World Champions

I had always imagined what it would be like to win the world cup. After all, I had been supporting teams that had won football world cups earlier. So, I thought I knew. And then yesterday happened.

Watching the match with a few friends on a giant screen, I was being critical of every thing --- the choice of Sreesanth ahead of Ashwin, the field setting, giving Tendulkar and Kohli the ball for more than they were required to bowl. When Yuvraj was adamant about Dhoni going for a review on an LBW appeal, the difficulty of handling players like him was discussed. Consensus was reached that although the aggression in the youngsters had brought in some toughness in the team, although it had the potential of testing the opposition mentally, if not intimidate them, it had surely taken some toll on Dhoni, who seems to be graying at a rate comparable to that of Obama. The humility and diligence of Tendulkar, and the composure and simplicity of Dhoni acknowledged, we continued with the match. After seeing the way Jayawardena banished the ball to all parts of the boundary, the protective mindset, which had been responsible for all the criticism, was kicking in big time. "275 is a bit too much", I thought. "It is OK even if they loose, but they should score close to 250", I said. "They should give the Sri Lankans a run for their money."

When we started to bat, it was now the turn of the batsmen to be criticized. In came Sehwag and Tendulkar, for whom I have antipodal feelings. "The statistics people keep track of in ranking cricketers is incomplete", I declared. "If we were to consider the standard deviation of the scores of batsmen, a measure of inconsistency, Sehwag would be among those who have the largest standard deviation to mean ratio" I argued, leaving no doubt as to what I expected to see of Sehwag. And sure enough, not only did he get out, but he wasted a review with no thought, no hesitation, no consultation of the genius on the other side, no consideration of the importance of the occasion. "This guy thinks his wicket is more worthy than anything else. Perhaps someone needs to make him understand that each team gets only two reviews, and that you don't need to ask for a review simply because you have spoken in favour of the system earlier."

A few fluent boundaries from Tendulkar's bat lit the hopes of an unforgettable innings, immediately bringing back the memories of Sharjah 1998. "A big innings while chasing has not been a strength of Tendulkar, but that in no way brings down what he has been for the Indian team" I tried to justify. A combination of good bowling from Malinga and the tension in the air for India led to Tendulkar's downfall, and I was left disappointed. "Big players play on big occasions, right?" was the rhetorical question posed to me and all I could do was sit silent.

The aggression and the attitude of the youngsters in the team coupled with the amount of money brought into the game by IPL etc. makes me think that these guys are arrogant, they speak more and do less (of what they are supposed to do). And now there were two of them on the field --- Gambhir, whom I choose to call Gauti because he is called so by the rest of the team and because I think he is anything but गंभीर, and Kohli, who I hear is a typical Delhi youngster. "These guys have to play together until over #40" I say, almost thinking aloud, and like the commentators in the stadium, adding no information to what people already know. The way they built their partnership was surely nothing exceptional, just the sensible singles and twos and occasional boundaries, but they did silence the critiques, including me. When Kohli left, after a brilliant catch by Dilshan, I didn't care what sort of a personal life he had, for he seemed capable of doing his job and had done it fairly well then.

Then came the surprise. You are the captain of the Indian team, people have stoned your home in the past following a bad performance, you have not scored a fifty in the tournament so far, you have in Malinga and Murali two very good bowlers bowling at you, you have close to thirty overs to play, and you decide to walk to the field and take on the challenge. That was a big decision. And again, the two batsmen focus on getting singles and twos and build a good partnership quickly. Dhoni's presence in the middle was comforting in a way, for I knew that if I wanted someone to exude coolness and confidence during a tense situation, it had to be Dhoni. When Gauti threw his wicket away, I didn't care if his name was a misnomer, for he too seemed to have done his job. The partnership between Gauti and Dhoni was, in my opinion, the turning point of the match. They took what was close to a 40% chance to a 70% chance, with roughly 10 overs remaining, 6 wickets to spare and a little over a-run-a-ball required.

The hope that India would make it had always been there. But slowly and steadily, the confidence for letting go of the protective mindset and expressing the hope was building. Also building up was a whole plethora of superstitions amongst people in the room. "Shut the door before the over starts" shouted one friend. "I went out and Kohli got out" recollected another guy. One friend thought that the presence of me and another guy could prove to be ominous, since the rest of the guys had watched the matches against Australia and Pakistan in the exact same place and India had won. People wanted the commentators to stop jinxing the match by predicting various scenarios. Being surprised that Sangakkara was not sledging, when I proceeded to show people the video of him doing so I was asked to, essentially, "sit down and shut up". Such was the tension, such were the emotions.

And then Yuvraj, who had done his bit more often than not through the tournament and seemed in good touch, was only required to bat sensibly, and along with Dhoni, he did exactly that. When Dhoni hit what will be the biggest six of his life, there was joy. For once, the pleasure felt was that of a child in its smile (a la Neil Young). We cheered, we clapped. We saw the team in a frenzy, carrying the captain, coach and Tendulkar around the ground. Parading for the crowd. I was ecstatic, I couldn't speak. All I could do was stare at the screen. All the noise around me didn't seem to exist anymore.

And looking at everyone in the team dedicate the win to Tendulkar and the nation was a joy that is inexpressible. If anyone there deserved to be in a world cup winning team, it was Tendulkar. And the moment was perfect. Tendulkar, recently, has been the embodiment of perfection. He has been the closest anyone can get to perfection. Over the past few years, some of his innings have been so good that at times I have questioned whether I deserved to watch them --- a weird question, I know. But such has been his cricket of late. Watching him paraded around, in a state of bliss he was experiencing for the first time in his life, and all this happening at his home, in Mumbai. It was perfect.

And then it hit me. How much better it would have been if I were at home, in India. The crackers, the dancing, the processions. Savouring the moment with family and friends. For the first time, I missed home a lot. I missed my wingmates and friends from IIT. I missed India. I knew that had I shed some tears of joy and jumped and danced around being in the company of my close friends, that would be perfect. And that remained the one thing that disappointed me through the day.

Perhaps, this was patriotism kicking in. The feeling of belonging to a place, to a society, to a culture. The feeling of missing it when not present there. The feeling of longing to get back...

What yesterday was no other day can be!
Kudos to the Indian team!

Pakistan Zindabad!

For a country being torn apart by the demonic forces of terrorism, religious fundamentalism, namesake democracy, misbehaving army, a secret service infested by terrorist sympathisers, clashing internal forces and foreign pressure, Cricket could prove to be a hope for better days ahead.

I maintain that one of the prime reasons for Pakistan's failure thus far has been the inherent, and often unwarranted, suspicion on India, the failure to recognise the pragmatic polity that helps its own people while looking out for foreign threats, the hardcore ideological standpoint compromising the lives of thousands fueling the prospect of anarchy trapping the country.

The situation is therefore that the people have forgotten what it is to lead "normal" lives, enjoying with their families, with work. The people seem to have forgotten how to be peaceful watching movies, aspiring to be like the heroes they love, to fantasise having the good-looking girls adorning their television screens as their girls, to be famous musicians composing their way to glory, to be the cricketers who their country proud, who bring fame to their cities and towns. They have forgotten the days when the young boys in Peshawar were inspired by Shahid Afridi and not by the misleading mullahs of the Madrasas. When Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan captured the attention of its youngsters through his talent, making them want to embrace music and paint an indelible sketch of their culture.

This sudden and least expected surge by Pakistan to the finals of a top tournament could be a blessing in disguise. People now have a chance to see the actual way they can show the world the talent and the promise of Pakistan. They have a chance to realise that their ideological war of bringing the infidels to justice through Jihad has failed, and failed miserably, leaving them hurt more than anyone else. They have a chance to see that the world would respect and love a Pakistan that keeps its wars within the confines of international acceptance - to bringing into action a revolution to establishing a modern democracy (If Iran can do it, why can't they?), to the race to beat other countries in progress and growth, to the war against forces that tear apart their own society, to the fight against obstacles to the welfare of their own people, to eliminate the hindrances to a peaceful agreement between civil modernity and native ethnicity, traditions and faith, to the pitch on a cricket field and to the hockey fields.

Will we see that Pakistan soon? Will the Pakistanis learn from their mistakes?

PS : The title is inspired by a very well made documentary by Pascale Lamche.

Cricketism

With all the buzz about Harbhajan being a racist, Ponting being unsportsmanlike, the umpire's being incompetent, I'm left wondering whatever happened over the last two weeks... This is how I see it.

Harbhajan's comments - whether he's guilty or not (I saw two reports, one claiming that he is guilty, and the other that he's not!) - it's best if everyone just accepts ICC's judgment and continues with what each is supposed to be doing. It'll leave cricket less tarnished, ICC with some authority, BCCI with some shame. The only loss would be Harbhajan for three matches, which isn't much anyway! Three matches isn't a long time, especially considering that we already know the results of the next two matches, and more importantly, Harbhajan is no more the Turbanator he was in 1998.

Ponting's antics. How's that new? He's always been the fast-scoring batsman, the I'm-everywhere fielder who quite often pushes his luck on the field. He's always been the cunning mind under the baggy green. Why then this upsurge this time around?

Coming to the umpires. When have the umpires been right throughout a match? I believe umpires are biased coins with a probability of correct decision roughly 0.8, but that doesn't make a sequence of 10 roughly consecutive wrong decisions impossible. Improbable, yes. But, definitely not impossible, especially given the number of matches being played these days. Why all the hue and cry about Bucknor and Benson then?

The more I think about it, the more I feel that it is the continuing dominance of the Australian Cricket team that has made the difference this time. An Aussie victory, and an Aussie whitewash have become so common, that people have started to question other irrelevant trivialities of their games. It makes sense of the Aussie media, the Australians in general, to question these nuances in view of improving their game. But, when Indians do so, it's just a blame game. Much has been said about 'playing the game in the spirit of the game'. But, how many times have you seen an Indian walk when he's been judged not-out, and he's known he was out? Ironically, the only person I've seen doing that has been Adam Gilchrist!

This is just cricket being cricket...