On Cricket

This is a long article, about growing up with Cricket. It is interspersed with Video Links to Cricketing Moments. Savour those moments! 

Let's begin with something that needs to be said. There have been many football anthems - but none like Shakira's Waka Waka, and there have been many cricket anthems, but none like Adnan Sami's Aah Yeah Oh. I still listen to it on important match days. It brings to mind the much remembered 2003 World Cup campaign of India, together with that tragic final, where Ricky Ponting ended the match within the first 40 overs itself. As someone who is still to recover from Ponting's assault in 2003 final, I would have preferred South Africa in the final facing India. I hope Rohit Sharma and Co. are not as diffident about the team's prospects as I become whenever team India plays Australia in important ICC matches! 

My earliest memories of Cricket must be from the time South Africa were welcomed into the cricket playing world again. I do not remember the scores, nor the context. I just recall wondering how lonely the batsmen must feel (as there were only two of them in a sea of fielders!) I remember the green jerseys and the blue jerseys. (i think this was after the World Cup). Or maybe it was some Sharjah based India Pakistan match - with the rousing chant of jeetega bhai jeetega echoing. I do recall seeing one of the initial matches of Sachin Tendulkar. Of course I knew Kapil Dev, and through him, Sachin (Boost is the secret of our energy!)

I recall that I watched the 1992 World Cup. Watched without any inkling of what was happening. Cricket happens to be a rather complicated game - while other games have rules, Cricket has laws! I remember that because that was the first time I heard the name "Zimbabwe", and to my juvenile mind, it sounded rather funny. Of course I recall watching the final, again absolutely innocent of any understanding. It was just a curious thing that England were playing Pakistan! I was just learning about the freedom struggle in very black and white terms, and well, the English were in my mind the absolute Evil. Pakistanis, on the other hand, were the arch-enemies (another thing I had learned very recently). So when two enemies fight, whom do you root for? Since I was yet to understand the game play anyway, I just watched on without rooting. When the Pakistanis won, I rather enjoyed their jubilations. I felt one of them looked like my younger mama ji! (I recently replayed the scene - God bless Youtube - it was, I kid you not, a young Inzamam ul Haq!) Maybe that's why I was satisfied with the result - at least they looked like us!

I joined my boarding school, Oak Grove, in 1994. It was somewhere around that that Kapil Dev had broken Sir Richard Hadlee's record of highest wickets. It was to be a short lived record. However, I recall my folks hearing it on the radio (yeah, the power cut used to be days long back then in UP), and I just understood that Kapil Dev was officially the best cricketer in the world! Of course, I still did not know anything about how Cricket was played. Although we, in small railway colony of Chandauli Majhwar railway station, had started playing "bat-ball" by then.

My real education in cricket began in 1996, two years into the boarding school life. The Wills World Cup was on, and I was rather aloof of it. Anyway, it was a regimented boarding school life, and what and when we watched on the TV was regulated. I recall that on a Second Saturday (or some non Sunday holiday), there was much debate between getting afternoon playtime and watching India play West Indies. The playtime faction won by a thin margin, and I was glad, since I had just discovered that my transparent acrylic ruler worked as a prism, and could cast rainbows in the sunlight! I enjoyed casting rainbows on walls for three hours in preference to watching what was surely a top class match (which India did win). Then, we had "that" match. The Bangalore (it was not Bengaluru yet) quarter final. It did not happen live for me. I remember a substantial crowd gathered around the Mistress on Duty (a boarding school quirk), who had brought out her small transistor radio. I remember them celebrating two sixes hit by one Ajay Jadeja. Then playtime ended and we went back to study, sup and sleep. There was some late night ruckus about some win. 

The next day was a holiday. We were trooped into the TV room after breakfast. I expected it was to watch Chandrakanta or something. However, it was the highlights of the last evening's match. The crowd beside me went mad. I could begin to see why. I think no one from that era can not know about the famous Amir Sohail - Venkatesh Prasad duel. It was a high scoring match for that era, and India had come out on top. The crowd could not wait for the semifinals, and that enthusiasm rubbed on me too. Well, the semifinal did come. We watched it live. We did miss the first half of the Lankan innings (as our classes ran till 345, and tea time for the next 30 mins - no compromise on the boarding school routine). We came in when Mahanama retired hurt. The Jayasuriya - Kaluwithrana pair was already gone, they said, and the match was already ours. Still, their middle order persevered to post a competitive total. When India started, Sidhu was out early. However, The Sachin Tendulkar was still on. He was playing well. It all looked good, until Jayasuriya struck with the ball, and Kaluwithrana with the big gloves! A number of replays by the TV umpire could not help us escape the reality. Sachin was stumped out! Anyway, he had done his job, and we still had the heroes of Bangalore to count upon. We had the skipper Azharuddin. Who just returned a simple catch to the bowler! It was then that the shit really hit the fan. Wickets fell like nine pin. It felt like a team of schoolboys, not the national team representing 85 crore persons! Our teachers could not take it anymore and we were herded to the dorms. No one on the staff was listening to the radio too. So we slept praying for a miracle. Well, it did transpire that India did not actually lose the game - technically it was awarded to the Lankans, after the crowd hooliganism in the city of bhadra-lok. We were really pissed at the Lankans, and rooted heavily for the Australians in the Final at Lahore. Unfortunately, even the mighty Australia could not exact our revenge for us. I remember breaking and throwing away my pen (the cheaper one) in frustration.

However, the world cup really got me into following Cricket. I, and my friend Saqib, started a thing called Indoor cricket. It was simple. A rectangular chad of paper was carved out on three sides on the card board at the end of a notebook, connected to the main board at one short end of the rectangle. On this little rectangle, from the left hand bottom corner (viewer's left hand) to the middle of right hand side of the rectangle, we drew a bat. The portion above it was marked with (the visible part of) the wicket. In the right hand corner, the right triangle space below the bat was divided into two by a line bisecting the base of the triangle. The bigger trapezium was marked LB, the smaller triangle as RH. In front of this wicket cum bat cum pad, on the base paper, we drew a pitch, with the bowlers mark. We marked the fielders and wicketkeeper at the appropriate locations. Fielders had a small central circle and a larger concentric circle. Game play was simple. We rolled a miniscule paper ball between fingers and placed it on the bowlers mark, and flicked it with the middle finger the way a carrom striker is hit. The ball could hit the chad on the wicket (bowled), on the bat (shot), on the trapezium (LBW) or the triangle (retired hurt!) The shot could land directly in the fielder's bigger circle or roll and stop on the fielder's smaller circle - caught out. If it rolled into a fielder's larger circle it was deemed fielded, and runs were awarded on how far the fielder was. We had not figured out run outs and stumpings per se. Boundaries were as they would be in real life - roll over for a four, and hit out for a six. It was really a surprise how two of the top students of the class were thus wasting away the prep time, and some times even live classes thus!

Cricket carried on though. That Dussehra, we had the Titan Cup, comprising Australia, and South Africa, and a very innocuous looking India led by Sachin Tendulkar. India teetered on the brink in every match, but somehow won the final after defeating South Africa. Then came 1997. That was the year which was particularly traumatic to the cricket fan in me. We had recently been promoted to the Senior Boys School. Compared to the cozy aquarium we led as a life in Junior School, it was a shark tank in there, with us Class VI persons as the lowliest of minnows. In the common room, the Class XII or XI guys sat on the wooden backed bench facing the tiny Electronics Corporation TV. Two benches on each sides were occupied by the lesser mortals of X or IX, who also occupied the "stall seats" on the floor ahead. The others made do with standing behind these dignitaries. In some important matches, some cupboards aligned against the walls were also moved and put up behind the main bench to afford more viewing spaces. However, those were not for us Class VI-ers. How I wished for a small TV, the size of a transistor radio, where we could watch the match unimpeded! We were mostly running errands for the seniors, bringing their water, their snacks, their messages, their fielding service (if someone got enthused enough to go out and bat himself) and every other kind of valet stuff. Still, in between, we tried to perch on window sills, or climb up the steel reinforcement precariously - just to watch poor Indian team get thrashed by all and sundry - Zimbabwe included. Back then we had played very competitive cricket against them. Srinath was out, and even Prasad was out for some time, and we saw exotic names like Abey Kuruvilla, Debasis Mohanty, Rajesh Chauhan and some more! Wow. In these very days Lankans had made 900+ score against India in a Test match.

1998 was Sachin Tendulkar's Annus Mirabilis. I don't recall why he did not do much in 1997.  It began with the Bangladesh Independence Cup, where India chased a 300+ target in the third final, and made Hrishikesh Kanitkar a household name. Sachin played some good innings there. That was January. Then when we returned to school in February, Australia's tour of India began. That was when Shane Warne (RIP!) famously commented that Sachin Tendulkar was the stuff of his nightmares. Sachin getting better of the Aussies continued that summer to Sharjah, where in the Coca Cola Cup, he hit two back to back centuries. The 143 in the first match, now famous as the Desert Storm (the match was literally suspended for a period due to an actual desert storm) got India into the final by edging out NZ over Net Run Rate. In the next one, the 134, on his birthday, ensured India won the trophy. By August of the year I recall, he had equalled, and then bettered the World Record for ODI centuries, till then held by Desmond Haynes. Over his career he scored almost thrice that number. That record was broken just 3 days back, after a quarter of a century. Just let that sink in. A quarter of a century. Full 25 years. In those days, it was Sachin, and then no one. If Sachin played well, India almost won. As soon as he got out, things went south. There was that test match against Pakistan in Chennai in 1999 that is an evidence to this. 

1999 World Cup was a tepid affair for India. I recall it more for the "Brittania Khao, World Cup Jaao" campaign which saw us spend a lot to buy Brittania products (or scour the bushes for a discarded wrapper with the "runs" intact). No, we did not really expect to go to the World Cup. However, each 100 run entry was rewarded with a small pocket book, which detailed the history of one of the six world cups held prior to this one. It was how I learnt about the first four World Cups, their winners, their heroes and timelines. In those pre-internet days, this was a treasure of information. On the field though, it was a pathetic affair. Sachin lost his father and had to miss matches. India lost to Zimbabwe in the group stage in a match aptly called "The Disgrace at Grace Road" by the Sportstar Magazine. Henry Olonga, recall anyone? We did see Sachin battle up a century in the next match, and then Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid making tandem centuries against the hapless Lankans in Taunton. Of course, how can one forget the victory over Pakistan, at the height of the Kargil War. However, a timid defeat to New Zealand ended the World Cup campaign. Australia won after thrashing Pakistan comprehensively. They had come to the finals by a whisker. First Herschel Gibbs famously dropped that catch in the Super Six. Then in the semifinals, Lance Klusener had almost single-handedly won the match for South Africa. However in the penultimate ball, a mixup ensured that Donald was run out, and the match was tied. The super six winners, Australia just squeezed into the final. It was just the start of their ascendency. The sad face of Hansie Cronje in the dressing room is a haunting memory.

There was much sadness still to come for Cronje. The very next year he was named in the match fixing scandal that shook the cricket world and ended many careers, his included. Other notables were skipper Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. Even the great Kapil Dev was not spared the allegations. However, that proved to be a case of creation from destruction. A younger team, led by Dada Saurav Ganguly started emerging. This was a much more confident lot. Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Zahir Khan, Harbhajan Singh - just to name a few. They did not take things lying down. The bare chested Dada waving his T-Shirt from the Lord's balcony was an iconic moment of this era. It was this team that, after struggling a bit in the start, rang up 8 consecutive wins in the 2003 World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar was on a roll - that pulled six off Andrew Caddick, that sliced six over the third man off Shoaib Akhtar, the fastest bowler recorded ever - those are the happy memories. However on that crucial Sunday, when I incidentally was the Prefect-on-Duty (another boarding school quirk), after that murderous innings by Ponting, Sachin fell cheaply to Glenn Mc Grath. If it was not over before the innings even began, it was truly over now. A valiant fight by Sehwag was futile. The loss was comprehensive, the trauma permanent, which is why I am still wary of this Sunday's match. 

In times that followed, we had a series of India Pakistan bilaterals. The diplomatic relations then were surprisingly cordial. Teams and spectators were welcomed by the residents of the other country. In movies, we had the silly Main Hoon Na running hit, and Lakshya had to market itself on the "Main Aesa Kyon Hoon" angle instead, and failed at the box office! In this period only, we discovered MSD. Of course, there is a whole movie dedicated to him.

2007 World Cup was a disaster, both for India and for itself! The self styled Guru Greg (coach Greg Chappel) rubbed the Indian  superstars the wrong way, and they let their displeasure be known. A flawed format resulted in a situation where a single upset could write off a good team. It happened with India, and it happened with Pakistan. Both teams were out in the first stage itself. Before that India did make a 400+ score, but this was after the famous Australia South Africa 400 each match, and not that much of a novelty. It unceremoniously ended the captaincy of Rahul Dravid. Pakistan coach, Bob Woolmer lost his life itself! The tournament itself dragged on for months after, pointlessly, eventually ending in an Aussie victory. The West Indies never quite seemed to recover after hosting that one. 

This was to be another Phoenix like moment. The first T20 World Cup was played that very year. India, after an initial traditional disdain for anything new, took to the format like fish to water. Then we had the match against England, where Yuvraj Singh hit a clueless Stuart Broad for 6 6s in an over. It is said that Andrew Flintoff had riled him up before that. Then of course, it set out for an India Pakistan final. India remained in the driving seat for most of the match, when, near the end, a miraculous onslaught by Misbah ul Haq almost snatched the match away from India. Anyway, a final cheeky shot by him was caught and India won the inaugural T20 World Cup, the first Laurel for the new Captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. India now liked this new format so much that the richest cricket league in the World, the IPL was born the next year.

In the run up to 2011 I only recall the 200 not out made by Sachin Tendulkar against South Africa. It was the first double century in the ODI format. Maybe I was not stable in that period. School had ended in 2004, and Engineering too had ended in 2008. Two years of MBA, amidst the global recession, and then a job as a railway trainee officer with a lot of moving around almost everyday, did not make it very conducive to watch cricket. 2011 I was still the railway probationer. We followed some matches in Railway Staff College Vadodara. Some matches I followed at home. Maybe we had inveigled a training close to home. I recall watching the Pakistan and the Australia wins at home. The final, however, was played on a very significant day. It was played on the day I had my UPSC interview of my second CSE attempt. My interview board was headed by an ex UP cadre IAS officer, who had held the post of Chief Secretary, sans any powers associated with that post, and hence had resigned in disgust. I had really drawn the short stick that day! While he took my interview apart, venting his frustration at life, universe and everything, his co-panelists simply watched the Lankan innings on the TV on the wall behind me! Yeah. They just nodded at the answers, visibly irritated having to do interviews on such a crucial day! I came out with 127 / 300 (I had 180 in the previous, and 195 in the next attempt). Team India did much better. Back at the Railway Probationers' Rest House (PRH) at State Entry Road, New Delhi, I followed the daunting run chase. The final six lofted by the Dhoni is also another photographic memory for those living then.

Soon after, Sachin Tendulkar retired, and was awarded the Bharat Ratna. This is what I wrote on that momentous occasion - "Many may not concur with the propriety of the award, for many reasons - statistics ("so and so had a better average") , utilitarian ("people are still starving"), ideological ("so what - he just swung about this piece of wood!") or the plain urge to 'stand out of the crowd'. For us 90's kids, however - who grew up when there was no 'BRICS', no 'IT boom', no 'superpower dreams', no Chandrayaan or Mangalyaan - there was just one contemporary Indian 'product', that made us feel proud. India of today may not really appreciate what India of the 90's felt about this great man in a little body. Farewell, Master Blaster. Thanks for the memories; thanks for making the 90's liveable!" Somehow, after that day, I stopped following cricket. As in the mundane bilateral and trilateral series. Somehow, without Sachin, it did not feel right. Again, as pointed out, as a nation now we had much more to celebrate instead of mere cricketing achievement. Personally too, I had struck out a life for me where the fortunes of the national cricket team did not constitute any significant requirement for my self worth.

Still I made exceptions for the World Cups. 2015 we had the famous mauka mauka ad. It was, and still remains, hilarious. India had won consecutively, and the ads had adapted the same way, for each opposition. They had even made a longish version for an India v New Zealand Final! Unfortunately, Australia happened to India once more. The only highlight of that match was Dhoni leading a futile late charge. 

2019, the year of my first District charge, saw a similar story. A run till the semis. This time we actually got New Zealand, our missed rival for the previous finals. Again it was left to Dhoni to do the hard work in the end. It looked as if he would steer the team to a hard fought win when a freak direct hit ended his innings and India's chance. The Cup was won by England, their first final after 1992, and their first World Cup after inventing the game itself! That it was won by a farcical rule takes nothing from an absolute nail biter of a final.

So, like I said, I still follow the World Cups. This year I was late in that too, as in I missed the India Australia fixture! They had advertised the Pakistan game at Ahmedabad so much that I somehow thought that was to be the first game. I followed that one and was gratified by the mauka mauka being denied again! I was back to my non cricket watching life. Then all of a sudden, Afghanistan beat the technical World Champions, and the Netherlands took down the mighty Africans. In most World Cups I followed, the group stage was merely about eliminating the minnows, barring an upset. This time though, all teams had to fight for those 4 spots, and even good teams could be left behind to fight for the consolation prize of qualifying for the Champions Trophy. So it became a proper "Hunger Games" scenario. Moreover Disney Hotstar had put all the matches on its mobile app for free. That meant matches could be followed anywhere - late lunchtime, commute, or even that boring meeting! Other than India, I really enjoyed watching Afghanistan. Playing under an old flag, but earning the respect of the new one too (Taliban tweeted in favour of the team after they upended Pakistan), battling uncertainty, and poor expectations, they turned up with a rather impressive batting and bowling performance. The fielding would need drastic improvement though, and that is a very high end sports fitness domain that would take time to come to them. They defeated three former World Champions, and came within sniffing distance of the fourth, when Glen Maxwell happened to them (to be honest, they dropped a very easy catch off him - what did I say about the fielding). That was easily the best ODI batting innings in history. 

Coming back to team India, the team this time looks much better. Batting has depth, and the skipper has been able to afford to gift away his wicket needlessly in almost all matches, and there has always been someone present to take charge. He does set up a 10 RPO tempo to begin with, though. Then Virat Kohli is surely in one of his better phases, and has the limelight washing over him. Rest are the names I have heard (and faces seen) for the first time, but all are good enough to carry the team on a day or the other. Call it the IPL effect, but the league has made the selection competitive, instead of nepotism riddled the way it was in the 90s. Franchises scout for real talent, and the public watches them (unlike the more official domestic features like Ranji Trophy), and questions the management if any deserving player is left out. It has given India its bench strength, but also spurred Afghanistan, whose leading players have participated in the league. The bench strength is also helping the other end of the line up. For the first time in my living memory, India has a pace trio, who are fearsome, fast, and quite unplayable! Earlier we had Zahir Khan in the 2003 campaign, but he was largely alone in his class. The bowlers being good is actually a better option technically, as the bowler needs one good ball to do his work, while the batsman needs overs. Again, a batsman's mistake is usually the final one in the innings, while the bowler can get punished and return with a wicket taker in the next ball! That being said, there are some causes to worry. In the last two games, the bowlers have let the opposition make much more runs than they did initially in the tournament. Even Shami's 7 for was mostly tailenders and desperate shots for chasing an impossible target. We were lucky that the batsmen did deliver in all those matches. Maybe the pitches were too much loaded in favour of batsmen.

 Statistically, India would be the favourites going into the final - matching current team strengths. However, cricket is a game of uncertainties - remember Australia had a 6% chance of winning the Afghanistan match, when the seventh wicket went down! Plus, more than the team itself, we are going against the Australian legacy. This World Cup would still take a lot of efforts, and dollops of luck, winning. We can just wish our team the best, and remember, that in the end, it is just a game.