Document Actions
What goes around, comes around...
I still remember India's disgraceful exit from the 1996 World Cup semi-finals at the hands of Sri Lanka when the match was awarded to Sri Lanka due to unruly crowd behaviour. Indian crowd was rightfully maligned a lot at that time. Now for three games in a row, Sri Lankan crowds have thrown objects at Indian fielders resulting in play stoppages.
The defeat in the 1996 World cup was definitely one of most disgraceful moments in Indian Cricket at that time. Not because of the players' incompetency but more due to the shameful behaviour of the Indian crowds who behaved in a completely unsportsmanlike behaviour and reacted like spoilt children in accepting defeat. At that time there was a huge uproar in the media and International cricket community. There were a lot of factors that contributed to India's dismal performance and players to a large part were not responsible.
Sri Lanka was at the forefront of the critics who lamented India. Now the situation is reversed and now it is Sri Lankan crowds who is pelting objects at the Indian fielders standing near the boundary ropes threatening the call-off the plays. At this time, there is nothing to blame Sri Lanka's dismal performance & it is just that the Sri Lankan crowds (I am purposely avoiding the word "fan") are not able to digest the flogging that their team is receiving at the hands of the much superior Indian team. It is only a fortnight or so ago that one of the editors on Cricinfo had praised Sri Lankan team for their performance and their bench strength after their solid performance against Pakistan in Pakistan. It is the same team that is playing and that too at home. The only differnce is now they are facing a vastly superior & confident Indian team with one of the brilliant tacticians of all the times.
At this time I am not hearing any condemnation of the Sri Lankan crowds or administrators rather, I am seeing that the analysts are going out of the way to defend the Sri Lankan crowds but blaming one or two miscreants. But if all the other people around the "bad egg" are good, they can stop this kind of mischief then & there. Silence & inaction while knowing the fact of wrong doing is complicity by default. I don't buy the argument of a "bad egg".
So what changed during 1996 and 2009?
