“Korbo Lorbo Haarbo Re”

With their second consecutive victory over the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Mumbai Indians have completed the first double of this year’s IPL— i.e. beating the same team over both the legs. It was a match which so prudently highlighted the kind of mental phase members of the Knight Riders were going through. After restricting Team Mumbai to a total below 150, the Knight Riders led by Brad Hodge and Van Myk looked all set to take the team to a victory, which should have been a mere formality. Instead some preposterous shot selection coupled with an inexplicable decision of promoting Laxmi Ratan Shukla ahead of the captain Brendon Mccullum proved suicidal for the Knights. It seems that Mr. Buchanan along with his multiple thinkers are living in a fool’s paradise where a certain term called “practicality” does not exist.

After the match I heard a diehard Knight Riders fan sing their theme song but with changed lyrics. He was singing “Korbo Lorbo Haarbo Re” and was fuming with anger. When I enquired what he thought about the future of his team, his response was that all the players of the team along with the coach should turn into “male cheerleaders” for the other teams. At least they would be providing some sort of entertainment to the people. This is one such example. There are millions of fans in a cricket crazy city like Kolkata who are getting disappointed and frustrated day in and day out by their team. This team needs a break from playing cricket at the moment because they seem to have lost the basic sense of the game. If they play like they are at the moment, they might even lose to fictitious teams like the Ladakhi Lions and the M G Road Romeos.

With Friday’s loss, the Knight Riders have 3 points from 7 matches. For all practical purposes they are out of the tournament, unless they stage a magical revival, which seems as difficult as making an omelette with an egg but without a frying pan. This is because the Knight Riders at the moment seem to be flying in an aircraft with too many “pilots” each of who have lost their sense of direction.

Cricket is a game where one team wins and one loses. But the manner of a win or a loss depicts the mindset and essence of a team’s character. At least the effort given by the team should reflect in their performance on the field, irrespective of the result. The body language of the Knight Riders at the half way stage of the tournament has been nothing but amateurish. Their coach has been speaking too much and doing nothing. He has even started comparing himself with Sir Alex Fergusson, saying he should be given the Scot’s freedom to build a team. Lets not discuss this issue, else it would need a book to compare both of them. But some of the decisions that Mr Buchanan has taken in this tournament suggests that this team could have done better without a coach. With all due respect to Mr. Buchanan’s past achievements with the Australian team, the Australian team that he coached to stardom was filled with so much individual genius that it would have won without his “mercurial coaching ability”. With their current performance and their position in the points table, I can’t think of any other anthem for the Knights other than England’s national Anthem with the lyrics changed “God save the Knight Riders”…