The Chappell Interview- My Take!

Recently India's " 'prodigal as some may call him'--- after the ganguly affair:-)" cricket coach Greg Chappell was in the news again. I think its on chappell's agenda to propagate some kind of controversy before the start of every series, which in a way takes the heat off issues on hand such as cricket:-). Here's interesting bits and pieces from the latest one in the Guardian.

On Ganguly:

For a while, the Ganguly issue - the captaincy passed to Rahul Dravid after it all came to a head during the tour of Zimbabwe - became all consuming. For the good of all, Chappell is keen to move it on from it now. Some years back, Ganguly had come to him for coaching. "I helped him with his batting then," said Chappell, "so maybe he thought I would be his mate and support him now. Certainly there is no way I would have got the job here without his influence. I'm sure he thought he would be able to run me as he did John in the latter part of his time as coach. But we clashed because his needs as a struggling player and captain and those of the team were different.
(I had mentioned earlier in one of my posts that chappell owes ganguly his post,it was common knowledge that most of the other members of the team wanted Moody, now this world is just not fair is it:-)
"I'm not the hard-nosed control freak that I have been portrayed. I'm thorough, a realist, a pragmatist and I'm honest. Much has been written and said, a lot of it misleading, but in essence I told Sourav that if he wanted to save his career he should consider giving up the captaincy. He was just hanging in there. Modest innings were draining him. He had no energy to give to the team, which was helping neither him nor us. It was in his own interest to give himself mind space to work on his batting so that it could be resurrected. He was not prepared to do that. What I didn't realize at that stage was how utterly important to his life and finances being captain was.
(Honest, dunno,i guess we'll know when some of the other members of the team not embroiled in controversy retire in like 10 yrs, as to how honest chappell really was)

"The controversy will carry on but I have learned if I can't be totally impervious to it then it is beyond my control. I have to let it wash by and say 'people have their reasons for saying what they do and I can't be distracted by that' and do what I believe in. At the end of my time, whenever that might be, the team and therefore I will be judged ultimately on the results we achieve, not whether I have been able to convince this or that member of the media that what we are doing is in the best interests of Indian cricket."
(You got that right Greg, i don’t care, if you create an entirely new team filled with "galli-mohalla" cricketers, i want us to win, i am the average indian cricket fan.)
Well, the latest news is that the BCCI has issued an official warning with Saurav complaining about the interview, but i am sure Pawar and Co. must be having a nice laugh over glasses of whisky:-), after all Jaggu had his time and his Black Labels now its time for the other party to party:-)

Bottom-line, my take on the whole issue, i don’t care, ganguly or no ganguly , chappell or no chappell,i want the team to win and winning is certainly a habit they seem to have picked up playing under chappell!

Regional Jingoism?

In my spare time(of which i have plenty, on days off:-))i try to read through blogs concerning India, humorous blogs, serious blogs,the lot. Of late reading the popular blogs, one thing has certainly come to the fore, regional jingoism, we as Indians are very protective of which part of the country we come from, our "identity" as many may call it,i mean living abroad when u are asked about your ethnicity, the reply comes "i am from India”, to most westerners synonymous with "Apu", who has gained immense popularity thanks to the Simpson’s .So for the westerners we are Indians, but gather a bunch of Indians together and in no time you will see groups formed which represent different parts of the country, of course i am not trying to generalize here as there are numerous exceptions to this, and personally living in Bombay (Mumbai)for a good part of my life i have never experienced such regionalistic fervor among my close friends but have seen enough to know that it exists and is rampant. Now about how i feel, i can equate this regional crap, as well as religious crap(that’s worse) with some kind of terminal disease and for something which has not had a cure ,I don’t know if it ever will. So why do I vent about it? i just happened to chance across a blog, by some fellow who calls himself the greatbong and thinks that all of india has anti-bengal sentiments, and he does so by equating the case of saurav ganguly to anti-bengali sentiments in india???? and he's apparently a very popular blogger? it boggles my imagination to see that him writing such crap(he does have a flair for writing it though, i do admit that)brings about so much popular reaction, i mean you have the bengalis going, yay we have a voice, the southies going screw you, bengal sucks southies are the best,the north indians saying, screw all of you we are the best and the maharashtrians going " amcha mulga sachin tendulkar" that says it all!!!!!
Seriously ever wonder why even though we are growing economically, will be a superpower soon, we shall always lag!

On a side note( as usual i like to end things with a side note), India managed to win the ODI series in pakistan 4-1 and are playing england in the first test!also another chappell controversy!!!!!(i'll post the juicy details soon)

Into My Own!

Two of my favourite poems by my favourite poet!-enjoy

Robert Frost------

Into My Own

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto th eedge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him the knew--
Only more sure of all I though was true.
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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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On a side note, remember "2 legit to quit", dude has his blog now, chk it out:-)
http://mchammer.blogspot.com/