Yesterday was the International Men's Day (or so did my facebook feed tell me!) Many, especially women, had posted how the unfairer sex (!) needs to show more emotions - that boys may cry. By the evening of the day, their prescription was duly carried out, and how! As the Men in Blue wept on screen, the most populous nation (men included) joined them.
To be fair, they lucked out to a large extent. The way Virat Kohli played on was just tragic, especially when contrasted with similar thick inside edges by Australian batsmen in the initial overs. The ball did swing in those initial overs, and looked quite unplayable. The next caught behind (the most common mode of dismissal in the Indian innings), or even cleaned bowled dismissal looked just right around the corner, but never materialized! Then of course, there was that "Umpire's Call". As a side note, it is the most idiotic part of the whole cricketing system currently. The premise - the ball hitting the stumps partially - is quite weak. Had the ball actually hit the stumps partially, would it have been given out or not? Then again, even if there is a chance of error (which, with the current level of computing technology I would highly doubt), the assumption, that a human eye, with a single split second live view at full speed, would have made a better call of ball's future trajectory, is hilarious. Anyway, those rules were extant for everyone, so it can only called a luck out.
However, I feel the skipper would share a substantial burden of him not having retired with a World Cup - not because he played bad, but because he did not play as good as he could. While much has been said about the much vaunted Indian batting line up, there were just two really big-match players. One of them tried to anchor the innings together. He had almost managed it, but had an unlucky delivery played on to the stumps. The other gave the team a flying start, but then gifted his wicket as cheaply as he has done this whole tournament, except for the England match. Many would say, that is his style of play. That was his role. Well, roles change, and style is adapted, according to the occasion. We need not look further than our nemesis, Travis Head. Going into the final, Head had a higher tournament strike rate than our Hitman. However, when the Aussies were three down, he adapted his style of play for condolidation. At one occasion, he had an innings strike rate close to 50. He ended his innings with a century, a 100 plus strike rate, and, not the least, the World Cup! His initial batting was unnaturally slow, because that is what is expected in big matches, to change gears when needed. Once past his 50, his sixes came as easy as swatting a fly! Suddenly, the ground did not seem as large as the Hindi Commentary team had made it seem for the better part of the Indian innings.
On a similar note, one must speak about what many had been describing as a 'selfish' style of play being done by Virat Kohli. Only a mind overfed on T20 can come up with that concept. One Day Cricket still retains some aspects of Test Cricket - defending, consolidating, and playing the overs. In T20, statistically each wicket needs to last 2 overs only, and if only the top and middle order is taken, still no more than 4 or 5 overs are expected. ODI needs long innings, to ensure the full 50 overs are played out, and a substantial total is put on the board. Maybe Virat (or Sachin, back then) did go less than run a ball while playing long innings. Maybe that lost the team some 10 - 15 runs in the matches. However, that did not matter as much as the 60-70 runs that were "lost" due to the "selfless", yet much careless play by the Skipper. Unless he finds some miraculous way of staying on till 2027, that useless stroke would haunt him to the end of the days.
However, to be fair, he may have been relying on the impressive batting performance of his team mates in the matches prior. To be fair to his team mates, almost none of them, except maybe Rahul's 97 against Australia, were in a pressure situation, and even that was not a do or die match like this. As I must reiterate, sheer bad luck played a great part in the debacle. How one wished that Felix Felicis was real, and someone had given Team India a swig of it. Even a fake dose, the way Harry Potter gave it to Ron Weasley, would have done something by raising their confidence level! For this is a cricketing phenomenon which has come back from the brink - when Klusener had all but ended their campaign in 1999, they found it in themselves to run out two tailenders to reach the final they won. In 2003, New Zealand discovered the sting in the tail. More recently, Afghanistan had their heart broken after having them on the mat at 97 for 7. Team India was not even near those levels, as the 4 boundaries hit in the 40 overs testify!
Surely, more cricketing action is to follow. T20 series against the Aussies. Maybe in those matches Surya Kumar's bizarre batting action of backward slapping would fetch him good runs. However, even a whitewash there would hardly wash out the taste of this defeat.
To end on a lighter note, may be we need an MRTPC / Competition Commission in Cricket too. Since 1975, 13 ODI World Cups have taken place. 6 of them have been won by Australia, which is nearly half! May be the Australian National Team can be replaced by their Provincial / Territorial teams! It is not quite far-fetched an idea. When assorted Caribbean nations could play under a single banner, the West Indies, then the coincidence with a nation-state is not a strict requirement for an ICC event team. That might make it more possible for other teams to also try to win the World Cup! Although, there is a fair chance that any of these little Australias might also end up winning the Cup - remember that Ricky Ponting belongs to tiny Tasmania!
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