Cricket: Our lust for mediocrity

“Match was fixed” , “Team had talent but it was a bad day”, “Team didnt click”. Noticeably, these post-match comments made by the amusingly distraught public of this adversity marred nation , assumes that the cricket team that was put together and sent forth was divinely TALENTED and deserved a win over India. The farthest that my cricketing memory could conjure up, I always heard these post match comments uttered unabashedly by so called experts and commoners alike. Presumably we always had the talent that we some how couldnt disgorged on match day. What a shame, aint it, we are so full of talent but stats always betray us. What is a talent by the way, how do we define it as nation. Because by God, our PCB selectors dont select our team, they are forced to select certain players brandished as talented by national assessment of talent.Didnt we force PCB to select back most of the banned players after dismal australian series last year. Arent we confusing aptitiude for cricket with the talent of it? Because aptitude is gifted while talent is developed. Does cricketing intellect feature anywhere in our target talent list while we select our cricketers. Improbable aint it, because our collective abhorrence to intelligence and our love for conventional mediocrity. Anyone thinking different is either sent to hell or to oblivion. Aint we still cherish the ‘Gali’ cricket mentality of bowling fast and hitting longest. Dont we think that such are essential and indispensable traits. Hell yes, other wise players like Afridi, Shoaib would not have lasted this long. Short bursts of excellence is preferred over long spell of performance. Totally consistent with national glory getting attitude of ours. The characteristics that we espouse and also look for in our players are those of mediocres. Nations like ours do not produce talent, we can only produce flashes of brilliance at best. We love mediocrity and this is how we will remain unless something drastic takes place in our thinking. Equally applicable on our political choices as well.

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