London Diaries 5 | The Expected World Cup Knockout.

In the last 9 months, England have been treated to two rather unceremonious early world cup exits. The first one was in the game which is a national rage and people are as crazy about it as Indians are for Cricket, it happened in the 2014 Soccer World Cup in Brazil. And the latest one happened in the game that the English themselves founded more than a century ago and have been struggling off late to be a dominant force in the game, it happened a few days back in the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia-New Zealand.

The soccer world cup exit was the more expected one, as England Football team is hardly a threat for the tops teams in the International Circuit. The culture here is more club centric and although the fans wanted their team to do well, deep inside even they were aware that it would be too much to expect from their individual stars to pull up this heist and go beyond the Quarter Final stages. And that’s what eventually happened, the club super stars failed, so did their team and England got knocked out in the prelims. The reactions here were quite contrasting, the local newspapers butchered the team with a heavy barrage of not so pleasant words, the bookmakers were bang on in their predictions and made a killing with this early exit and the fans mourned for a bit and then moved on to focus on the upcoming Premier League. Probably the only option an ardent English fan has, as England never loses in the league and invariably one of the stars always performs J.

The early Cricket world cup exit was a little unexpected one, not that the fans were expecting the fragile English team to lift the cup but the least that was expected out of them was to do better than the teams like Bangladesh and qualify for the quarters. But that was not to be and the only wins that they could manage in their entire campaign were against Afghanistan and Scotland. No wonder the reactions on this shameful exit were quite extreme and every cricketing expert lambasted the English team for such a dismal show. Interestingly, the local newspapers don’t cover much of the English Cricket out here, Cricket not being the no.1 sport and neither are there any high expectations from the English Cricket team and so the criticism wasn't as grave as the one post the Soccer World Cup exit. However, the true connoisseurs of English Cricket certainly had some interesting reactions to this debacle.

A local friend of mine attributed this early exit to the influence of IPL and England’s reluctance in being an active participant in the cash rich T20 tournament. He believed that all those teams who have taken IPL seriously are the ones who have excelled in this world cup. Not quite sure how true or logical this analogy is but as a matter of fact when India lost to England in the test series last summer, he blamed IPL for India’s debacle too J. Probably, some English fans are more worried about the success of IPL then the failures of English Cricket team J.

Similarly, an office colleague who is always very proud of the English Sporting culture was very disappointed by this poor show. He was equally shattered after the soccer world cup exit too but then he consoled himself that time believing that the English pacers will bring back the lost glory by swinging the Cricket World Cup in England’s favor in Australia/New Zealand. Now all he had to say after this consecutive drubbing is that the hopes are high from the upcoming Rugby World Cup J. Amen! No harm in being ever so optimistic J.

Another acquaintance of mine, an ardent English Cricket Fan and a typical high headed arrogant English man brushed aside this failure professing that this is no Cricket, real Cricket is Test Cricket and our focus is entirely on regaining the Ashes later this year. I couldn't stop laughing but gathered some composure and courage and politely asked him, Sir weren't you the ones who proudly founded this sport and are yet to win the most coveted trophy of the sport even once. He didn't pay any credence to my question but a sense of frustration and dejection was all over his face.

It’s not easy to empathize with someone whose team isn't doing particularly well in a major tournament like world cup and it is all the more tough to do so when your own team is doing particularly well. But when a team is consistently faring poorly in such global tourneys and still stays arrogant in its conduct it’s hard not to enjoy their failures. Now after the world cup exit the experts and fans out here are longing for a better show from their team in the 2019 World Cup which will be hosted here in the United Kingdom. My only worry to this optimism is, given the looming threat of a curtailed World Cup from the next edition on-wards, which might feature only 10 of the best teams in the world, will England be able to qualify for the same on merit and be a part of their home World Cup J?

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An afterthought - However, the best moment for me amidst this knockout hoopla was when I asked a dejected English fan about his bet for this World Cup and his prompt reply was I N D I A ! I was myself not so sure about this being a possibility but his confident reply surely made me feel proud about my team J.