The knives are out!
Everything looks so familiar. Déjà vu.
The tag of favorites, expectations of a billion, star-studded team and the zing fizzles out fairly early. Unexpected return of an old nemesis – the chin music. It was almost embarrassing to watch our IPL stars dancing, hopping, puffing and finally capitulating to the short pitch stuffed dished to them by a delighted bunch of “foren” pace bowlers on the “foren” bouncy pitches.
The extent of familiarity is such that even the traditional rite of burning effigy is not spared and was adhered to with the same old spirit. For Indian Cricket, life keeps coming back to a full circle every now and then.
This time though it seemed different in the beginning. The players were in a terrific form, they had played more 20-20 than anyone else in the world (wasn’t the early exit of Australians was blamed on to not playing the IPL!). The only seemed obstacle in India’s dream of retaining the much coveted trophy was a strong South African side. We all were at least convinced of a place in the final.
Then it all came back. Even before we reached the South African hurdle, we were beaten by New Zealand, West Indies and England! And as I write this, South Africa has already performed the last rites of this forgetful Indian tour. This time beating the Indians even in their own game – the spin!
In situations like this, when you look at people around you who give a damn to cricket, you feel a deep sense of envy.
But having said that, I would rather go through these familiar and painful failures of Indian Cricket team, to experience bliss when they come on top. Cases in hand would be Kapil lifting the cup, Gavasker’s 10,000th run as he lifted his bat up, Shastri taking the victorious team to ride on his Audi, All the World-cup matches against Pakistan, Ganguly’s bare-chested display, VVS and Dravid batting Australia out of Kolkata, Kumble’s 10 on 10, Yuvi’s 6 on 6, Viru’s 300+ in Pakistan and the subsequent win, Last year’s 20-20 title win and many more such golden moments!
For a nation starving of sporting achievements, it is only Cricket which gives us that pride. One game where we are among the best in the world. When I switch to this longer term view, I feel we should back our team when they are beaten so badly and not burn their effigies.
Philosophically, in any walk of life, you need to go through a lot of grinding including accepting failures to emerge champion. In fact, won’t you agree that failure often teaches stuff that success never can? This loss, I am sure, must have hurt this young Indian team equally and sure each one including Captain Dhoni would be carrying substantial learning from this debacle. Hopefully their bite would become far sharper and as Mahi said, nine months down the line there is another 20-20 World Cup, hopefully then, this team would perform as per the expectations of its fans across the World!
