Joy For The Spanish & Heartbreak At The Caribbean

Hello Friends,

July month proved to be a happening month in the sporting world. It had been an action packed month across sporting segments. Cricketing world was erupt with yet another exciting series of the Ashes between the arch rivals Australia & England which saw both Australian men & women retaining the urn. Yashasvi Jaiswal's excellent international debut in India's test series triumph at the Caribbean also made the headlines. Harmanpreet Kaur's reaction to her controversial out decision, T20 extravaganza in the US in the form of Major League Cricket(MLC) & Pakistan's test series victory in Sri Lanka with a Bazball style of cricket have been the talk of the town. Indian football team's continued dominance in SAFF championship, yet another exciting season of Wimbledon  tennis & Messi's  multimillion dollar signing in his new club Inter Miami concluded the sporting actions for the month. But this edition of Sports Talk Of The Month focuses on two sporting incidents that drew everybody's attention.

Young Tennis Sensation

Image Credit: Yannick JAMOT, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

This month witnessed one of the greatest results in the history of Wimbledon tennis when 20 year old Spanish youngster Carlos Alcaraz won his 1st Wimbledon men's singles title beating veteran Novak Djokovic. Alcaraz who has already been quite an achiever in his short career made this improbable happen in yet another exciting Wimbledon encounter. It was definitely a competition between two generations & the future generation emerged triumphant this time around. It was incredible to see how he came back stronger after being down in the first set and that also against a tough opponent like Djokovic. Entire match was a tremendous exhibition of Alcaraz's skills & will power. I am sure this will just be the beginning of yet another exciting journey in the game of tennis.

Heartbreak For The Caribbean Cricket Fans

In one of the most shocking events in the cricketing world West Indies  men's team failed to qualify for the 50 overs ODI world cup to be played in India later this year. A team that has played all the ODI world cups so far with twin titles to their name faced such an embarrassing situation for the first time. It has been a moment of utter despair for the entire island nation including the players, administrators & fans. It is hard to believe that we are going to witness a world cup without a bit of Caribbean flavor. But who is responsible for this debacle? Let's understand that this result is a consequence of long term inefficiency of providing quality support system to the players resulting in them joining various T20 leagues across the globe instead of representing their country. 

Also it was noticed that there was not much involvement from their former players in cricketing operations unlike other teams. Dispute between board & players for various reasons has been a major issue. Most of the times they were unable to play their best eleven due to the unavailability of players who were busy trading their craft in T20 leagues. Despite former captains raising their concerns with respect to payment & other facilities, no action has been taken by board. Even fitness has been a concern in general for a long time which led to their lacklustre  performance across formats on a consistent basis. But there was no framework to address those issues. Star players like Pollard  & Pooran resigning from captaincy was one of the indicators of them not getting adequate support for producing desired results. Recently they have formed separate coaching unit for red ball & white ball format with T20 World cup winning captain Darren Sammy taking the responsibility of the white ball set up. But it needs to be remembered that only the presence of star players or coaches will not resolve a crisis like this. It requires lot more proactive measures across the board to reinvent their cricketing fortunes.

During the World cup qualifiers played in Zimbabwe earlier this month the Windies players were seen wearing jersey without a lead sponsor which indicates the current situation of their cricket from the commercial aspect as well. It is high time all the stakeholders get their acts together to bring back the pride that the players & fans used to show in their cricket. Otherwise with the emerging dominance of  cash rich T20 cricket and other sports may make the situation even worse for such a proud cricketing nation. As cricket lovers we hope that this disappointment works as a catalyst to get their cricket back on track with all the necessary steps taken in due course.