Team India Badhai ho Badhai!!!

When I am writing this blog, the Pak team must have been dropped at the Wagha border by one of our Tata mini buses and from there, the Pak players must be on the way to their homes either walking or on horse/bullock cart. Home Sweet Home for all of them.

Back to last night’s game, what an exciting, nail biting and emotionally draining the game was. Out of my own nervousness, I must have consumed hundreds of extra calories through chips, biscuits, soda etc. But that is not an issue and I can/will do extra workout to burn the additional intake of calories.

What a terrific game it was with each player chipping in their own way. It is rare to witness Team India excelling in all 3 aspects of cricketing, batting, bowling and fielding. But yesterday was that rare event. Our confidence was higher and our demeanor was better than our opponents. We outperformed our opponents in every possible way in all aspects of cricket including “Mind games”” where Pak team has years of experience and expertise.

Though Sehwag was out early, his hurricane contribution of 38 runs was a gift to Team India. It was due to those runs that the run rate of Team India never fell below 5, even when Pak had tightened the squeeze around us during middle overs. It was during those squeeze overs when I stopped watching the TV and went on to chant “हनुमान चालीसा”. Then, God’s 85 runs were exemplary. He proved once again as to why he is called God, who else can get so many chances, but Sachin did get the chances and made best of them. The end of Indian batting by Raina was phenomenal. It is due to him that team India had reached 260 otherwise 230 was the achievable target looking. Raina has proved yet again why he is a better player than Pathan. What is needed is a longer stay on the wicket and not a short lived glory of 2 sixers.

The entire Pak team played with a “Tantative”approach. Afridi, though looking confident through body language, was weak from inside and that was good for us. I had the hunch that Sehwag would take on Afridi and he did by taking his catch. One of the big contributors to our victory was Misbaha who stayed on crease for way too long without propping up the scoreboard numbers, and when he did decide to go for big shots, it was way too late. There is a saying in Hindi “का वर्षा जब क्रषी सुखाने । समय चूकि पुनि का पछिताने ।।”.

When the last missile fired from the muzzle of Zaheer was going to rest in the hands of Kolhi after hitting its target Misbaha, I could hear the soft Vedic Chants coming out of air.

ॐ पूर्णमिदम पुर्णामिदम पूर्णात पूर्ण मुदच्यते ।

पूर्णयस्य पूर्णमादाय पुर्ण मेवा विशिष्यते ।।

Why not, team India had offered its entireself in the game so the result had to be the Ultimate.

Beware Lankan Tigers; Indian Tigers are coming to hunt you.

Best wishes to team India in the final.

Go Team India Go!! Jai Ho!!

Although the Wednesday’s semi final match between India and Pakistan is still 40+ odd hours away, the battlelines are already and clearly drawn between the two cricket teams. The significance, relevance and excitement of this match will not be any smaller than the grand finale of this cricketing extravaganza which started about 6 weeks back. Cricket in India has assumed the role of “Second Religion”, which unites most people of our country. I have deliberately used the word “most” here and opted not to use the word “All” as using the word “All” would be tentamount to the falsification of the truth, at least from my point of view, based on my observations.  I am going to use an example from my college days of 20 years back in AMU Aligarh when victory of India used to get mourned and defeat of India used to get celebrated, to base my observations/convictions on. I’m sure things would not have changed much in Aligarh even after 20 years.

A victory of team India not only boosts the morale and psyche of the team but also takes the confidence of our great nation one notch up. The Pak team has already started playing the “Mind Games” and that’s the one area they are really good at. Why not, they have years of experience doing it. But, we also have the same number of years of experience beating them in World Cup games beating all their “mind games” as well.  

The Pak Team needs to look back at the records and see for themselves as to how many victories they have against India in World Cup games. A big “Zero” and that big “Zero” will not change in the Wednesday’s game either.  The team India is going to continue to maintain its winning streak and Pak is going to maintain its losing streak. Nice!

The Pak player Misbaha has probably forgotten as to what happened to his scoop attempt over the Joginder Singh’s ball in T20 final, just a few years back.  Misbaha is going to do something stupid again only to make him walk to the pavellion.  There is a saying in Hindi “विनाशकाले बिपरीत बुद्धि”.

And, this Sahid Afridi guy can overspeak in a boastful manner till he meets Sehwag and Sachin’s bats.  There is a saying in Hindi that “जब ऊँट पहाड़ के नीचे आता है तो उसे पता चलता है कि वो सबसे ऊँचा नही है”. This Afridi guy is going to get such a good “धुलाई” through our batsmen that he is going to remember it throughout his life. As it is, many players in Pak team are subdued and edgy by the charges of their involvement in match fixing so their expression of public confidence is “Fake and Farce”. They are pretty weak from the inside which will be exposed by our batsmen right infront of 30,000 strong match viewers.

We have Sachin. Talking about Sachin’s greatness, wow, he is a gem of a person, full of integrity, honesty, simplicity, commitment, determination, hard-work, focus and dedication. It is for that reason that he is called “God of Cricket”. His decision to walk off the crease during one of the recent matches, though I personally do not approve it, can be termed a Super Class by itself. The guy was standing on the threshold of his ‘Tons of Tons” , the team and country having high expectations from him, umpire not making call on him but referring to the third umpire instead. But, he listened straight to the sound coming out of his gut and did not wait at the crease which any other player would have done. I remember legendary Sunil Gavaskar doing that a few times during his tenure as a cricket player. But then, the technology was not so advanced at that time and there was nothing like third umpire.  So, Sachin’s case can and should not be compared with Gavaskar’s case.

India eventually won that game but Sachin should be more deligent this time. I would wish and pray to the Almighty to direct Sachin to take advantage of all possible resources in the upcoming game if the situation demands so.  He is too important a player to throw his wicket away like that. Even in great “Dharm Yuddha” of Mahabharat, the Pandava had to rely on things like “अश्वथामा मारा गया” to get rid of their opponent Dronacharya. I wish Sachin completes his “Ton of Ton” in Wednesday’s game and helps team India romp into the finals.

What to say about the performance of our crown prince (Yuv Raj) of Team India? He has been phenomenal in all three aspects of cricket: batting, bowling and fielding. What a fantastic redemption from just one year back, when everyone had written him off. The Punjab IPL did not keep him as Captain and even did not re-sign him. His place in Team India was dwindling and people started saying all sorts of things about him. But, he had goals set out for him and he was on continuous path of relentless pursuit of his set goals. Yuv Raj has shown the importance of individual contribution in a team game. He has shown that if each individual starts contributing to their fullest potential, the team’s delivery can be guaranteed.  The same applies for nation building as well. If each citizen of the nation starts contributing towards the national goal, it would not be long before we are found standing in the forefront of the nations of the world.

I believe that all the stars are aligned this time through for India’s victory over its arch rival. The team India is going to repeat the history of 1983 when it won the Cup under the leadership of Kapil Paji. All our team needs to do is manage the pressure well and maintain its cool, confidence and composure. Only a cool head can take sound decisions in pressure situations.  Each Team India player has to understand their roles and responsibilities and perform to the best of their abilities.  This team is the dream team that will bring the Cup for our nation. Whatever little gaps we have on bowling and fielding side will be compensated by the seven specialist batsmen. The Team India is going to remember that its strength is its formidable batting lineup and that it has to play from and around its strength.  The Team India is going to make good use of its powerplays especially batting powerplay. The Team India is going to remember learning from the recent matches that it will set target of 40 runs from batting powerplay and would not become greedy.

Then there are a number of things which in my opinion are handled in the worst possible manner. The two important ones are below.

·         The Cricket fans are treated very shabbily all across the nation at the ticketing counters. Inspite of having reasonable capacity in the stadiums, why are only a few hundred tickets left for the general public, just for namesake? Why are the cricket office bearers given huge chunks of tickets only to become available in open market at rigged prices? Last night, I saw one News channel reporting the ticket price of Rs 100,000 for Indo Pak semi final match which is more than double than the per capita income of our nation. How can we have and sustain such a situation? Why do so many people from political, law enforcement, city/town administration want to have the birth right to watch the cricket matches free of cost? Something needs to be done to streamline the ticket sale and also to increase the capacity. The general public and especially cricket fans should not be taken for granted and needs to be respected for the larger benefit of the game.  There has to be some ethics by-lawys which are enforcible, varifiable which the cricket officials should have to abide by.

·         Let the game be a game and should not have any influence whatsoever due to or because of our politicians whose judgement in general is questionable.  I am not sure why our PM Manmohan Singh has extended the invitation to Pak President and PM for coming to India to watch the game? Why are we dilly dallying on our stated stand? We had clearly spelt out our stand after Mumbai 26/11 attacks that no more talks with Pak unless Pakistan hands over the people responsible for 26/11 to us. For the past one year or so, we have started seeing the dilution of our stated stand. If we had to dilute, why did we take the stand to begin with? Why should anyone take us seriously?  It may be acceptable and that too marginally to have unscheduled bi-lateral talks at the corridor of common events of large forums such as UN, SAARC etc. But inviting heads of the states of a terrorism sponsoring country in this manner only sends a message that we are weak and that we can not take tough stand and if at all we take tough stands, we can not maintain our stand and that we can be easily bullied and that we have a very short memory. On a different note, not calling the Pak officials would have enabled a few more seats becoming available for our nation’s cricket fans.

I wish Team India all the best for the semi final victory. The team is motivated and is peaking at the right time. Of course the pressure will be high on Team India due to larger population of majority of nation. But that’s what the pros stand for, to deliver from the high pressure situations.  It is very apt that Mohali has been chosen for this semi final match. The Indo Pak Wagha border is not too far from there. The Pakis can take the passenger train which I believe still runs between Amritsar and Lahore. Alternatively, we can drop them on the Wagha border by a Tata Mini bus on humanitarion grounds. And from Wagha border, they can either walk or take their horse cart and go back.

Go Team India Go. Jai ho!!!!