Blind Support

Dear God,

Please put people around me who would support me and back me the way MS Dhoni supports Ravindra Jadeja and Rohit Sharma. And please do not make me as useless as these two phenomenally talented individuals. 

Animesh

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Backing the team members that you believe in is a mark of good captain. However, keeping to back them even after too many failures at the cost of other talented players is tyranny. Sourav Ganguly was a great leader, who was instrumental in changing the attitude of Indian cricketers (and followers). He backed several players (Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Nehra are the prominent ones). That is a quality that I liked in him. However, he also inexplicably gave a raw deal of some players who 'could have' done better than they did. Murali Karthik and Sanjay Bangar are examples. That was tyranny and something that I hated about Ganguly. Now, Mr. Dhoni is doing something pretty similar. Some of the talented cricketers who find a fan following in Dhoni have been enjoying a great and extended run. The skipper even gives meaningless and stupid excuses to persist with these cricketers. On the other hand, some others (Manoj Tiwary, Rahul Sharma (who may soon be playing for Tihar XI), Irrfan Pathan to some extent) keep praying for better luck as well as stronger support of the captain.

Rohot Sharma is undoubtedly a gifted cricketer. However, talent does not win matches. Performance (substantial and consistent) does. He was chosen above Sehwag, Gambhir and Tendulkar in Australia as the next world cup is in Australia. Does that mean that others are not in the scheme of things at all? Shall Manoj Tiwary, Ajinkya Rahane etc opt for retirement? Now, Rohit Sharma is playing match after match in the series against Srilanka as the T20 world cup is in Srilanka!!! Is it that Rohit Sharma has been already picked to play all major events that we will have to back him and make him ready? Why do not we try others 'instead' or 'as well'?