T20 - The Conspiracy Theory

Why we do we have so many fairy tale endings in almost all our popular T20 tournaments ? Why are we always led to believe that T20 is so very unpredictable and there is no clear science to playing this game ? Why is there the extra involvement from media, the extra entertainment, the extra money in this game ? There are so many such lingering questions in my mind when I try to look out for a pattern in all these recent tournaments starting with the 2007 T20 WC.



Lets rewind to the farcical 2007 F50 WC which was poorly organized. ICC incurred heavy losses and the game lost much of its sheen. Most of its losses can be attributed to India crashing out in the group stages and the sponsors following suit. This clearly showed that apart from Indians there were not too many people watching this game. The other cricket boards always complained of lack of financial resources.



And then we have a T20 WC in the same year. This time India performs well, beats other teams goes to final and then we have the Misbah-episode and the team wins. This would have been acceptable had this been the only fairy tale T20 tournament win.



The IPL 2008 again carried this dubious distinction of an underdog winning against all odds. Hmmmm.. There were loads of close matches played out in 2008 and I can only think of a couple of them which now gives me a feeling that something was not alright with IPL 2008. Andy Symmonds bowling a last over to Shane Warne where Shane Warne hits 15+ runs for a victory and a match and one where Mumbai loses to Rajasthan in a terribly close match. Even in the finals , we suddenly see chennai's best fielder, Raina, dropping a catch of yusuf pathan.



IPL 2009, we again have the team which finished last in the previous tournament DC win it against RC. The finals (a collapse from RC) stand testimony to my statement that something is not very correct with this tournament.



Come to the current 2009 T20 tournament we suddenly have Pak which were nowhere close to even qualifying for super-8s, suddenly win it. Afridi who was reckless at the start suddently turns responsible. Dilshan, Jayasuriya & Jayawardene - the smart srilankans play irresponsible shots. And then you suddenly have Pak win the match against all odds ! Even in the semis we have Boucher and Morkel come too late to make any impact suggesting the players who played earlier never made an attempt to win it.



First you had India win the WC, you build interest in the game. They you have IPL with all the glitter, glamour, money and close matches. They you again have WC in which Pakistan win against SA and Srilanka. Yuck - The stench becomes too much to ignore.



Tendlya did not want to play the WC, but happily plays for IPL and for the Indian team in bilateral series. Dhoni, the shrewdest of them all, committs very simple tactical mistakes. His team selection becomes poor. The whole Indian team conspicously avoids net practice even after losses to big teams . hmmm...The reason why i have a reference to tendulkar is simply because he is the only reason why i watched cricket thru the nineties. I believe he could not throw matches for India. (though he can do so happily for his IPL team which afterall is only an assorted team)



the signs are too blatant to ignore. ICC's agenda is to popularize the game and take it to more countries, bring more public and make T20 an entertainment (not a competition). Its the biggest 'reality show' in which the results are 'fixed' by the ICC themselves. Probably explains the lack of interest shown by the Australian and English boards who are financially well off. The telling sign was from Younis Khan who may have inadvertently revealed the truth by saying that "T20 is for the public. It is an entertainment. People should not take it seriously."