Trust us Indians to create drama out of even the most mundane activities. Forget the unfolding of events towards nominations being handled without any foresight, the behavior of players in spotlight too has left a lot of question marks on their sanity.
I just don't understand what was going on in Leander's mind. How can you expect to form a team with individuals who have gone public with views that they don't see eye-to-eye with you and would rather not play than being paired up with you. No team, however big or small, can have any success when the mates have internal differences.
Despite knowing neither of Bhupati-Bopanna wanted to be paired with him (Bhupati has gone on record saying he hasn't spoken to Paes in months), he kept on fostering dreams about partnering one of them. I totally agree he deserves a better partner to have any realistic hopes of scoring a medal but with the other two players acting on whims, Paes had only two choices - partner a lesser player or pull out. Given he wears his patriotism on his sleeve (not that Bhupati / Bopanna are unpatriotic) and has made more statements coming from the heart than the head, it was no surprise to read Paes has pulled out.
I really do not understand what was achieved by that statement as he was back later asking for assurances on partnering Sania.
In a sense it was a fair decision to split Lee-Hesh; they've represented us in four Olympics with nothing to show for it. They played the last one in Beijing coming together "only for the sake of a billion aspirations". If ain't broke, don't mend it but if it's not working for you, then no real purpose is being served in keeping it together.
It may just give us a better shot at the Olympics this year; who knows we may have an All-Indian final, but then that's the hopeless optimist in me talking.
No comments:
Post a Comment