This started off as a random discussion recently between me, Kodhi and Kanti which I extrapolated. The fortunes of cricket teams and international football teams seem to have some parallels.
Australia = Brazil. Strongest by far, and consistently been that way for a while now. Way too much talent in all departments of the game, and even a B side would be amongst the top 8 in the world. A lot of players from here would find it easier to make it to a "World 23" than a "Brazil/Australia 11". And both arguably produced the greatest ever player in the game.
India = Argentina. Lot of passion, huge crowd support, very entertaining teams, but underachieve when compared to their potential. Have had the occasional big wins, but still falter against the top team(s). And both arguably produced the player who can be considered as equal to Bradman/Pele.
West Indies = Uruguay. Had some past glory in the ages gone by. Nothing much to show for in recent times, though both seemed to promise a revival in the 90's/2000's but that was a damp squib.
England = England. Need I say more! Invented the game, but cant play it for squat. Highly overrated, only they think they're good, too much media coverage. But lots of money and excellent domestic setup nonetheless.
Pakistan = Holland. Lots of stars but no results, big underachievers, and too many injury prone players. Holland produces strikers the way Pakistan does with fast bowlers.
Sri Lanka = France. Some very entertaining stuff again, sometimes unconventional style, emerged as serious contenders out of the blue in recent years.
South Africa = Italy. Big time chokers, some bad luck. And could have won far more than they have done so. Falter against some really weak times at times, and also quite inconsistent.
New Zealand = Sweden or Mexico. Have barely ever come close to winning a world cup, and probably will never win a world cup, but will possess way too much talent to be counted among the lower rungs of their respective sport. Yet, they never seriously challenge the top guns either.
The last few are somewhat force fit.
Kenya = Ghana or Senegal. Lot of spirit, from a continent with not much sporting infrastructure, but well capable of a big upset once in a way.
Bangladesh = South Korea. One moment of glory, and for some reason, they seem to think they deserve to be amongst the elite purely for that. They can consistently be walloped by any of the top teams.
Zimbabwe = Cameroon or Nigeria. Had their best lot of players in the 1990's, played almost as equals with the big guns of the game, caused their share of upsets, and then faded out. Lot of mismanagement in the national game too.
Canada = Ukraine. Both qualified for a single world cup, largely on the basis of an individual talent, had some fun, and gracefully exited. Not much expected of them once said individual talent retires, and will probably never do anything of note again.
PS: Abhay strongly disagrees with the India = Argentina analogy, and suggests that India = Holland or India = France is a better analogy. Any comments?
11 comments:
India= Holland because of the star studded line up...and they're yet to win a cricket world cup..
India =France only for the reason that France has been the only team to derail brazil in major competitions and though the same might not hold for world cup encounters between india and australia, it does somewhat hold true in test match cricket...no other team has even won a test match in australia for more than a decade until a fabulous rearguard action from dravid and laxman at adelaide scripted an incredible come back victory...one of the few test matches , if not the only test match where both teams ended up scoring more than 500 and there was a result..
Hari adds that there are parallels between their jersey colours also.
Brazil-Australia-yellow.
Sri Lanka-France-Blue
India-Australia-Light blue and so on.
Well, I certainly didn't think of that, but somewhere in the future, when you are in a B-school, and doing your MO or MPPO project, your force fitting skills will prove useful!
@ Atulya
It was actually
Brazil - Australia (yellow);
France - Sri Lanka (dark blue);
Argentina - India (light blue).
However, considering your colour blindness situation, I wouldn't blame you for not scoring cent percent in any match the following exercise that would involve jersey colours, or for not even arbitly copy pasting my gtalk reply as part of the comment to eliminate the faux pas that you made.
In totally unrelated news, my being in a B-school to put those KPTCL, KLPD, KVL and KCL level acronyms and actually working on the subjects in question is contingent to my not being a choker a la the South African cricket team and getting thupped when it comes to the big exam after belting the mocks. So there.
I think you will reply with a "K"
A certain TKGR has made me think twice before copy pasting anything. Probably for life.
And those frequent usages of "K" would have made even Harish Jayesh proud.
Hey atul, awesome analogies. South Africa/Italy and Zimb/Cameroon were spot on. I agree with Abhay's point that India=France is more likely....long before 98, france had a great side in the 80s as did India (in ODIs at least). Both have won one WC each and finished runner up once as well. And both have made high profile first round exits from a WC in recent times!
I also think Pakistan=Argentina is probably more apt than Pakistan=Holland...they even have drug scandals in common. What do you think?
Just a thought, but if you were considering the state of cricket in the 70s and early 80s, a couple of your analogies might have looked like this back then:
West Indies = Brazil. No question. All flair, and both were very popular winners. Pele=Richards, Brazillian wingers= windies fast bowlers, Reggae = Samba
Australia = Germany. Well oiled efficient machine. Both had great captains (Chappell bros, Beckenbauer), capable of winning as long as West indies/Brazil were not around. Occasionally resorted to foul play (underarm incident, goalie scumacher in 82 WC).
Totally agree on the last point. The analogies were roughly for the period I have been following cricket/football (say circa 1990).
And I guess in some ways, India seems to identify with either of France or Argentina. I was thinking along these lines-
Both won world cup(s) at the same time, and yet, have had high profile 1st round exits too in recent years.
Maradona vs Tendulkar.
And both teams arguably have the most exciting and promising youth brigade in Messi/Aguero/Tevez/Mascherano and Yuvraj/Dhoni and co respectively.
Oh, I completely agree.
Ya just like how I agree that Lacuna Coil's albums, especially the ones post "In a reverie" sound increasingly like Messhugah's pre-Chaosphere era. And the same holds for Mushroomhead and Lamb of God as well, and to a lesser extent, to Gojira and The Dilnger Escape Plan.
Ironically, the only bands on that list that I would actually listen to are Meshuggah and DEP. And I haven't even heard of Mushroomhead(!). You're more in tune with the current state of metal than I am.
India = England da. With IPL coming through,. Star studded (not necessarily the best) league types.
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