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Tackling umpiring errors!

The second test match between India and Australia has been a sensational one that was fought hard by both the teams. While adrenaline was flowing high and fortunes oscillated between the teams, it seems, more than the end-result, a few other incidents on the field has marred the beauty of this game. Unfortunately for the cricket fans worldwide, a lot of umpiring mistakes, misbehaviours of some players on either side, bad ethics from Australian senior players and lack of guts from some Indian players have resulted in India loosing this crucial match. Instead of looking into whether Ricky Ponting did right, Steve Buckner should be fired or Harbajan Singh really called Andrew Symonds a ‘monkey’, let us analyze how the situation can be improved with respect to officiating the game of cricket.

Root cause of umpiring errors
To begin with let me try to analyze the problems associated with umpiring a test match in cricket. Test match cricket , as I mentioned in another article sometime back, is the longest of all outdoor sports activities that spans across five long days, each day being comprised of seven hours of play. While players are busy switching their roles as bowlers, fielders and batsmen and take some rest, there is this species of white-shirts who stays there almost stand still, focus on each and every ball bowled in the match in the process of judging whether it is a noball, wide or a wicket taking delivery. On top of this he needs to track the time, number of overs bowled, look around for field placement mistakes and also track if the players on the ground are behaving well enough. Apart from being such a boring job, let me tell you that it takes a lot of stamina, energy and extreme focus much more than normal humans can afford to have to do this job effectively and judiciously.

Assuming that the best people who have that kind of energy and focus are available, still we have the element of human errors coming into picture. This is the second biggest issue a part of which can be helped with a third human sitting outside the ground or by using foolproof technologies, some of which have been already implemented. I will come to this part later.

The third most important thing is the biased nature of umpires itself. If you look into the history of any games, there has always been some allegations of the referees or umpires playing spoilsport after handing unjustified decisions. This part cannot be easily rectified, even if we go about picking the neutral umpires – which is already a process in place. So we have to look into how even neutral umpires can be trained or instructed to make minimal mistake or how to sort out an issue in case of doubt. Another related issue is how benefit-of-doubt situations has to be handled, probably which is not laid down as hard and fast rules.

A few answers, probably…
Umpires selection process & retirement age: As it looks, it is very hard to recruit on-field umpires with right skills and experience, these days. There are a very few people who want to do this job with passion while most ex-cricketers or people who have taken up cricket as a career, opt for more comfortable and high paid roles like commentators, match referees, coaches, selectors, mentors and what not. The recruitment process and the associated perks need to be made really attractive to keep this job a high profile one. If players can get millions if they win crucial tournaments why can’t umpires get similar money if they do a good job of officiating a series or tournament. Also, why can’t they be allowed to endorse brands and make more money? Such a move will surely make the job more interesting in terms of pay package and hence will attract larger number of people towards this career path.

There has to be more stringent rules on the age group of umpires as well. As I mentioned earlier, since the job demands a lot of energy and focus, one needs to be mentally and physically completely fit to handle the games. I haven’t heard of any outdoor game in this world which is officiated by 60 plus year old umpires or referees. Probably the retirement age should be reduced to 55 years for on field umpires in cricket as well. And regardless of the age, just like driver’s license scrutiny for elderly people, there has to be yearly test conducted for the on field umpires for their judgment skills as well as the physical fitness.

Changes in the umpiring system: The umpiring and decision making system needs some drastic changes. Every non-conclusive decision especially when close to ground catches are taken or close LBW appeals are made, the rule has to be changed in such a way that the on field umpires invariably discuss (mainly for ground level catches) If they cannot make a decision, they need to take help from the third umpire who can use the video footage to verify the same. There is a small percent of chance that the video footage is still not conclusive in which case the umpire can take benefit of doubt calls.

If the umpire is not to consult the third umpire, there has to be a provision whereby the captain of the fielding team can contest the decision by requesting for the third umpire’s assistance. At the moment, as I understand, this rule is restricted to only one call per match? This has to be made available for as many calls as the fielding captain might want to have. After all, how many such calls will be typically made? Not more than three or four per match, I would think, and it’s not that expensive or time consuming.

Noball calls: One of the complications in this game is that every ball bowled should be scrutinized for noballs by the main umpire. If a fast bowler delivers a ball at 150kmph the umpire has less than 0.5 seconds to check the bowler’s feet for a noball and subsequently focus on the batsman’s end for a possible leg-before- wicket, wide ball or leg-byes. One has to be extremely good at making this quick eye movement and still come out with a good judgment of the situation. I am just wondering why can’t the system offload this noball burden from the umpire? In other games like tennis, there are technologies available to make ‘out’ calls. I would assume that implementing such a light-and-camera based technology is no rocket science. Even if technology is not available for assistance, there can be another umpire near the short square-mid off region who can take a better call on a noball. This might sound funny. After all we have already two umpires on field but as you know some games like soccer which is again played on a larger field has got three or more on field and line referees. This additional umpire can even take a better call on run-outs on the non-striker’s end when the main umpire is rather busy avoiding running players or a ball! Yet another technology option is to allow the third umpire to make noball calls using a video camera focussed at the creese (already available) whereby he shouts ‘NO’ and is heard by the batsman as well as the umpires using the stump speakers – at the moment we only have a stump microphone and or camera there. The downside of the above rule is that, the batsman potentially looses the chance to react to a noball call, but again, how many times the noballs are resulted in sixes and fours? But as a positive, the chances of a batsman adjudged out for an actual noball overlooked by the umpire will be minimal here.

Fair game – yes, Gentlemen’s game – Not anymore! : Sometimes I do not understand the rules setup by the gentlemen of 1800s. Yes, cricket used to be gentlemen’s game but I guess not anymore. So expecting people to walk out when they feel they are out or consulting the opposite team’s captain to take the final call on a grounded catch or expecting the boundary line fielder to make right call on a 4 or 6 is wrong. We need to have a system where officials or technology makes the final calls and not the players. The captains of either side should not be allowed to come to such pre-match agreements where final decisions in doubtful circumstances rest with them. This can avoid some amount of criticisms about the spirit of the game etc.

It is also imperative that sledging of any kind should be banned from cricket – It’s not fair that a batsman surrounded by 5 or 6 fielders at a crucial juncture of the game receives bad and unethical treatment that could take his focus away from his main business. The stump microphones need to be amplified better to record this kind of unwanted talks. Basically if the batsman hears it, the same should be picked by the stump mic and can be used as evidence in tackling racism related sledging issues or otherwise.

Overuse of technology: Though technology can assist the game, it should not be taken to the extend where everything becomes mechanical. For example, an actual video footage can be used to make more accurate decisions but one should not rely on not-so-accurate methods like hawk-eye for taking LBW decisions.

These are some of the points that come to my mind right now, others might have better ideas. Regardless of that, it is time we reinvented the rules in the long term interest and true spirit of the game and adhered to the same.

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The brainless think-tank!

We are just a couple of weeks into India’s latest encounter down under. A cricket series in Australia is always something that the fans look forward to due to a couple of facts. First of all, we get to see it only once in four years – so it is something as important as the Olympic games! Secondly, it is a beauty to watch and feel professional test cricket at its highest levels with lively pitches, fans, cricket governing bodies and media playing their own roles to perfection – and sometimes beyond – to make it a mega event. Personally, watching test matches, in which Australia participates, gives me more satisfaction than watching matches involving any other competitive teams. India’s last outing in Australia during 2003-04 has been thrilling for the outcome that we all are proud of but the current series is already turning out to be disappointing due to improper planning.

This series was hyped to be the best chance to beat Australia in its own den as it is probably the last Australian tour for India’s ‘strong’ and prolific middle order men as well as their best bowler ever, Anil Kumble, who happens to be captaining the side as well. However, having talent on paper or executing the same in subcontinent pitches and other favourable conditions alone is not sufficient for tours abroad, especially in Australia.

The Indian cricket board missed a trick or two during the Pakistan tour to India itself. If India genuinely wanted to perform in Australia, they should have scheduled at least couple of test matches in good test cricket pitches like Mohali or Chennai. By not doing so, they managed to escape from Shoaib Akhtar & co and won against Pakistan but miserably failing in Australia. As they arrived late in Australia this time and the lone practice match was disturbed by rain, the preparation at home had to be better.

The next mistake was the team selection and continuing experiments with the batting order. If they had any plan to include (surprise!) Virender Sehwag in the squad he should have been given a chance in at least one test match against Pakistan. Sehwag though not in great form gives some headache to the opposition even though his stay at crease may be shorter. Against Australia, one needs to be mentally prepared and try to offend and attack rather than playing defensive game like Dravid did in the first innings of the first test in Melbourne. If not Sehwag, for sure Dinesh Karthik should have been opening with Wasim Jaffer. Karthik has been a revelation during the series in England and South Africa. It is really surprising that the team think tank decided not to play him due to his couple of failures in dead pitches in India. Ideally he could have played the role that Akash Chopra played in the last series in Australia. On the other hand, the Indian team management decided to sacrifice the stability and composition of the team by not picking the right openers only to include some flat pitch heroes or ODI/Twenty 20 specialists in the batting lineup. To begin a series with positive frame of mind, India had to really attack. The bowlers did it very well but batsmen spoilt all those great efforts. The problem is not really with the batsmen but the roles they are assigned to play. This failure will definitely affect the rest of the test series as well as the performance in the ODIs. For example, Yuvaraj Singh should have been maintained only for ODIs and his failures in tests will also reflect in his approach to the ODI series.

The untimely statements of the selection committee chairman had created a lot of chaos for the players in the past. It is not his job to comment in the press and put players under pressure. I guess, players like Virender Sehwag, Mohammed Kaif, Saurav Ganguly, Dinesh Karthik and now Rahul Dravid are the victims of this wrong statements of expectation. The under-pressure players then react by playing defensive games and targeting individual achievements rather than playing for the team’s cause.

As I mentioned just a while back, having a positive frame of mind is very important to play Australia. Having restricted Australia to less than 350 runs and more importantly getting them all out in less than a day (How often does it happen?), India’s reply was too negative in nature. Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer didn’t make any attempt to rule the Aussies. Another important thing was that probably the in form Ganguly probably should have batted at No. 4. Tendulkar’s attitude in the second innings is always questionable. While chasing huge scores and if couple of wickets are already down he has this ‘why should I waste my time and energy, anyway we are going to loose’ attitude. Another problem is the fielding ethics by the Indians. Even Australia has many players in their mid thirtys but their commitment is far better than that of the Indians. For example, Indians easily allow the opposition to convert their ones to twos and twos to threes. Australians always keep the batsmen under pressure by charging in or by a sudden pick, turn and throw. The bad running between the wicktes have been another example of defensive cricket by the Indians.

If India has to win at least one match in this series, they need to get their basics right from the selection itself. First they needs to pick their best openers and then three or four middle order batsmen followed by a wicket keeper. Depending on the nature of pitch three seamers plus one spinner or two seamers plus two spinners can be picked. It is even worth trying a combination of two openers, three middle order men, one wicket keeper batsman, three seamers (off which one is an all rounder) and two spinners. Ones they get the team composition right, they can plan and pace the game better. This will also reassure and remind each and every person in the team about their roles.

As a long-term step, the BCCI has to really change their mindset to save the Indian cricket from test matches point of view. At the moment, BCCI is more like running a money making business rather than governing a sports body. Due to this attitude, they are concentrating on categories that fetch in money and hence more focus on one day cricket, telecast rights etc. If they are truly worried about the future of Indian cricket, they need to do a few things like providing world class pitches in India, improving domestic itinerary and format, introducing new talent search program, coming up with fair selection policies, forming succession planning etc. It’s a fact that India’s top four batsmen and bowler will retire from international cricket in less than two years time and who are going to fill in there?

At the moment, as a short term goal, we can only hope for a better team composition and better mindsets from the players in the upcoming test matches in Australia. Wishing the Indian cricket all the very best for this new year and their very first match of the year being played in Sydney!

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Time to transform the game?

For more than twenty years, I have been an ardent fan and follower of the game of cricket. Like many Indians my contribution to the world of cricket includes playing the game in school, university and even trying my hands at the harmless tennis ball cricket at workplace. Along with my class mates, I bunked classes (and even examinations) to watch India performing against their arch rivals. Memorizing and recalling what exactly happened in 1987 cricket world cup semi finals or remembering how many runs were scored by a favorite batsman in a particular match and how exactly ‘technically’ he was out was a matter of pride. Debating about similar issues in friends circle, at work or even with strangers while watching live cricket in the roadside TV shop was part and parcel of my life.

Having experienced the good and bad that cricket has handed me during my studies and initial work life, of late I started thinking about the pluses and minuses of this sport – especially in the context of a developing nation. My thoughts may hurt readers from all walks of life for whom cricket is a religion. However, I request you to provide your constructive and unbiased feedback on my views.

Most people believe that the game of cricket was originated in England during the 16th century though it became popular only by the eighteenth century. The first official cricket test match was played in 1877. There is also a theory that the British devised the game of cricket based on an ancient Indian game by name gilli-danda. Regardless of the origin, it was the British people – during their colonial rule – who made the game popular around the world. Having a five day test match was probably perfectly fine in the 18th century when life was more laid back in nature. The test match cricket remained – and still remains – the longest form of sport.

The 20th century witnessed the arrival of the limited over cricket game that was more like an action packed single day of cricket. Though, many people predicted that test cricket is the ‘real form of cricket’, the one day matches became more and more popular as time passed by. This also resulted in the formation of a world cup cricket tournament that was played between major cricket playing nations once every four years. It took almost 100 years since the first international test match to change the game significantly to make it more appealing for the mass. However, one whole day of cricket still meant a lot of time though crazy followers always wished that they had more of it.

The Twenty 20 cricket – the latest avatar – took relatively lesser (30 plus) number of years to formulate since one day cricket became so popular. People started realizing that, spending the whole day in front of the TV or in a packed stadium probably meant a bit too expensive in the 21st century. Also, the Twenty 20 cricket is even more action packed and thrilling and this is where cricket is standing as of today. The five day long cricket test match and one day long game is now co-existing with the Twenty 20 version that typically gets completed in roughly three hours.

Now the question is whether this kind of transformation is good for the game as well as the fans. I feel that, definitely it is the way to be. As I mentioned earlier, I have not heard of any other sport or game that spans over several days or for that matter even one whole day. In the modern world loosing so many days means lesser productivity. A developing nation like India needs to bank on its vast human resources to shape up the future. It is a known fact that if there is a live cricket match telecast of an India match, students bunk their classes, office workers and laborers take leaves and sometimes even public security departments and essential services see shortage of attendance and hence interruption. And India plays 50 such one-day cricket matches a year. One can imagine the productivity at work, teaching/learning in schools and hence the overall productivity of a nation!

Any sporting activity relates to some focused action for an hour or two. It refreshes your mind and body, keeps you high on adrenaline for a short time-frame and helps you revitalize. But if it is a day or week long affair, it tends to make you lazier, lethargic and eventually a couch potato. It may be a good lifestyle post retirement but not definitely for the young and active. These days, five day test matches reminds me of those never ending television serials on Indian TV channels, that is mainly targeting the jobless and the retired.

Another India specific issue due to cricket-mania is the way other sports and sports persons are neglected. Cricketers are like stars in India and they make millions whereas most of the other sportsmen struggle to make a good living. Basically it has become a commercial, political and religious set up where cricketers, cricket bodies and their MNC sponsors thrive at the expense of the precious national human resources.

I would not be an antagonist to the game and say that the game should be banned in India. But it definitely needs to transform into something that makes more sense. It could be Twenty 20 format or even shorter form of the game. But definitely, India cannot afford to spend millions of person days almost every other day watching cricket for nothing. The lawmakers of the game and the nation should seriously think about it and act for a better future. This is the era where India is economically booming and we need to fire all our cylinders and mobilize the resources towards becoming a developed nation by 2020.

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BCCI’s lean patch!

Indian cricket, undoubtedly, is going through one of its worst times since the match fixing scandal in 2000. This time, the problems are mainly around the governance of BCCI than the on field performance of the team. The performance of the team as such can be improved, by identifying the right talent and grooming them into responsible roles with the help of skilled support staff and processes. But the administration seems to be struggling in streamlining the processes, finding the support staff on time, sorting out contract issues with the players and even failing in securing mighty sponsorship deals as they used to do in the past.

Until the unexpected World cup blues, everything seemed to be going fine with the Indian cricket with the richest cricket board in the world had everything under its feet, probably including the power to influence ICC. During those good times, all partners such as sponsors, tournament organizers, potential support staff and other sports bodies were vying their best to be associated with Indian cricket. An offer to be part of Indian cricket was considered the most coveted thing in the sports world then. Endorsements used to chase even the mediocre cricketer who has probably figured in the national team as a baggage on oversees tours. Things seems to be totally different in the current scenario.

After India’s world cup debacle, several sponsors have stopped airing the commercials featuring our high profile cricketers. Some have even terminated the contracts and instead signed up sportsmen from other games. While these are the cases with individuals, BCCI has suffered their biggest setbacks of all times with no sponsors coming forward to cover the recent and immediate future cricket tours, announcement of a parallel organization by a media giant, players having stand-off with BCCI over contracts and norms, the high-profile coach job offered being rejected by a preferred candidate etc. At the moment India’s cricket administration does not look any better than that in West Indies or Pakistan. The arrogant face that BCCI and its officials used to put together in front of ICC and the cricket-playing nations has more or less transitioned into a submissive profile.

If one analyzes the problem carefully, it is very obvious that many of the issues are related to the high expectations that the Indian cricket fans have with its national team and the extreme of madness that is exhibited by them. The media and sponsors are simply exploiting it with the intention of making big bucks at the cost of the fans’ religious behaviour, anger, desperation, admiration or craze. This puts BCCI as well as the players under tremendous pressure and mostly optimal functioning is hence affected. This pressure and focus also made BCCI and players feel a bit too much about themselves and things were taken granted on many occasions.

The other set of problems are related to the obsolete way in which BCCI is functioning. There was always an unnecessary hype around it, which probably started and peaked during the ‘rule’ of Jagmohan Dalmiya. Dalmiya kind of enjoyed the celebrity status during his stint with BCCI and ICC and even the minute details regarding his moves had wider coverage in the press. What did not change though was the age old processes in selection, the way in which the domestic cricket is functioning and the ways of spotting young talent.

With respect to the above issues, India could learn quite a few good lessons from its little neighboring nation, Sri Lanka. Ever since they emerged into the world cricket (hardly two decades back), they have managed to steadily improve in terms of professionalism and commitment both on and off the field. Every single time they have managed to meet the expectations of their fans by working hard and trying their best with respect to the game as well as administration. One key to success there also is keeping low-profile and doing their homework before taking decisions. They always had a bunch of committed players, good captains, good coaches and support staff for the past 15 years or so. It is high time Indian cricket took stock of the situation and assume a down to earth approach to the game rather than remaining on front page news all the time. Also fans should understand that it is just another game and cricketers are not necessarily gods or saviors of our country. Axing one such gods for not performing should be accepted as something that will do good for the game rather than taking it to the streets.

To be fair on BCCI, the selection committee has been operating reasonably well in the past few months. The problem being limited to the unavailability of skilled cricketers in the country or rather the lack of processes and opportunities to catch them young and groom. Australia, for instance has a whopping 25 contracted players this year as against India’s 16. What needs to change here is the domestic cricket system at state, region as well as national levels. Improving the infrastructure such as good sportive pitches and grounds, investing on homegrown support personnel, implementing a step-by-step governance improvement plan etc are the other steps they need to take without much delay. At the moment most of the sponsorship money seems to be ending up with the current set of elite players rather than investing for the future. This is something that BCCI needs to work on and improve without much delay. Otherwise they might as well end up like the Indian Hockey Federation!

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Inzamam – The cricketer with a big heart

Amidst his team’s disastrous World Cup campaign, Inzamam has bid adieu to one day cricket. For once, emotions of a different form overpowered the big man as he walked back to the pavilion after giving away his wicket in his last world cup stint against Zimbabwe. Many of his fans may feel that the time is just ripe for his decision though it was announced by him in an untimely manner and unceremoniously.

I have been a big fan of couple of Pakistani cricketers from the past. The names included Wasim Akram and Imran Khan – probably there were better cricketers from that country before I started following my cricket. No matter what, Inzamam-ul-Haq figured right there along with the other two as one of the all-time greats that Pakistan has ever produced. More than that, I feel that Inzamam is in the same league as Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid and Jaques Kallis who are todays accomplished match-winning test & oneday batsmen. I said, ‘match-winning’ batsmen and hence sorry, I could not include Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar in this list!

Inzamam has been the centre pillar of Pakistan’s batting line-up – and hence improved success rates – for almost 10 years now. Though he was not a natural choice for the captain’s role, it was somehow entrusted with him after Pakistan’s yet another first round failure in the last world cup. The captaincy as such is the toughest job when it comes to the politically ruined Pakistan cricket – a job that only probably Imran Khan has done wonderfully. Despite this fact, it was amazing to see how Inzamam commanded respect from his team members, barring one or two of them, and his opponent teams.

His body language, the ever present chewing gum and lazy grinding of the same may not have complemented his colossal figure well. But underneath that he possessed seamless cricketing brains that fearlessly approached each and every match with appropriately paced aggression. Many people forgot to give the credit that was due for hime mainly because of this sedate outlook. This is exactly the first thing that made him fall prey for his critics even within Pakistan. There were couple of behavioral issues with him in the past including him attacking the toronto crowd during the 1997 series. He had calmed down and matured since then but there were many Inzamam-like incidents that followed him even during his captaincy – whether it is walking off the field with his team alleged of ball tampering or blocking the fielders from throwing the ball to stumps. Despite these he still towers tall as one of the finest batsmen in the world cricket today

If you consider the last three years of his ODI career, there were a couple of things he could have done to maximize his throughput. Especially in this World Cup, I thought Inzamam (for that matter even Rahul Dravid for India) could have batted higher in the order to save his shaky ship. Also, it didn’t look like he had a proper plan for this World cup. Probably he could have already handed over the responsibility to Younis Khan and concentrated on his batting for some more time. The lack of motivation to continue in the game was very much visible in the past two three matches. Also, he did not exactly succeed in managing and being rightly assertive about the behavioral issues of some of his team members like Shoaib Akhtar, where as he has been alleged to be too adamant about his ideas and team selection.

Inzamam is a true selfless cricketer of his times – I do not want to narrate examples reasoning the same nor do I want to talk about his best ever innings. I thought, if he was more ambitious like Ponting or Tendulkar he could have amassed huge records given that kind of talent. This is exactly the key takeaway from Inzamam’s cricketing life. Though he may play some more test cricket, I feel that it may not last for more than six months. But he will for sure be considered as one of Pakistan’s brave sons.

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A few thoughts following the Bob Woolmer tragedy

Bob Woolmer is no more! The man who was hailed as one of the best in the coaching business has passed away barely 20 hours after his team’s shocking first-round exit from the ICC World Cup 2007. While the reasons for his death is yet to be known, it would be great to spend a few minutes to analyze the lives of high-profile roles in cricket crazy nations like India or Pakistan.

The other day, during the India-Bangladesh match, I saw this interesting placards among the spectators ‘A few things don’t change, Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God’. Well, that summarizes what cricket is to people in India or Pakistan. The cricketers, support staff and selectors are gods as long as the going is good. bob woolmer But when these people go through lean patches of their careers, the fans literally pounce on them. The readers may recall the plight of Greg Chappell when he was attacked by a mad cricket fan at the airport – the reason was that there were no cricketers selected from his state for the current Indian team. Bob Woolmer himself was allegedly assaulted by one of his players. It’s only a day back when the mad fans spoiled MS Dhoni’s new house that is being constructed, due to his duck and India’s failure in the match against Bangladesh.

High-profile coaching job or captain’s seat in cricket does not come free here. People like Bob Woolmer or Greg Chappell are mentally tough and matured enough to handle the pressure that their task and role demands. But most of the time they have to face the extremities that you see only in the sub-continent. Anywhere in the world there will be sports fans and their crazy behaviours. But in India it is more ‘religious like’ where ‘sports fanatics’ go on to do anything that they want including spoiling public or private properties and attacking individuals that they think are the reasons for the collective failure. It’s more built into the culture and lack of education than anything else. And the worst thing is that the politicians, movie makers, cola makers or law makers – all of them are there to exploit the emotions of the cricket crazy fans.

I am not sure why the fans or the above mentioned people don’t treat other sports (hockey for example) the same way. Indian hockey has been pathetic over the past few years where as we were like kings in the past. Nobody seems to be doing anything about it – regardless of winning or loosing. I can only assume that whatever the colonialism gifted to us in the form of sports is being taken up and treated in extremities and people are over-passionate about the same. Depictions like Lagaan are not influencing the behavioral practices positively but making things worse here.

It’s high time the fans realized that the cricketers and support staff are humanbeings themselves. They too undergo emotions, stress and passion when they play cricket for their nation as well as off the field. If they underperform there is a sports body there to address that issue, there is a selection panel to find new players and groom them. Until then, please leave the individuals alone…