The Naked Emperor

When I was young I heard a story where a naked emperor walked through the road and people could not say at his  face "My Lord You are Naked". For me the condition of the Indian Cricket Team under the leadership of MS Dhoni is just like that. Me as a cricket follower never understood Dhoni's policies as a captain. Till today I believed that the reason behind that is me being a dumb guy. But now as I go through the leading dailies and various articles I find a billion such dumb guys back home. From the auspicious day this  maverick guy (with a long hair back then often compared to Lion's mane) took the baton of the Indian Cricket Team in his hands we have enjoyed victories and the team has reached the epitome of success. But there has always been a problem which just like the Naked Emperor we refused to see. It's that the success of Dhoni's boys were always dependent on conducive conditions. Whenever a daunting task came into their hands they were found wanting. And above all is the defensive tactics of the skipper. It was always his main weapon in the arsenal and became proud of it to such an extent that we have seen our skipper bragging about it on National Television. Though we lost number one spot in test ranking we blamed luck and did not find the flaws in our team. Again our dear emperor is never naked. Winning a game is not about batting. It's about how you perform in all the three departments. In the current day limited overs cricket where you have three powerplays any moment the situation can turn upside down. Yesterday we saw a humdinger between India and England. Believe me England tried their best to lose the game. But Piyush Chawla ensured that doesn't happen. England made a mess  out of this game. All odds were with England and thanks to our captain who always loses a match even before it's over. Unless he was forced to bring fielder's in during Powerplay he would never have done that. The fact is the bowling department needs favourable conditons to perform well which they won't get here. Hence it's all dependent on Sehwag, Yuvraj and Sachin Tendulkar(since 1992, just like Raymonds) to score 400 in every matches such that even if my mum bowls India wins the game.Joker signs off saying that there is still hope of India winning this World Cup as Dhoni is an extremely lucky captain. This match was destined for England to win but 'hamra babuya ka luck bahut tagra hai kaa samjhe!'. So I cheer myself up and will again stay awake the whole night to watch South Africa-India duel. Long way to go in this tournament folks.'De ghuma ke'...