Indian team reacts to the Eden move

Eden Garden's India v England World Cup game will now be played in Bangalore. A place where a bomb explored before an IPL game; and led to a subsequent IPL semi-final to be moved from there to Bombay.

The reaction to the move from Eden to Bangalore from most Indians has been that of shame. Imagine a game being moved to the Oval from Lord's because the stadium was not ready. No one thinks that would ever happen. And no one truly believed that it would happen to Eden Gardens as well.

But it did, The lethargy of Indian administrators has reached a new low.

But may be I am wrong. May be its not even lethargy, knowing that Dalmiya was involved, I cannot rule this out as a "calculated" move on his part to strike future deals with Bangalore.

But Eden Gardens has been a shame for Indians for quite some time now. Its just that we have always chosen to look the other way. Whatever charm the stadium held, was really gone when it drove Vinod Kambli to tears. The way people celebrate wins is no yardstick for passion.

But this time we did not even give an opportunity for the Bengalis to reach new lows. Had England beaten India on Feb 27th, just how would the rowdy crowd of Eden Gardens reacted? We will never know.

Perhaps it is better to accept the humiliation of not getting a marquee ground ready than to witness real shame as Eden riots because Pietersen and Sachin collided leading to a Sachin run-out.

Nonetheless the move is a significant event.

So we polled a few members of India's World Cup team for their reaction to this move, how it reflects on India and how it impacts the game in specific

Sachin Tendulkar as was expected said that Bangalore was just another ground just like Eden Garden which was also just another ground. He reiterated his love for the game and how he would play anywhere for his country.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni too was cool about it. He said that its all about the process. He said India already have a process in place to handle venue changes a few weeks before an event. We will just follow the process and not worry too much about the result

Harghajan Singh at first wanted to know what Sachin had to say. When we shared that with him, he said although he would have preferred the noise of Calcutta, he is willing to go any place to win a World Cup for Sachin

Praveen Kumar did not believe this was any shame. He said he chose to look at it as "Change" Just like Obama would. He said that he likes change and was perplexed why there would be any shame associated with it.

When we approached Suresh Raina, he kept us waiting for a good hour as he was shadow batting. Practicing his "new stroke" as he called it. A slog over mid-wicket. We left without his response

Yusuf Pathan said that this question was not in the right area for him and preferred not to comment.

Yuvraj Singh made effeminate faces for a long time and then inquired if Stuart Broad is playing.

Virendra Sehwag for some reason was livid. He said, Kevin Pietersen has accused him of changing his game and that he has never changed his game and never will. He said he doubted if England have the attack to take 10 Indian wickets on Indian pitches. It doesn't matter whether the game is played in Eden Gardens or Bangalore

Ashish Nehra said, just like in 2003 he plans to take out 6 Englishmen out go get India "high on hashish" as the English would like to say. Bangalore, he said, is the right move.

If you enjoyed this...

1. Team Slogans for the World Cup
2. Appointment and Non-Appointment of Captains
3. No One Killed the Australian Supremacy