Once, we've over all the 'ooh's and 'aah's, let's just see what happened today.
Sydney Cricket Ground, with a capacity of 42,000 people, is empty. As Harsha Bhogle interviews Shane Warne and Rahul Dravid on what should be the best approach for Australians and Indians today, you can see, the Indian Cricket Team practicing it out behind. The gates open and people start coming in like swarms of bees. Blue and yellow. The only two colors that you can identify. There's this excitement and immense amount of nervousness. Is it the crowd unanimously screaming or is it the sound of the heart thumping hard?
Well, I'm not much of a cricket expert here. I'm not particularly sure if I can really differentiate between a cover drive and a pull shot(wait, I think I can do this one!). But, here are a few things about today's game. Smith performed brilliantly. That was a wonderful knock. Not something that we, Indians, will be particularly happy about, but, yes, there's no denying that that knock was wonderfully executed. India bowled well. They could've done better during the death overs. The support in the field was amazing. The Indians had transformed the SCG into Wankhede completely. The atmosphere was electrifying. Well, after playing 50 overs and with some wonderful contributions, Australia posted a total of 328 runs. That's a really huge target for a world cup semi final. HUGE! I could feel the pressure over our guys. A hell lot of pressure, for sure.
They come out to bat. Initially things looked good. With Dhawan hitting the runs and inching closer to a half century and Rohit, slowly rotating the strike, it seemed like a winnable match. But, Dhawan soon lost his wicket. And then we lost a few more. All of a sudden, we were 4 wickets down, required run rate climbing up, Australian bowlers getting more and more confident with each ball they bowled and yes, the hearts of a billion (minus a few thousand) Indians slowing down. By the end of the batting powerplay, we knew we had let the match slip out of our hands. Painfully so. And we did lose. And by a huge margin, let's admit that.
(Funny how a few terms like "execution" and "contribution" coupled with a few statements borrowed from the post-innings shows, can make you sound like a Sunil Gavaskar in a post match press meet.)
We lost. Am I heartbroken? Yes. Am I sad? Hell, yeah!
Am I disappointed? Yes, here's why:
Remember how I mentioned a billion minus a few thousand hearts in the last paragraph? Let me explain that. Open your facebook account. Go through your news feed. So, you'll find a bunch of excited Indians posting in erratic grammar about how much they love the Indian team and how "hashtag-we-won't-give-it-back", "hashtag-we'll-win", "hashtag this" and "hashtag that". Support for the team with erratic grammar, accepted. But, bullshitting about the Indian team and it's members? "Hashtag" not accepted!
You're Indians, remember? I'm not asking you to go sacrifice your life at the border. But, you can support your guys out there, it's really not that "un-cool". You should! And do you really think a single person can make all the difference in a match? Why is cricket a team sport then? And what's with the whole thing behind Anushka Sharma turning up for the match? Isn't Virat Kohli, and Virat Kohli alone, to be blamed for his performance (or rather, the lack of it)?
A few more things. A presenter, "I-don't-even-bother-to-remember-the-name-of" and who was nicknamed a**hole (rightly so) by my mum (oh, yeah, she's expanding her 'vocabulary'), asks Dhoni if this was his last World Cup. Haha! That man was out his mind! And what a fitting reply was given by Michael Clarke. Respect, man! You earned it. You've gotta give some amount of appreciation to them, they performed wonderfully. There was some tension (polite word for sledging) in the field. But, that part, where they come rushing to see if Yadav wasn't hurt too bad, was bliss! That's what true cricket's about. Or any sport, for that matter.
We took a lot of things from this particular match. I wish we could've taken a victory too. Well.
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