Champions again...

It is not a national sport, and yet it is equated to religion. It has not brought us any gold medals, but it still remains the national pastime. Cricket!

My dear friend, Saumitra Bhaumik, has jotten down his experience of watching the finals. Read it to get a feel of what it meant for Indians! Of course, only those who love the sport madly!!

Here goes...

Only thing I still remember about the year 1983 (I was 12 years then) is one date - 25^th June. For two reasons.

My elder brother’s 10^th standard board exam results were announced on that day. Late afternoon on that hot summer day at Udaipur, a small, sleepy town in a very small and lesser known north-eastern state, Tripura (many of you may have only heard of Agartala which is its state capital), when the board exam results were announced in the evening (& also read out during the News in a local Bengali Radio Channel), we were over the moon. My big brother had secured a place among the top ten students in the state.

The same night, another important event took place that changed the history of Indian sports – Kapil’s devils beat the mighty West Indies to win the ODI World-Cup. Again, live commentary (in Hindi & English, alternately) in radio was the only source of information & updates for us. At about 12 (mid-night), we heard a loud noise from the radio set (an old model from Philips, which was almost as big as a modern-day 14” TV) followed by a high pitched scream from the commentator: “: … and India are now the World Champions ….”.

That one event and the publicity Indian cricket & its cricketers got following that historical win changed many a lives, especially of young Indian kids (like me) growing up in various parts of this country searching for real life heroes and their great success stories. We had found a sport where we could be world beaters and a bunch of sporting heroes.

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Two years later, in 1985 (don’t remember the exact date), India won the B&H Mini World Cup in Australia. This time me & my big brother watched the match live in TV. We had to go to our aunty’s house. Their tenant (a professor; those days along with Central Govt. employees, professors were among the more affluent professionals, in the absence of IT which didn’t exist in 80s) had a B&W TV.

Many Indians, who watched that Final match, played between India & Pakistan, would still remember:

• That great opening spell from Kapildev (took 3 wickets)
• A great middle-of-the-innings bowling spell from the magical leggie L. Sivaramakrishnan (took 3 wickets)
• That great direct-throw-to-one-stamp run-out effected by Gavaskar to send Imran Khan back to the pavilion
• The contrasting yet effective opening innings from Srikanth & Shastri
• And most of all the entire Indian team trying to get inside the Audi car that was presented to Shastri, who was adjudged ‘Champion of Champions’ (same as ‘Player of the Tournament’).

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Twenty two years later, another piece of history was created, by another young Indian team on 24^th September, 2007. This time I watched the match in my place (Knightsbridge, Bangalore). Some of my very special friends (Vineet, Paresh, Ravi Gaur, Subhadip, Vivek, Tahir-uncle) from the same apartment complex where I now live, joined me for the last few overs of the match. India had the upper hand then, with Pakis down with 6 wickets and needing more than 11 runs per over to win the match. But the match almost turned on its head when Bhajji was hit for 19 runs in the 16^th over. Pakis kept losing wickets (one wicket each in 17^th, 18^th & 19^th over, bowled by Sreesanth, Pathan and RP Singh), but kept scoring enough runs to keep their hope alive till the last over. They needed 13 off the last 6 balls with just one wicket in hand. Joginder Sharma bowled that all important last over. 1^st ball was a wide (equation: 12 needed off 6 balls), next one was almost a wide but a dot ball (equation: 12 off 5), next one a full toss hit for a six by Misbah (equation: only 6 needed off 4 balls). All 7 of us watching the final moments of the Final, gave up hope. We all thought we had lost. Except one guy (Vineet). As Pakis kept losing wickets and still kept hitting sixes after sixes, the rest of us were screaming on top of our voice in one moment – clapping, jumping up and down, cheering after every wicket and every dot ball; and cursing the Indian bowlers the next moment. Vineet kept shouting – ‘Chak De India’ after almost every ball (irrespective of whether it was hit for six or got a wicket). After that Six in the final over, we all had fallen silent, but Vineet still managed to continue shouting the same ‘Chak De India’.

And ‘Chak De’ (I believe it means ‘Show them’/ ‘Surprise them’) India did … In the very next ball, Misbah, trying to play that intelligent scoop behind the stumps to beat the fine leg (stationed inside the 30-yard circle), gave his wicket away and … after 22 long years, we were the World Champions, again!

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For the statistically inclined, below is the statistics for the last 5 overs, no. of balls remaining versus no. of runs required (for Pakistan to win the World Cup, which was ours from the moment we beat them in the bowl-out in the 1^st round match) at the beginning of each over till the last one.

30 – 59

24 – 54

18 – 35

12 – 20

6 – 13

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While India had a brilliant run between 1983 and 1985, winning almost every international ODI tournaments and quite a few ODI series, the period between 1985 and 2007 was a mixed bag. Our team flattered to deceive in most of the important matches. We had a few good wins, but many heart-breaking losses. Five ODI world cups took place during this period – 1987 (India & Pakistan), 1992 (Australia), 1996 (India, Pakistan & Srilanka), 1999 (England) & 2003 (South Africa). We made only one appearance in a World Cup Final during this period, in 2003 (incidentally that was also in SA) and were massacred (can’t think of a better word to describe that loss) by Australia. We reached two semi-finals, in 1987 and in 1996 (both times at home) world cups, lost both badly. While we did win a few not-so-big tournaments (Hero Cup, Asia Cup, NatWest trophy in 2002-03, ..) during the same period, we had also lost many a final (losing to New Zealand in the ICC Champions trophy final was the most notable & disappointing one among all those) plus a few very important matches in world cups. I still remember the match against the Australians in the 1992 world cup - we had to score 3 runs in the last ball of the match with Srinath on strike and failed. After the last ball loss, I couldn’t control my emotions/disappointment and had hit the window glass inside the hostel’s TV room (in REC/NIT, Trichy) with my fist. Only a few minutes later I had realized how badly I had hurt myself. I needed stitches. But those didn’t pain as much as the last ball loss did.

When we were thrown out of this year’s World Cup in West Indies in the 1^st round itself, after losing to Bangladesh (& Srilanka), Indian cricket appeared to be headed towards the same down-slide as our National Hockey team.

Many of my friends, colleagues and class mates, most of them die-hard cricket fans like me, had actually stopped watching cricket regularly after that shameful world cup exit early this year.

But that was till 22^nd September. Once Dhoni’s boys beat the mighty Australians in the T20 semi-final on that night, everything was back to how it was 22 years back – India playing a world cup final against Pakistan (again) and playing as favourites to win the world championship.

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Many of our parents/elders remember the partition in 1947 (& the riots that followed after that) as a very painful event. You now have people, who speak the same language (Bengali) but live across the (India-Bangladesh) border with different nationalities (and indulge in activities that harm each other’s country). The same must be true with Punjabis & Kashmiris. When we were small kids, we used to wonder how nice it would have been if we had Imran, Sunny, Kapil, Akram playing for the same team. When Bangladesh started beating us and the Pakistanis and the Australians – we had wondered, how nice it would have been to have Sachin and Ganguly and Ashraful and Aftab and Afridi and Yuvraj and and Shewag and Yousuf - along with – Shoaib and Zaheer and RP and Asif and Mortaza and Gul – playing for the same team – and giving a good fight to the mighty Australians, who looked almost unbeatable (till the T20 world cup).

After the T20 world cup (where all 4 sub-continental teams reached the 2^nd round and two of them made it a sub-continental clash in the Final), we now think – it is good to have 4 teams from the Indian sub-continent. Some day, it is possible, at least theoretically, to have all 4 of them completing the semis line up in a world cup ….

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Coming back to India’s T20 victory, there were too many stars in this ‘world-beater’ young Indian team to be able to single out just one or two. Yuvraj & Gambhir & Dhoni & Shewag & Utthappa & Rohit Sharma – all of them have played at least one match winning knock. RP Singh, Sreesanth, Pathan, Bhajji & (last but not the least) Joginder Sharma – all of them have bowled at least one match winning spell. In this tournament.

Watching so many real life heroes representing India and winning the world cup, you tend to acknowledge – 22 years for a world cup victory, it was worth the wait.

Some of these young players will go on to play for India and become superstars, while some may fade away. We may soon see India winning another World Cup (with three titles - Test, ODI & T20 up for grab, it is not very unlikely). Or we may not ever get to see another such world cup victory in our lifetime. It does not matter, at least for now.

After having lived through these 22 long years and watching India lose those important matches in last 6 world cups and after almost having given up all hope of witnessing another great Indian show in a cricket world cup, we consider ourselves lucky to have survived to witness another world cup victory. In one lifetime, one World Cup Victory is good enough – to cherish, to gossip, to feel good about. And most of us have already witnessed more than one. We don’t mind living (and waiting for) another 22 years though … to witness another ‘Chak De India’ … LIVE …

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Unlike most other long stories and articles this one doesn’t really have a moral, it is all about history (and events) of a particular period (1983 to 2007), and how those have impacted our lives; all around one stupid game, that remains the most popular sport in our country even after so many heart-breaking losses (and a few spectacular wins, like the one we saw yesterday).

Or maybe there is a moral, even in this long history.

Youth with bravery/ passion/ determination/ fearlessness never lose.

That is the feeling every cricket lover got while watching two very young sides fighting it out in yesterday’s Final. Pakistan (& Misbah-ul-Haq, a Paki youngster making a comeback to the national team, replacing Yousuf Youhana) did not lose yesterday. It’s just that only one team could win and this time it was India. Maybe the Pakistanis’ will also have to wait for 22 years since their last world cup victory (that came in 1992) to win another world cup final. But despite not being a big fan of Pakistan (the country), one had to feel for the Pakistanis yesterday. They came so close. And they probably were the best bowling side in this tournament. If you can restrict Dhonis and Yuvrajs and Utthappas from hitting fours and sixes, you must be a great bowling side. Even the Australians would agree. We (Indians) also agree. But we may want to add – we were the best all-round team and the deserving winners.