A Cricketified Soul

10/07/2019

Today I felt something. I felt pain,agony,anger,adrenaline rush and all of a sudden, a sense of calmness and all this at the same time. it was not because of something personal or because of a touching movie. These emotions came up on watching a cricket match.

Billions of fans across the globe would have been left speechless. We had our hearts in our mouths for almost 49 overs. All the prayers and helluva lot of support, all in vain, and all going down at one moment.

Today i understood something. A weapon, which can make you go a long way. One which could make you stay afloat when the entire ship is sinking and one which could break your heart all of a sudden. HOPE.

Hope can do wonders. The sight of Rohit Sharma showing Ravi Jadeja that “you can take the team over the line”, is one which arose out of hope. Even when the strong Indian top order failed, fans had a hope that something would happen,there will be someone. And yes, there was. It came in the form of Dhoni and Jadeja. A new hope was set up and so were the adrenaline in the bodies of each true cricket fan.

People say the journey to the world cup final is a long way. But today it was just the matter of 5cms. Think about it, 5cms decided whether New Zealand goes through to the final or not. A flick of brilliance from Guptill, a direct hit and the world’s best finisher run out; falling short by 5cm(maybe even less).

Its not the first time Indian cricket fans has faced such agony. The semifinal loss in 1996 world cup to Srilanka at Kolkata ignited the crowd, who in turn threw bottles and waste at the lankan outfielders and a huge fire was seen building up at the Eden. Clive Lloyd(match referee) was forced to call off play due to this. A sudden collapse to 120 odd for 8 and that was it. Another heart break came in the final of 2003 world cup when we lost to Australia. Sachin Tendulkar, who was the player of the tournament, was left shattered and so were millions of Indian dreams. The Aussies were our counterparts in the 2015 semis which we lost.

Today was even more bitter for me personally as (1)I saw the entire match and felt part of each and every emotion involved and (2)we fought and lost. In both the other cases we never had the upper hand. But that was not the case today. All these 4 came while we were batting second and it was at the biggest stage of cricket. The world cup.

“Cricket is a game of margins” they say and today we were at the wrong end. Although I have watched tons of cricket matches, this was the first time I felt so low after a match.

Maybe this was not meant for us. Rohit with his 5 centuries, Virat’s 5 consecutive fifties, Bumrah with the ball, Shami’s hattrick, Jadeja in the field and Dhoni’s last world cup. I really felt the cup was ours for the taking; so might have billions of other cricket fans.

Signing off

A TRUE CRICKET FAN