Team India and Reliance Netconnect both suck!

Photo: Dale Steyn took some tap in his first five overs, but came back to finish with 5 for 50 as India collapsed from 267 for 1 to 296 all out. © Getty Images.

Cricket teams India and England are the two most sloppiest sides in the Cricket World Cup 2011. These two sides are the most unpredictable, inconsistent and legitimately incapable of lifting the World Cup 2011. After India's defeat in the hands of South Africa tonight at Nagpur, I have lost hopes of the team winning the Cup. You cannot win the ICC World Cup unless you are consistent, and winning. India has, so far, a tie and a defeat against the other two probables for the quarter-finals in Group B- England and South Africa, respectively. India still has to play West Indies in the league games.

Coming back to the Ind-SA game tonight; I was extremely disappointed. India won the toss, batted first, and fell for 296 in less than 49 overs, after being 267/1 after 40 overs. Shame! After such a magnificent century from Sachin Tendulkar, was it not appropriate for the rest of the team to play decently to at least put up 330 on the board? India was definitely short of 20-30 runs in the end, and it was proved when SA reached the target in the 50th over. After the India's devastating batting powerplay, Dhoni had to say this: "You don't play for the crowd, you play for the country." My *ss! I have this feeling that cricket is one sport where the spectator, a.k.a. fan, a.k.a. patron is not respected. We have seen fans being lathi-charged and beaten at Bengaluru and Nagpur while purchasing tickets to watch their team India play. Television channels have the least respect for the game, I must say. They start playing commercials before the last bowl of the over is bowled, and after the first bowl of an over is bowled. Star Cricket and ESPN are in this league, too. What a shame! I think we must learn from the broadcasting and presenting ethics from the gameday telecasts of football games in the United States.

Bottom-line: My predictions for the World Cup 2011 are the following. India doesn't progress to the semi-final stage. Australia and Pakistan face-off in the finals.

And what's up with Reliance Netconnect? It sucks; big time! You get an astounding 230.4 Kbps speed when you pay for a 3.1 Mbps broadband connection. The connection to the www is very inconsistent, and I am losing my nerves trying to load a single web page. All this is piling up to my frustration right now.

Peace!