Shame on me and us

I was to write this post with the same first half of the title after the World Cup cricket matches yesterday, but the recent developments forced me to change it to insinuate it at everyone. Bol Woolmer died of heart attack after being under extreme pressure over the first round exit of Pakistan team. It is still to sink in but it shows how hollow our passion related to this game is.
Nothing can be bigger than the game, but not the life of men truly dedicated to it. Then who are we, many of us who never wielded the cricket bat or threw ourselves on the field, to force our opinion on their commitment, or express our wrath on them.
Every nation's citizens are extremely passionate about one of their games and want the players to win at any cost. It is within their rights but it crosses the boundary when they start identifying every move of theirs with the team's. Why, who told we guys to relate our every dream to theirs, when we are not even an iota connected to them. Don't we have our own dreams to fulfill, and our own areas to excel in? Getting a Nobel Prize in Literature is as big a achievement as winning the World Cup. So, why put our everything on this game of cricket?Burning effigies of the players doesn't do them any harm, rather show our ineptitude. Tendulkars, Dravids and Kumbles have done more than these combined multitude of senseless people.
Shame on us. It is from we only that the team becomes. I have seen teams changing, but performances remaining same, because the guys playing there are from amongst us only, some of them who sit back when even something minimal is achieved, and attainment of excellence is subsequently booted out. The team gets a high-falutin coverage on even a small win and then the next day, when it loses, it is thrown into dustbin. Neither the team performs nor the fans.
It all then gets in this vicious cycle of derogatory denigration and farcical encomiums.
Let us get away from this, when this is so senseless. Let's savour the beauty of life not looked into by us till now. Let's celebrate Viswanathan Anand becoming the World Number 1 as much as a Sachin Tendulkar's century. Then only we will do justice to both, we and the players.