Its only a few more hours and then the Indian Cricket Team plays one of their biggest matches
in their and our whole life. Its not as if we havent met Pakistan before. Of course we have. Its
not as if after this match PCB and BCCI will stop sending teams to tournamanets. But me and
my friends are part of that generation that did not understand cricket in 87, was only
fascinated by colours and Jonty Rhodes in 92.. and cried desperately in Kolkata in 96. We have
then cursed Agarkar along with poor Zimbabwe in 1999. Some of us even believed that we had
the cup ..................... even after the first inningsin the final..... in 2003... and we were quickly
kicked back to reality by Ponting's men..and then by Greg Chappel in 2007.
So when people like Gavaskar and Shrikanth and others talks about 83 in front of us.. we nod
our heads and open our mouths in pride. We try to look back at youtube videos of that fated
final, Kapil's tremendous catch. Roger Binny's extreme performance. I even had a
memorabilia of 1983 world cup that describes all the matches with lots of pictures which I
used to bring out everytime India played their knock out matches in a world cup.. I dont know
who in my family bought it.... its tough to spot the hidden fans.... the same way.. LOOOOT of
people dont know how much i and we Indians as a country and us... as a generation .... love
this game.. Really... the Tony Craigs and the Nasser Hussains, The Boycotts and the
Benauds... there is so much you do not know.
Coming back to the game in hand... sure I have watched some amazing India Pak matches.
And trust me, if someone told me it has never been this big... then what was the T-20 Final my
dear a few years back ? Have you forgotten the U-21 World Cup?? But then why is this so much
special (... at least for me and if I can understand the feelings of a handful 20 other friends from
my generation) ???
Its not going to be the same as it was earlier.. I would still wake up at 4. But thats not because
the match is in Brisbane or Perth. Ironically the match is at Mohali.. not to far from the JCR
where I WOULD go to watch the matches played at Brisbane and Perth..... and of course its not
going to be the same. I wont wake up a sleeping guard to open the common room for me.The
one room in the entire college that has the television and therefore the one room that would
suddenly accumulate at least 50 individuals..in the span of 5 minutes from different parts of
the college.. all sleepy eyed... straight out of bed.. some planning to go back to bed after the
day's play.. only to watch India win their first series victory against Austrailia.. Instead I would
be watching the game on my laptop. There is the possibility of going to watch it with a
thousand other undergraduates... both from India and Pakistan at the Mech Eng student
lounge here at Cornell. Ill probably pass that.. till the final. If India does make it to the finall.. ill
be there.
And yet.. this is not my story. As I said, this is the story of at least 30 (and DEFINITELY MANY
MANY MORE...)different people.. watching the game at different parts of the USA... waking up
at 2,3,4 am.. only to watch the boys in blue do what they are always expected to do.... smash a
thousand runs and then get the opposition out in exactly 10 balls. thats it. job done. we can
work now. for otherwise everything's a standstill. And it cant be the other way. Even if its
faster. Even if we can get them out in 10 balls we dont want to do that first.. For then we cant
watch our Gods bat.... and thats the fun in it after all ?
Sure we have some good bowlers.. but really ... we were always known for the short little
geniuses mainly from Bombay or Delhi... or sometimes the healthy allrounders from Haryana..
and once in a while a classy southpaw from the east..but thats about it..
Nevermind the geeky Bangalorean who left a software job to actually take all ten wickets in
the same match..it was against Pakistan wasnt it? Nevermind the near crazy Sikh who when
playing against the same goes berserk in every way.....
And yet... its not their story too. This is the story of my 300 other friends who I know are
watching the game in the same time zone..back home.. IN INDIA....updating their facebook
status as I do.with select exletives.. after every wrong decision by the Indian captain or the
umpire or the exceptionally (un)fortunate player from the opposition who dared to stop the
march towards victory.. virtually anyone who dare conspire against this juggernaut .. that we
know ... Indian Cricket fanaticism.
And just then do we realise that its a story of one of those little geniuses from Mumbai.. who
may not play another world cup.. and although known as THE BEST player that ever played the
game for the last few decades... would try his best to use this last chance ...
Its also a story of a coach who found a team in tatters.... and made some really hard decisions
to keep players out who on hindsight did not belong in this team. Personally however it is not
a story of the captain.. at least not this tournament unless he does something special for the
remaining two games..
So... here we are.. back again 4 years after a shameful exit in the group stages being knocked
out by Bangladesh .. trying to claim the spot that we have been eyeing for sometime and a spot
that we did deserve at least at the beginning of the tournament (before Pakistand and Srilanka
dazzled us) and its going to be big.
Personally I hope this game is as close as the India-Austrailia game.. but witha similar result. I
dont think by beating Pakistan we will gain political superiority or the right to diss their
cricket tournaments or any other leverage except for the one that we play for. A place in the
final.
The performance of the Indian team in ICC ODI World Cup has been very similar to the
stereotypical lives of people from my generation....Quite similar to the notion of getting away
watching a late night movie we were all to happy to reach the semifinal in 1996.. and suddenly
out of nowhere before we understood we were out of the game.. and with only tears to show
we realised we had missed the climax.. and had to go back to studying. We were too happy
destroying Sri-Lanka that we did not know how to beat Zimbabwe in 1999 .. something I would
compare to my own situation of solving complicated algebra equations with ease and yet
losing important points in my tenth boards for a minor addition mistake...Reaching
adolescence... we reached the final with the efforts of a leader as temperamental as
ourselves... only to be taught a hard lesson by life. And since then it has only been downhill
until after college we realised to walk on our feet.. to be adults.. and here we are knocking at
the doors of another world cup final.....
Pakistan other than being our arch enemy can also be compared to a middle class' arch
enemy - expectations.. and it is this battle that those 11 men in blue will be up against
tomorrow.. and lets hope they win...
For if they do.... it will be a day to remember. Not for me but for my entire
generation.....except.. there will be still one more game to play...
Ill be back then....
No comments:
Post a Comment