Bangladesh beats India !

Well, there it is. The impossible has happened.

Bangladesh pulled a fast one over India. Now, we will see the inevitable chest beatings and the usual post mortems done by our eminent experts. And blogdom will see its fair share of frustrated bloggers with nowhere else to vent their ire.

Me included.

We are Indians, after all. Cricket is in our blood and no amount of good advise will rid us of it. Leave us to our doom, I say.

So here goes.

Bite the bullet and boot Tendulkar out. 'I might play the 2011 world cup', our hero says. I say he shouldn't be part of India's One Day outfit at all. Yes, India needs him for its test matches. But there is a lot of youth on the cricketing horizon in India as far as one day cricket is concerned, and it can do without the great Tendulkar.

Wonder what Dravid was thinking, taking Sehwag to the world cup ! This joker needs to go back to the drawing board and work his way up again. What is it with Indian cricket ? A man is only as good as his previous tournament. And Sehwag has had way too many bad tournaments leading up to the world cup. So how is it that he's still around? Only God can tell.

Poor Ganguly (figuratively speaking, of course. The good Lord knows he's anything but poor). He made a back door re-entry into the team. (He should never have been out of it in the first place, but that's another story) He's been delivering the goods almost everytime he's gone out to bat since his re-entry. And of course, that means the sponsors are back in his waiting room again. He must be one smug man. Let's leave him out of this discussion. The mud won't stick.

What is VVS doing in India? When will India learn to give a genius his due? He's been typecasted as a Test match specialist. Test match specialist, my foot ! He is one among only 3 players in this entire country who can play genuine, hostile pace bowling (Tendulkar and Dravid being the other two). Not to say anything about the slower variety. One day cricket, test match cricket, this man can handle everything, and then some. He must be wondering what else he needs to do to get selected. His world cup dreams went up in smoke.

They said this Indian team looks most likely to lift the cup. Well, this performance must have sent the bookies scurrying in all directions. Of course, the last world cup started on a somewhat similar note for India. And they made it to the finals. As they say, it is never over till it is over.

India may get knocked out early, but hey, Pakistan may get knocked out earlier. :-)

If nothing else, I'll sleep in peace tonight knowing that I've done my bit of chest beating and post morteming.