2nd April, 2011

So at last we won the Cup!

Although I never played cricket in my life, but it does run in my blood like in rest of the people of this country. I began watching cricket with father and Dustu when I was seven or eight years old and during my adolescent years, while I was trying to fathom my surroundings, I started talking cricket too. I watched India defeating West Indies in Hero Cup in 1993, Sachin smashing Warne in Sharjah in 98,  Sri Lanka taking away the 96 World Cup semi-final match from us at Eden Gardens after the crowd set fire with the stands. I watched alone Test matches with eagerness. The last match I watched with tremendous enthusiasm was Twenty20 World Cup in 2007 in a classroom in Lucknow. That was the last time I watched cricket seriously and later on I lost interest primarily because I did not have a TV to enjoy a cricket match.

During all these years of falling in and out of love for cricket,  I never really experienced or witnessed such a state of frenzy like the one last Saturday. DJ did not watch the first twenty overs of Indian batting, less the wickets fall. I was holding on to my chair when Sachin and Sehwag got out, while nibbling at a cake and sipping tea, sometimes consoling myself that after all, it’s just a game. When there were only seven runs needed out of 14 balls, I started jumping and tasting our victory while DJ continued sitting still on his chair till Dhoni hit the perfect shot.

The nature of Indian cricket is changed over the last fifteen years and we realised this last Saturday when the middle-order did not break down but courageously took up the responsibility of winning a presumably lost match from a very well-performed and balanced team. We bowled ordinary but outperformed the Lankans on the whole and won the World Cup. I witnessed our players jumping at the joy of success and embracing each other, wiping away their happy tears, making a round of the Wankhede stadium with Sachin on their shoulders and finally holding the trophy and posing for the camera, all too elated to express their happiness.

I hid my tears under my happy-self as we set out to celebrate the victory on the streets with my fellow citizens. My neighbours and I congratulated each other and they too wanted be on the streets. We walked as bikers and cars zipped along the streets with full noise and flying high the Indian flag.  As we reached the market, it was a spectacle to be watched and experienced. A human sea is on the road, not being able to decide how to celebrate the victory, dancing, jumping, congratulating each other, applauding the team's efforts, embracing everyone whoever comes in the way and feeling proud of THE win. Yes, we did it! Like our players, we too were intoxicated with the win, so much so that we didn't know how to react to this immense happiness that was simply caught arrested on our faces and in gestures. Never before we all as a country was so much delighted and jubilant than this. The wait of all these years turned out be a serious pursuit of happyness! 

It was probably the taste of one slice of freedom that we missed in 1947. When India won the 1983 World Cup, most of us weren't there on this earth to celebrate the victory. But this was our time. And we rewrote our history.

Down the road, this win and Dhoni's innings tell something more than just cricket. For me, they will motivate me and push me beyond my limits in accomplishing quite a few things in my life!