Jelly Beans...

India has beaten England in one of the enthralling cricket (verbal too) encounters of the recent past. Its a saddening fact though that, Jelly beans have hogged the lime light more so than the cricket.
Cricket hasn't been a gentlemen's game for a long enough time now. Its time now that, it is not referred to be so. The cricket at the highest level is always attached with intensity, toughness. Its no more a game between just the bat the ball. These days cricketers try hard to score over there opposition before even a ball is bowled, through the media. Various players feature their blogs on daily's, talk to the media persons etc. The OZ took these practices to the next level, called mental disintegration. And the rest of the pack were to follow what Steve Waugh's men did.
Now the sides from subcontinent are not lagging behind anymore. They give it back to their counterparts like never before. Be it Sreesanth, Malinga, Akthar, they have it in them. Particulary Sreesanth (Indian version of Andre Nel) is quite a bizarre character indian cricket has never seen before. He is very excitable, young, talented but lacks control and focus on the field. It's time now for Sree to have a long and hard look at his approach of cricket, assess himself, figure out is this what he aims to be. He has a bright future if only he learns to balance his on-field antiques and performances.
Last test, poms took a step ahead in mental disintegration by spreading jelly beans on the pitch as though to welcome the new batsman Zaheer Khan. A quick look back in to the English cricket history reveals that jelly beans were rubbed against the cricket ball to maintain the shine unfairly. Was that to tease the new man saying "Hey, a couple of jelly beans you used last day have fell down". That would have been a nice little banter. But joke too long spoils it. The jelly beans kept reappearing on the pitch, even after Zaheer cleared them off. And the rest turned out be tabloid-fodder for the days to come.
Poms lost the match and the criticism followed for their behaviour. Wonder, what if poms had managed to win the test. Wonder what if Zaheer had overlooked those tiny jelly beans on the pitch and a delivery bounced awkward landing on it? Isn't it outside the cricketing law to get a foreign object into the pitch? What if Dinesh Karthik welcomes Anderson with pan masala over the pitch at Chepauk, would he be let off the hook too? I wonder not!