Kolkata, March 24 (IANS) India's debacle in the World Cup came as no surprise to Kolkata, which spared local hero Sourav Ganguly despite his batting failure while hitting out at captain Rahul Dravid, coach Greg Chappell and Sachin Tendulkar.
Indian batsmen failed to overtake the 255-run target set by Sri Lanka and crashed out of the 16-nation tournament in the Caribbean with a crushing 69-run defeat in a crucial Group B match Friday.
"This was quite expected since the days they started politicking with cricket and threw out Sourav. Dravid was never captain material and what was feared came true," said Shymal Das, a diehard cricket fan and Ganguly supporter from Lake Gardens. "We are not shocked actually because we saw it coming," he said.
At Vivekanada Park in south Kolkata around the Dhakuria Lake, for young cricketers who turn up for practice early every morning, it was a day of sadness and despair.
"We cannot blame Dada (Sourav) for this. You cannot expect him to perform always. I think Sachin is to be blamed a lot. He contributed nothing despite being a technical batsman," said one of them, Ankur.
Dravid came under virulent attack. "He was never ever meant to be a captain and it proved again though he himself contributed 60. His captaincy is weak," fumed Ramanuj.
"Chappell was the biggest mistake of Indian cricket and Dravid's weak captaincy completed the rest," said the teenager.
The cricketing fraternity of Kolkata is morose.
"It is a sad day for us, a sad day for Indian cricket and bad day at office," said Bengal's upcoming cricketer Ranadeb Bose.
"We played poor cricket. Ganguly got out to a spectacular catch by Muralitharan and Sachin's out put us on the backfoot from where we really did not recover," said Bose.
"The turning point was Virender Sehwag's exit. I think a player like Muralitharan made the difference."
Former Test cricketer and national selector Ashok Malhotra was critical. "I was hoping that India would go to Super 8. If this team cannot make it to Super 8 then there is something terribly wrong with planning," he said.
Some diehard Indian fans were still hoping that India would stay on in the World Cup if Bermuda somehow defeated Bangladesh.
"If India cannot make it to the next stage from this group where they had to play teams like Bangladesh and Bermuda, then I have nothing to say. What happened to the experimentations of Greg Chappell? Indian cricket board should introspect. The entire episode since Sourav's removal has been shameful," said one coach at Eden Gardens.