Harbhajan & Zaheer Guilty Of Not Showing Proper Respect To Yusuf Pathan

India made 292/9 against England in the 2nd ODI of the series in Indore, no thanks to Harbhajan and Zaheer. Coming straight from victory against Australia and also scoring some runs against them, Harbhajan and Zaheer got too cocky. They forgot that the senior batsman, Yusuf Pathan, is standing on the other end, twidling his thumbs. It showed lack of respect to Yusuf's batsmanship. Certaintly, they would not have dared playing in this fashion, had Yuvraj or Dhoni been on the other end.

Dhoni would do well by speaking to them. With so many overs in hand, all they had to do was to try taking a run and put Yusuf Pathan in charge. But no, they had to show that they can hit too (and keep missing the ball)!

It is these little things that differentiate a champion team fron a non-champion one. Australian cricketers will not do such a thing. At every stage of the game, win or lose, one gets the feeling that Australians are thinking what is best for the team. They rarely get carried away by some recent high profile win. Perhaps one reason is that they are used to winning. If that is the reason, Indian players too should get used to winning so that they continue to think in balanced manner, win or lose.

When you are world class, you must continue to do the small, little things right; good results will follow.

Tendulkar should go now

I agree that there should be different set of norms for great and not so great players. In that respect I tend to nod my head in agreement when people say that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar should be allowed to select his own time period for retiring.

However my agreement is only up to the point where there is no better player (currently, we are not discussing total greatness of a player in his career) than him in term of total deliverables in a match.

We can see that India is winning ODI series inspite (or BECAUSE?) of his absence. The last Australian and Sri Lankan tours are proofs enough.

Therefore it is time that Tendulkar starts thinking of retirement, if he believes in 'graceful exit'. By 'graceful exit' I mean there should be reasonably large number of people left in the world who genuinely ask "why?"

Thing is, plenty are already asking "why not?"

Indian Cricket and Indian Public

Indians who do not perform even their normal duty on daily basis (in fact these cheats feel they are being smart by showing their faces in the office for 3 hours but getting paid for full day), people who can't deliver even average quality in their workmanship, expect Indian cricket team to perform excellently every time!

I ask these people: who gave you this right? First do justice to the work that is entrusted to you. Then have high expectations from your sportsmen and sportswomen. Till then, keep quiet.