The advantage of getting our asses kicked

India lost to England and there's been much hullabaloo about it. I think it did India, Cricket and the whole world a lot of good. Getting your ass kicked is a necessary and an essential part of your life. Without an ass kicking, you'd grow up to be a Kim Kardashian. She's had her ass "kicked" on camera, but it's not quite what you'd imagine.

Think Germany and Japan. The Germans and the Japanese build very good cars, and that's partly because of the huge ass kicking they got from the Allied Forces. Losing a war can force you to look for success in other avenues, and that's what these chaps did. They turned all their arms and ammunition factories into productive things. They now build cars and motorcycles, and they're pretty good at it.

I'm a huge fan of cricket, and it breaks my heart to admit that football is a much better sport. The reason football connects with people is that you don't need much investment to play the game. The game is short, exciting and it doesn't depend on the pitch at all. The game is simple in its objective, but the strategies are pretty complex. 

Cricket has been on a downward spiral ever since India won the world cup in 1983. The folks in the ICC realized there's plenty of money to be made from a country with more than a half a billion people. The worst thing BCCI ever did is get politics involved. Once you get politics involved in a sport, it's all about money and never the game. 

Over the years, pitches were reduced to flat batting tracks. The pitch at Sharjah shines brighter than Sivamani's freshly waxed head. It isn't a contest between the bat and the ball anymore, it's all about runs and batting. I seriously miss Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Chaminda Vaas and all other bowlers who made my childhood memorable. I didn't realize it then, but these folks were the chaps who made cricket enjoyable. Good bowlers and the occasional character like Inzamam-Ul-Haq.

This whole series was being portrayed by the media, shamelessly, as the revenge series. Someone realized that we aren't going to produce a result on flat batting tracks, and our folks demanded a vicious pitch. As far as I know, no other sport allows anyone to dictate the playing conditions. We got what we wanted and also what we deserved: a massive bollocking. 

With our loss to England, it's become interesting again. It means that India can lose at home, and that we need to play well to win. It's restored the suspense and the drama. 

I hope the BCCI gets the politics out of the game. Or what they would've done over the course of twenty years is bajaaoed Cricket's pungi.