Me and World Cup 2011

April 2nd 2011, India won its second world cup in World Cup History. Both times Indian Team has fought against mighty opponents and has become champions. In finals Kapil's Squad beat the mighty West-Indians and Dhoni's players dusted the Srilankan.

When the Indian Team started world cup campaign I was not sure about it's capabilities. The team was my favourite team but there were doubts about it's consistency. This inconsistency was evident on ground soon. In the first few league matches bowling did not click, fielding was pathetic and batting was below par. Batsmen were the tigers for minnows whereas they were nailed by better bowling attacks. At this time we could pray for some miracle to happen.

Soon the wind changed its direction and it started blowing in the favour of Indian camp. Indians were facing West Indies in their last league encounter. Suddenly Indians players were ruthless, unstoppable and completely energized. Bowlers were on target, fielders diving as if someone gave them wings to fly and batsmen were miles ahead of West-Indian bowlers.

But beating west Indies was not always enough for us to eradicate our doubts. Due to some bad performances in league matches Indians had to face mighty or rather say spirited Australian team in quarterfinals. Australians were the fierce opponent irrespective of their dented bowling line up. But this time Australians were not untouchable and they lost to India. Indian roared on the ground to announce the history in making.

Though I was enjoying the games but there was always an ounce of uncertainty in my mind. Here came the Semi-Finals. India had to face Pakistan, led by Shahid Afridi. Indians batsmen failed to deliver at big stage and doubts were proved true. But future had some other plans, when Indians came out to defend chutki Bhar score, they came out like tigers, eagles who do not just catch prey, they mutilate it. They did not put a foot wrong even for once and we were in the finals

This time I felt this is it. The Indian juggernaut is unstoppable now, I thought. After beating Pakistan I was calm and composed. My heart was not sinking, I was not nervous. Kunal said, either I have lost hope in India or else I do not care about it anymore. I told him, I know India will win, SL cant beat this team. Finally we won, I won, all of us won.

I was insane through out the match. I was dancing for each boundary scored and shouting for every single run taken. People were cheering, shouting and dancing with me. I did not have clue about right and wrong. I was just acting like a mad guy who enjoy without caring about world and instead regretting I was loving it. We all were in same conditions. Is not it?

Though I did not win the world cup and neither I have the right to dedicate it to someone but under any circumstances I want to dedicate this cup to myself. I have been waiting for this moment for my life time. I am not sure if I wanted this only in cricket but this cup has give me a comfort. I followed tennis where Indians cheer for someone who was 28th in world, don't we need more. I do. I wanted to tell my colleagues e.g. foreigners that we have the world class tennis player. But we don't. I followed soccer/football, but we are 27 from bottom among world football playing nations. I followed hockey, our national game, and again I never see myself cheering for world cup finals. I followed F1, none rests. I followed Olympics, where with one gold medal we keep boasting ourselves about our achievements. Asiads and CWG, everywhere I found the same disappointment. This time India won the world cup. Why should I dedicate it to someone else? I want to cherish it, I want to feel proud about it, I want to boast about it and I want to preserve it. By dedicating it to someone else, I will loose my share. I may be selfish but I do not care about you and your rights. Let me enjoy these moments, I might give a thought about you later.

Saina: Does she have potential to fight with Cricketer?

Saina Nehwal is in news for past 1 month. Besides performing her career best, she has achieved what most of athletes or sport persons could not achieve. Earlier it was heart breaking to see a very small space provided to her Chennai open win. Story of her second tourney win occupied the same amount of space and media kept its promise by giving the same paper on her third win as well. But it was fascinating to see the awareness of people in India. 

Besides not getting the deserving coverage, there were thousands of people who reached to receive Miss Champ. It was more appreciable as media did not provoke these applauses; these applauses were from people of India who made Saina a shining star. Here onward media started to unearth her detail most of the media could grab her daily routines and health diets. Government placed her in the elite league by presenting her the biggest sport medal. 

But will this be a break for her? There are sports which pop up in the middle of nowhere to claim the limelight but this shine fades in front of Indian cricketing Community.

Saina has done well to reach to the number 2 and most importantly she could take her name to common people. But her success poses few difficult questions to answer. 

First question, would she able to survive and digest the limelight? There are 10s of examples where it took time for sport persons to digest the sudden glamour and most of them just slipped into the trap of glamour. Saina is also a human being, so it is okay to slip once but if she is able to stand up after first slipping then it is not difficult for her to ride and enjoy the glamour.

Second question, would her future efforts pose the threat of switching sport dharma? In my opinion in this era it is possible. People are exhausted with the extreme cricket and their exhaustion can prompt them to get rid of loyalty of cricket.

These 2 questions are somehow related to each other and answers depend on Saina's performance. Now if she wants to depict herself as the survivor (From media fame) as well as reformer (new trends of sport), she has to curb all difficulties to follow the same road map that has given her this glory. I do not know future but I can just wish the young lady and expect her to break all the records created in the history of badminton.

Best of luck Saina.

Hope this change will not change

For past few years we all had lost sense of any game other than cricket. We ate, slept, drank and even worked cricket. The whole nation was traumatized with cricket. But, due to some astonishing performances in recent past, we have been recovering from the state of trauma. Let it be either tennis diva mirja or speed master kathik or badminton ace Saina or snooker champion Advani or grand master Vishvanathan, we all talk about them. We all managed to sneak on their activity and get time to discuss about them. Media started showing what Indians are doing in those sports. So it feels refreshing to see media, people, and papers to talk, discuss, analyze, and argument about sports not cricket.

Currently we Indians are witnessing the Hockey world Cup. What a cup it had been for Indian hockey team. Though they were not able to carry forward the initiative taken in the first game against Pakistan, but they have given hopes to Indian hearts. I have seen people, at my work place, talking about S-A-I-N-D-E-E-P, talking about B-H-A-A-R-A-A-T and many other players, many other teams, many other techniques. Though they were neither experts nor players but there was heat in their words, there was passion in their arguments, it is same heat and the same passion which were always reserved for cricket. The way media and Celebes have promoted, people have cheered, we have watched the hockey it seems we have left behind the reservations of cricket and started giving place to other wonderful games in our heart.

It would not be surprising to see more Indians world champs soon in each and every sport. It is not deniable that support any other game with the spirit of cricket is impossible but adoring other games may lead to change of luck for us in other games also which is a very pleasant change for Indian sports.