Team India - Cricket World Cup

So Team India swept to their Cricket World title after a span of 28 years, and in the process became the first country to win a title on its home soil (Sri Lanka was the first to win as a host country, but the final was played in Pakistan in 1996).


I was thinking about the gauntlet that India had to run through to win the cup...and their last four victories came in order against 
The West Indies
Australia
Pakistan
Sri Lanka.


Now, the Cricket World Cup has been played since 1975, and the following countries have, in order, won their first title since then.
West Indies
India
Australia
Pakistan
Sri Lanka.


The amazing thing about Team India's run in the 2011 World Cup is that they beat the teams in the same order as their first World Cup title. Obviously it is a mere coincidence, but it is still uncanny that the sequence played out in this way.


Beyond all this though, congratulations are in order to the Men in Blue. They did themselves and the country proud.


This year, S and I have been privileged to have watched and followed two teams that made a successful run at the title. Both of them were talented enough that they were considered favorites for the title, both stumbled a bit and then when they hit on all cylinders, took on all comers and blitzed their way to the epitome of their respective sports.


One is Team India in Cricket. The other? The 2010-11 Green Bay Packers in the NFL.

Green Bay and its Packers

So, the question to me goes - "You're not even from America by birth, so how is it that your favorite National Football League team is the Packers from remote Green Bay"? And mind you, this is not a one-off question, but rather has been the norm with almost anyone that I talk American Football(for all the fact that I am a fan of the NFL, Football to me is still the game where the play is with the foot!).

The usual off-the-cuff answer has been that I like Brett Favre, their gun-slinger of a QB. Well I have umpteen reasons to like him, mostly that he makes bone-headed mistakes just like I am prone to. Anyways, I fend off that question saying that Brett Favre is my favorite QB in the league.

But inwardly I began to think, so why is it that I really like the Green Bay Packers? So much that I even made a pilgrimage to legendary Lambeau Field in the summer of 2003, when I went to visit a friend in Madison, WI. It came down to just one simple thing - they are the one professional league team in the United States, that is publicly owned. Can you really believe that? In the midst of the greed and riches story that is organized professional sport, the Packers are owned by people, who paid to own a share of the team. At a time when we see the likes of Bill Bidwill and his kind swindle the genteel people of Arizona into trusting them to make them Arizona Cardinals a competitive team just on the sheer strength of a new stadium, when we see the likes of Wayne Huzienga and his infamous dismantling of the 1997 Florida Marlin team just days after the team had captured an improbably MLB title, it is refreshing to see a team so tied with the public that it is supposed to entertain.

Managed in much the same way a publicly-owned company is, the one major difference is that none of the share holders receive any dividends for their share holdings. In effect, it is a "contribution" from the share holding public to the welfare of their beloved team, a privilege that seems to be equally recognized by both parties.

Skeptics, amongst them a certain ex-boss of mine, have called Green Bay a one-horse town and implied that its sheerly coincidental that the Packers receive so much support - there is nothing much else to do in northern Wisconsin anyway. All I can say to them is, shame on you. Shame on you that you cannot recognize the spirit for what it really is - a sense of ownership and participation in the team that is unique in pro-sports.

Consider the following facts/figures for a moment and draw your own conclusions
1. The Lambeau Field, the home of the Packers, has been sold out on a season-ticket basis for well over 30 years and running. This has to be a sort of parallel record along with the Irish Fans of the "Touchdown Jesus" at University of Notre Dame.

2. The organization renewed/refurbished/face-lifted the Lambeau Field from a simple edifice to a modern, sleek, brick and glass edifice. And to achieve that, they did not raze the old stadium and build a new one - instead they worked around the old structure and just provided props on the exterior. The result - re-dedication to the fans of the Packers, by maintaining the interior bowl seating arrangement with aluminum bleachers, as it has been for these past many years.

3. The current season ticket waiting list - a tad over 60,000 - amounts to a wait time of just over 30 years from today. Imagine, if I applied to the Packers today to obtain season tickets, I am not likely to get them until my kids will be as old as I am now.

4. For the second year in a row, an NFL team that had the Packers visiting them for a regular season game, tried to dissuade avid Packer fans from buying up tickets, by clubbing the single game tickets in a package deal with tickets to a meaningless pre-season game. If it was the Minnesota Vikings in 2003, it was the Indianapolis Colts in 2004. And boy did they succeed. Just about 15000 Packer fans were in attendence at each of those games.

All that can be said in this is that, it is my privilege to be a fan of such a distinguished team - afterall, no other team has won as many league championships as the Packers have. So distinguished, Green Bay is referred to as Titletown, USA.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter..

Brett Favre, Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (American Football's biggest stage) hurt his right thumb (the throwing hand) during a game at the Track Meet stadium (Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, if you insist on knowing the real name) and yet managed to play through injury, finishing the game with impressive (for him) statistics for an indoor game.

He went on to play the rest of the season as well with that injured thumb. Asked how he was able to do it, he answered simply - If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. It is really just a simple case of mind over matter!.