Welcome to the new world order!

Ladies and Gentlemen: For those of you, who are wondering what all this ruckus about India’s new found importance in the Cricket world and its consequences are, this is what it translates into: As soon as the news was out, Kevin Pietersen applied for an Indian citizenship!, not to be left behind his Hampshire teammate & captain, Shane Warne was asking around for the mobile number of an Indian nurse!, The South African cricket board approached the Indian high commission and offered to turn over Gibbs & Boje if India included them in the cartel! And and…after the win over Sri Lanka today, Graeme Smith without battling an eyelid said “India is a one man team & that the pressure is on India”!

;-)

Welcome, welcome to the new world order! The order that everyone knew, but didn’t call it out loud, the order that will either spell boom or bust for cricket boards around the world.

To be fair to the Indian cricket board, for all its accusations it has acted very very maturely. What they said was, “Listen guys, the calendar that you have for scheduling tournaments is outdated. Its due an update, we will update the calendar and then you can fit your schedule according to that. If it means that the champion’s trophy cannot be accommodated, then so be it”. (though not exactly in these words) For a Board that makes 60-80% of the world money, what they said was not a sin; this is just to be expected. I am only wondering, why it took them so long to call the ICC bluff. India is not ICC to keep everyone’s interest in mind when they plan tours. It’s up to ICC to make sure that India toes the line

But coincidentally the Indian team has risen up to these huge expectations as well; they seem to be playing like Champions. Agreed that Geoffrey’s mom could make runs on it, but hey somebody still needs to score. When your rivals on their home ground have made close to 700 runs, for a visiting team to come & score 400 runs without loosing a wicket is a monument achievement irrespective of the pitch. And that the effort was lead by the captain & vice captain just adds more heroism to the script. In the second test without significant contributions from Sachin, Shewag & Yuvraj, (3 of the 5 batsmen), the team outscored Pakistan’s 588. Indeed, Dravid & his team have walked the talk of BCCI.

The past 2 weeks has indeed been very special for Indian cricket.

It could be interesting to see if India flaunts the “Super power status” on the pitch as well. Imagine a bowler sledging, staring at the Indian batsmen and all that the Indian player has to do is to respond with a “Dude, mind your two meal allowance”! Such fun, this new world order, I tell you! :)