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A plea from Down Under

Dear Mr Dev and Mr Tendulkar,

Here's one from all your ardent Indian fans Down Under.

We understand that you need all the support, encouragement, understanding and patience of your supporters. We assure you that we are always there for you.

I had taken leave from work for all the Test matches (and I have also done this for the one-dayers) and I know a number of my Indian friends here in Perth who have done it. Yes loosing 3 nil hurts, but we can take that. But what hurts more is the lack of commitment. As fans who spend all their annual leave on watching cricket we believe you can show the same commitment in playing.

As committed fans we deserve an answer to the following questions:
1: Why did Ramesh not bat in the second innings at Melbourne? Agreed he had a broken finger. But could he not make a token appearance? Remember Malcolm Marshall who batted with a broken arm against England? We would have been proud if Ramesh atleast came to the crease at the fall of the ninth wicket. It was immaterial whether he could have saved us the Test or not. There are 1000 million people in India and at one time only 11 of those get the previlege to represent their country. I can promise you if I was in the team I would have crawled to the crease even with broken legs just to show to the opposition what Indians are made of. Such acts of courage build team spirit more than any soft ball playing before matches as you indulge in.

2: Why did Bhardwaj not bat in the second innings at Sydney? Yes we know he was injured, but is there no such thing as national pride or is it just fans who have to display national pride?

3: Throughout the series you managed to push the most inexperienced players to the top of the order as sacrificial lambs. Couldn't the senior players take more responsibility and open the innings? Stop the crap about specialist openers. We do not have a single specialist opener as of now. So the responsibility should have been shouldered by the senior players.

4: What have you learnt from this experience? Why should we give you continued support as fans and waste our precious emotional energies?

5: Why is the team management against proven players like Mongia and Azhar? Is promoting youth more important than winning matches or is keeping good players out more important than winning matches? It's time you stopped fooling the fans and came out in the open about Azhar and Mongia. We deserve to know because we pay the money that keeps cricket going. Our commiserations.

Hope you are preparing well for the one-dayers. Good luck. If you need to teach your boys some lessons on commitment look at the average Indian fan and you will learn more than you can from any psychology text.

Zak Parkar,
Perth

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