Of Humiliation in the "Manchester of the East"

It was shameful. A horrifying performance by the Indians at Motera, an anticlimax to the spirited performance against the hosts Aussies and the batting plunders at Chepauk. They collectively failed to show any cricketing acumen against the South Africans, from deciding to bat first on a green top after winning the toss, managing to put up a dwarfish score, batsmen coming and going like what one sees with the best of counsel on Mondays and Fridays in the Supreme Court of India; and then thanks to the bowlers who had already given up on winning the match, conceding a 400+ run first innings lead. To be fair to the Indians, they could never have avoided a thrashing after a first innings score of 76 by a famed batting line-up – possibly just deferred it to the fourth day, which in all fairness, they tried their best to; or prayed for rain, which also attempted to do its bit, but like Indian batsmen, couldn't persist.

In the bargain, they got embarrassed to an innings and 90 run defeat, their biggest at home in almost 50 years, with Dale Steyn, being my man of the match (though AB De Villiers was the official man of the match for an unbeaten double ton).

As one of my classmates observed, now I see why people in India are so glued to cricket and not to the national sport, hockey, because the well-fed men in blue are so erratic and the result so unpredictable that it never gets boring, just humiliating at times, while with Indian hockey, the result never challenges the anticipated.