Shaken and Stirred: The Martini of Indian Cricket

This is another example of a deadly mixed between sports and politics. If the decision by the Indonesian government has contributed to such a huge loss to Indonesian women's tennis, the current and the latest spat between the Members of the Indian Parliament and the coach of Indian cricket team has only given negative psychological baggage to the team which is currently struggling on its tour in South Africa.

Having lost the second and the third one day games to the host with two games remaining, the Indian cricket team's coach, Greg Chappell, seemed to have lost an answer to the problem that plague the Indian cricket for the past months. He said that he had tried his level best to help the team perform but could not understand as to why the team is having such a dismal record recently. This situation has only made his job as a coach much, much tougher.

However, putting on a positive note, he said that even though the current situation does not make his job easier, but he wants to keep doing the best he can in order to help the building of a strong Indian cricket team. After all, he is paid to coach the team and help them win matches.

On the contrary, the Members of the Indian Parliament seemed to have different perspective in this matter. On the pretext of conveying the sentiments of the one billion Indians, they want Chappell to be sacked from his position as the coach of the Indian cricket team. They said that Chappell has failed to do his job.

On hearing the comment from the Members of the Indian Parliament, Chappell said that the MPs are entitled to make any comment they like. That's, according to Chappell, what they are paid to do in Parliament. This statement has provoked a heated debate in the Parliament. MPs accross party line got so disturbed that they seemed to forget the important agenda to be discussed in the current Winter Session. Instead, the MPs got so engrossed with the Chappell issue that they wanted the BCCI to "rein in" Greg Chappell.

As a sport lover, I feel pity about the situation. There should be a boundary that separates sport and politics. Sport should be handled by those professionals who understand the nuances of the game and politics is for politicians. Once the two are mixed up, either stirred or shaken like James Bond's favorite drink, the biggest casuality is the sport and not the politics. Incident like this should be a reminder for all of us to respect each other and to draw clear boundaries between different fields so as not to mixed things up that might only result in misery and frustation.