. This decision would have been acceptable if West Indies were the same team as that of the 70s. With no Chris Gayle in the ODIs, no Kieron Pollard, no Sunil Narine for Test Matches, the limited star value that the West Indies possessed was gone. Why would anyone watch a game whose result can easily be predicted. Agreed, West Indies beat India in the 2nd ODI but we all knew who was going to win the series. The Test Series,especially was a big farce, as both matches got over within 3 days. What could have been done by the board was to do away with the Test matches and have 3 T20s instead, as WI are Champions in that format, plus West Indies are a delight to watch in the shorter versions of the game. This would have also resulted in some close encounters, as India would have been the underdogs going into the matches. But our obsession with Tendulkar came in the way. West Indies, despite having not so many stars, are always fun to watch with the kind of antics they perform on the field. It surely lacks the punch to excite the cricket fans in the longer version of the game, but put them in coloured clothing and you see the fun