It's been strange coming to a ground in England with no boisterous crowd of Indians but guess the Indian fans have sold the tickets that they had purchased for the first semifinal and given it to some others who may want to see their team play. The disappointment levels have been high and at every event where one meets Indians the question asked is what went wrong.
The Twenty20 format is such that minnows can win and stretch established teams, so India getting beaten by three other Test playing teams is not unusual. It’s just that being the defending champions and after having played so much Twenty20 cricket in two editions of the Indian Premier League the expectations were high and fans being fans just cannot accept that their heroes have failed.
There has been some justified comments in the media about the behavior of the Indian fans especially towards the opposition teams and their supporters but here unfortunately there is no distinction made between those supporters who have come from India and those Indians who live in England and have British passports and yet support India.
It is mainly the latter who start drinking as soon as they arrive at the ground and then get loud, noisy, abusive and unbearable. It is not the first time but it’s been happening every time India plays in England. Luckily it is not so bad in other countries where also there is huge local Indian support.
The second semifinal will be an interesting game with West Indian flair against Sri Lanka wizardry. That perhaps is an appropriate word since it is not just the bowling of the three Ms — Muralitharan, Mendis and Malinga but also the batting of Dilshan, Jayawardene and Jayasuriya that justifies that word. The West Indian tactics while bowling will be interesting to see particularly if they are going to use the short delivery like they did against the Indians.
The Sri Lankans or for that matter any other team don’t necessarily play the short ball well. It’s how they handle it during a game that is important. The Indians plunking their front foot down the pitch got themselves into trouble and if the Lankans have learnt from it then they may deal with it a lot better.
Still it’s a game where the spectators may have to wear helmets because both teams have some big hitters and many balls may be flying into the crowd so it may well be a painful watching experience for some. Make no mistake it will be a thriller al right.
