Musings of the Badshahs

It doesnt feel good to be 35.

Portion sizes need to be watched. Exercise is needed just to stay alive. Trusting someone else becomes difficult.

And, worst of all, people expect you to be responsible.

Sometimes though, it’s not all that bad. Being old that is. Because unlike many of you young tykes, I was there. On both THE days.

In 1983 I was old enough to understand  we had done something great. In 2011 I am old enough to understand why it is so.

Throughout the tournament, Dhoni had made some bizarre selectorial calls, mostly involving preferring almost everyone else, including Sreesanth, over Ashwin. (It was an ironic testament to Ashwin being chronically ignored that during the presentation when Ashwin’s name was called, Sehwag stepped up to receive his medal). But then for every misadventure in selection (which Dhoni to his credit has owed upto), he  had also captained well in the field, with aggressive bowling changes and field placements.

But my main concern was that, as India’s best ODI finisher and more importantly as the leader, he had not performed, not contributing in pressure situations in the way a World Cup winning captain should do. In order to win the World Cup, Dhoni had to lead through batting , bringing to the fore that one “leading from the front” performance that Kapil, Waugh, Ponting all provided as parts of their successful campaigns. Without his individual contribution in the  runs column,which had been lacking so far for some time, I just felt the final trophy would not be possible.

Well today, Dhoni played his Tunbridge Wells. During the match, I had tweeted how impressed I was when he came out ahead of Yuvraj—-it showed intent at  a “knife edge moment”. Intent though is one thing and execution is another and Dhoni was perfect. Best of it all,unlike what happened to that epic 175, there will now be video footage for people to rewind, review and say “I was there watching it live when it happened.”

If Dhoni became Kapil, Yuvraj, with his all round skills, became the Mohinder Amarnath, finding redemption, of the kind usually seen in sports movies, on the largest stage possible.

And then there was this other man, who had had a rebirth since 2007, the second highest scorer in the tournament, sitting on the shoulders of Yousuf Pathan, representing to me my favorite generation of Indian cricketers, one that sadly will never hold the Cup, resting with that one thing that had eluded him for so long.

There are some things that are so valuable that for them even Gods must wait a lifetime.

In 1983 hockey was the game of the country. Indian cricketers were paid a few pounds a day as daily allowance. None expected them to win anything. There were no corporate sponsors. Newspapers kept cricket confined to the sports pages.  Given all that, on a sunny day in June, a motley crowd of no-hopers scripted a fairytale, bringing down one of the greatest war machines that ever took the field.It would remain the greatest upset ever in the history of the game, a shock the equivalent of “shooting a bullet at a piece of paper and having it come back and hit you”.

As a seven year old, I had remembered jumping about in joy, understanding by looking into my father’s eyes that we had done something whose magnitude I could not comprehend.I felt great, as great  as I would feel when the first sugar rush of rosogolla would hit the tongue. And that was all that mattered.

June 25, 1983 changed India. That’s no hyperbole. It laid the foundation for the phenomenal growth of Indian cricket as a commercial enterprise. It brought a new generation (the one that now hold the cup) to the game of cricket as a career choice. In a more intangible way, for a country consigned to the list of “developing” (since the word “underdeveloped” was not politically correct), the victory taught us, to quote Indira Gandhi, that “India can do it.”

April 2, 2011.

Unlike in 1983, Team India were no longer long long shot underdogs. On the contrary they were one of the favorites, number 1 in Test rankings and number 2 in ODIs, both of them well-deserved. India, as an economic power-house, had changed dramatically from the 80s.

So had I. For me cricketers were no longer “heroes” whose pictures I would cut out and paste in my scrapbook. I have become too cynical for that. I still follow the Indian team, still want them to succeed but in a certain difficult-to-define impersonal way, maintaining a certain emotional distance from all of it. There are too many games, too many tournaments, too much corporate media babble of the “Bleed Blue” and “The Color of Passion Is Red” variety and too much money (either way–loss or victory) to believe that any of it makes a difference. I do get excited when India wins and depressed when they lose but for a moment only, after which I just shrug and say “Who cares?”

But when off the last ball, Dhoni brought out his iconic shot, the one he had kept in the freezer it seems for years and the ball sailed into the night,  it was back—– the tightening of the throat, the hint of moisture at the corner of the eyes.

Yes this one matters.

It matters because  it unites billions, all across the world, in one thread of pure emotion.

It matters because it makes us believe we are part of something bigger than our insignificant selves.

It matters because it creates a new pantheon of legends for a new generation.

It matters because of the broken dreams of those who could not attain it—-the Dravids, the Kumbles and the Gangulys.

It matters because it defines a milestone in our lives—one to which we can all turn to years later and say, misty-eyed, “Do you remember….?”.

And finally, it matters because it helps many of us realize something very important.

The seven-year old still lives.

Meet Charvi.

She is the seven year old daughter of my colleague, Priya. And she stole my heart as the April 2 World Cup final unfolded at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

I remember the exact moment. It was the 10th over; Nuwan Kulasekhara straightened the second ball of the over onto the middle stump line. Virat Kohli, who at that point had gone 10 balls without opening his account, flowed into the shot, and with perfect timing and unsuspected power, flicked hard to beat the fine leg fielder to the fence.

There were close to 20 of us in the Yahoo newsroom in Bangalore at the time, watching on the two screens in the edit bay. And as the fielder retrieved the ball and threw it back, all was silent.

It was a stark contrast to the earlier mood. We had gathered in the newsroom a good hour before the game; as Zaheer marked his run up, the first of many bottles of beer was being opened; as the game progressed and India dominated with the ball and in the field, the beer was supplemented by prime bottles of vodka and whisky.

And the noise! Fueled in equal parts by alcohol and adrenalin, stoked to a blaze by the sense of imminent possibility, the Y! newsroom was making noise enough to rival the Wankhede -- and not even the late explosion by Jawardene and Perera could damp the decibel levels.

"274! Hmph! We've got the batting to chase that with ease" summed up the prevailing mood.

India began the chase. Off the second ball, Viru Sehwag was nailed plumb by Lasith Malinga. The noise continued unabated.

"If Viru scores, it's a bonus, that is all. The team doesn't depend on him. The real batsmen are all still there."

Then Sachin Tendulkar got out. He walked off -- and with him went all that edgy energy that had permeated our space. What replaced it was the silence of death -- the death of dreams, of hope.

Kohli got off the mark with that four. And Charvi -- who needed no artificial stimulants to fuel her buoyant enthusiasm -- began bouncing around the newsroom, her clear treble raised in a compelling chant.

"India! India! INDIA!!!"

She seemed surprised to find hers the lone voice in a wilderness of despair, so she took to coming to each one of us in turn, bouncing up and down in front of us, her voice raised higher still in that ceaseless chant, as if daring us to stay unmoved.

Gambhir danced down the track, took Perera on the half-volley, blasted it over midwicket.

"He is taking too many risks," someone said. "Ab out ho jayega!"

"Indiaaaa-INDIA!!", Charvi said.

Gambhir cracked Kulasekhara over the covers. Next ball, he took a single. Charvi greeted both the four, and the single, with equal enthusiasm.

Charvi didn't know that at the ten over mark, India was ahead of Sri Lanka (41/1 against 31/1). That by the 15 over mark, that lead had been stretched further: 81/1 against 58/1.

Not being a 'monkey with a calculator' (Amit Varma's pithy phrase for journalists -- and by extension, cricket fans -- who only know to read statistical tea leaves, not understand and appreciate the patterns of the game as it unfolds), Charvi didn't appreciate that the opening up of a gap in the scoring patterns meant that India was, in the middle overs, making up for the Sri Lankan mayhem at the death, and positioning themselves for an assault on the target.

Her worldview was simple: her team was playing; two young sweat-streaked players were out there under lights, scoring runs, fighting on, not giving up.

She wasn't about to let them down.

Just as they weren't about to let her down.

Perhaps with the instinctive understanding of the truly young and unspoilt, Charvi understood what makes this team great, what sets it apart from its predecessors: the knowledge that as long as a game is live, there is hope; that as long as the team is out there on the field, fighting, defeat is not a consideration.

We -- the cynical 'elders' who show all the inconsistency of weathercocks; we, who fell silent when one player got out; we, who walked in our dozens out of the stadium because we anticipated defeat before it was upon us -- think of it as our team. But it is, in attitude and belief, Charvi's team; its component parts are more closely aligned with Charvi's optimistic mindset than with our own cynical, been there seen that all before pessimism.

Thus, when questioned about the absence of a key bowler in the semi-finals, a Suresh Raina could say, simply, "Main hoon na!".

Thus, while the game was on we talked endlessly about Sachin Tendulkar's propensity to 'choke' on the big occasion (and while on that, read this excellent post by Siddharth Vaidyanathan on Tendulkar and the big occasion).

That is our attitude, and it is a fair-weather one. There is another, and it was exemplified by Virat Kohli who, when asked about his chairing of Sachin Tendulkar on his shoulders could respond, with easy grace: "He has carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for 22 years; it is only right that we carry him on our shoulders today."

In an excellent piece written after the final, blogger and author Greatbong, who was seven when India last won the Cup in 1983, pointed out why winning the Cup matters. He said:

"It matters because it makes us believe we are part of something bigger than our insignificant selves.

It matters because it creates a new pantheon of legends for a new generation." Exactly. A new pantheon, for a new generation. Charvi's generation. Because we are grown too old, too cynical, too world-weary (Even as the chase was on, there was an SMS doing the rounds, 'predicting' the outcome and suggesting the game was fixed), to deserve heroes.