A woman searches for family members in Fukushima prefecture, an area badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. A reader commends Japan's orderly response to the disaster. Kazuki Wakasugi / The Yumiuri Shimbun / AP
A woman searches for family members in Fukushima prefecture, an area badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. A reader commends Japan's orderly response to the disaster. Kazuki Wakasugi / The Yumiuri Shimbun / AP
A woman searches for family members in Fukushima prefecture, an area badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. A reader commends Japan's orderly response to the disaster. Kazuki Wakasugi / The Yumiuri Shimbun / AP
A woman searches for family members in Fukushima prefecture, an area badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami. A reader commends Japan's orderly response to the disaster. Kazuki Wakasugi / The Yum

The National

Villains and heroes of Cricket World Cup tournament

Readers respond to The National's coverage.

Letters to the Editor

March 15, 2011

  • English
  • Arabic

This is in reference to the report Proteas starting to show their strength (March 13). After Saturday's atrocious performance, the Indian team have not only snatched the sobriquet of chokers from the South Africans but also laid strong claim to the tag of jokers.

The World Cup is now at a stage where there is a real possibility that Team India will struggle to reach the quarter finals if their recent performances are any indicator.

India laboured to victories over the supposed minnows Bangladesh, Ireland and the Netherlands. Against stronger opposition like England, they were unable to defend and a score of 338 resulted in a tie. On Saturday, against South Africa, the world's strongest batting line up, India's team collapsed in poor form and subsequently lost the match by two wickets.

Apart from a couple of scintillating performances from Sachin Tendulkar, Virendra Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh, the Indian team have looked very ordinary and pedestrian.

It is a deficit of leadership that has seen India's performance lack consistency, ebbing and rising so alarmingly in this World Cup.

And instead of standing by his team after a difficult day on the field,the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni these days goes out of his way to hurl post-match criticism on his colleagues which is surely demoralising.

Before the start of this World Cup, Dhoni and some key players made grand statements about winning this World Cup for the Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar, who is now playing in his record equalling sixth and most probably last World Cup.

However their on-field performances have completely belied this statement and it looks like the greatest cricketer of our time will retire without a World cup trophy to his name.

Amitabh Saxena, Dubai

Zero-tolerance for traffic offenders

There are a lot of carrots to encourage road safety but very few sticks, 20 per cent drop in UAE traffic accidents, officials say (March 13).Traffic departments should adopt a zero-tolerance approach and punish repeat offenders, including the suspension of licences.

Jameel Abdul, Dubai

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