At the end of the 4th Vodafone test...India v Australia.
Forlorn faces...disappointment in the heart..At the receiving end of a drubbing..!!Flashback -
I began my journey as a cricket fan(atic) in late 1992, the first series that I can remember, which I followed with zeal was the India-South Africa ODI series. I was hardly 8 years old, only knowing that cricket was a sport. And had my uncle in tow to watch the late night games in South Africa. The first time ever I watched cricket on television was the 3rd ODI of the series, India winning thanks to a single handed effort by Woorkeri Raman !!
I had heard of the big names by then, Kapil Dev, Gavaskar etc etc... But everytime I sat to watch cricket, in all earnest way would wait for Sachin Tendulkar to come out to bat. For me, he was the first cricketer whom I really loved to watch. As did scores of my friends and millions across the country. The great batting sensation he was called !!
Memories involving Tendulkar are many...The first knock of his etched in my memory is his blistering 82 at Auckland after volunteering to open when Sidhu woke up with a stiff neck. His first ODI hundred came as a news to me. I did not even watch the game and had to watch the news to see glimpses of his first ODI hundred. As a kid, cricket watching cricket then was all about watching Sachin bat.
The first test series I watched..yes the England series at home, where Anil Kumble bamboozled them for a whitewash !!Test cricket and in general following international cricket was restricted to minimal watching, newspapers and the one and only 'Sportstar'.
The 1996 World cup however was a huge turning point for me as a cricket fan.
And yes it was also a huge turning point in Sachin's career....in terms of his brand value !
Missed watching his hundred against Kenya due to the summer loadshedding , was aghast when his blistering ton against Sri Lanka at Delhi ended up in a losing cause. But one distinct memory of mine is watching that cracking 90 at Mumbai against the Aussies...for the very fact that it was beamed LIVE at a wedding ceremony at Sanghaniketan, Mangalore. The moment Tendulkar got out, people got up from their seats to proceed for the dinner !!! :)
When the semifinal began, I remember waiting to get home from school that afternoon...our sports teacher came to our class and announced..."Sri Lanka are batting first and they are 1 for 2"...And our whole classroom went berserk with chants of 'India India'...
Only to get home to see Aravinda play out of his skins and that day was a huge lesson for me as a cricket fan...That defeat really hurt... !!!From here is when I had to resign to the fact that cricket was after all a team sport !! And not of individuals !!
A glorious ERA -
But hey hang on...why do I want to say all this...Is Sachin Tendulkar bigger than the game ?
Surely not...the list of his achievements will continue...he will continue to get the accolades..
Although I have mentioned only about him at the very beginning of this post, the biggest pain as I write this is for the fact that, a golden era is coming towards an end !!! Probably the best ever in Indian cricket !
A golden era indeed...Sometimes its easy to say that these people are old, they need to retire and move on. Yes, True, agreed...but the hole they leave behind can never be filled..Never ever !!
There was the rise is stature of the ever determined Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble,and there were debuts of VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly...but Indian cricket also went through turmoil despite having Sachin Tendulkar as the messiah. Losses of image, both on the field and off the field simply tainted the face of Indian cricket.
Many people doubted themselves, "did I want to follow the game that had showed up its bad face this way?"
Hope still remained in me...that things would get better. And there we saw the rise of the phoenix...
Led by Sourav Ganguly, in daredevil fashion, with a backbone of Dravid-Tendulkar-Laxman-Kumble-Srinath, and ably guided by the composed John Wright, Indian cricket never took a backward step. Youngsters came in, and of the likes of Yuvraj,Zaheer, Sehwag,Harbhajan,Dhoni...all matchwinners in their own right !!! A decade that began with that spectacular comeback at Kolkata in 2001, culminated to a huge huge extent with the World Cup win in 2011.
Heads rolled in between, clashes happened, personnel changed hands....but yet the seniors showed the right direction all the times..In times of distress people lambasted them..in times of success, people glorified them.
But support ? Did we give that to them when they needed the most ?
Atleast I did....and may be a very small percentage of the followers of the Indian team.
Time never stops...
From the days of people switching off televisions when Tendulkar got out, to the days where Laxman,Dravid and Harbhajan showed the world that miracles can be achieved...
From the days of the pleasure of a overseas test win at Trinidad, to the days where a bandaged Anil Kumble came out courageously and got Brian Lara out...
From the days where Yuvraj-Kaif showed what youthful exuberance can do,(Yes..I had NOT switched off my TV sets, when Tendulkar was bowled by Giles in that Natwest final, and Harsha Bhogle said "Bowled him!!This was on the cards..He was playing a high risk game"!!),
to the days of beating England at Headingley against all odds...
From the days of burning effigies when the 2003 World cup began badly.....
to the days when the team showed their character to reach the final....
From the days when Ganguly came out at Brisbane with fire in the belly, after all the talk of chin music down under....
to the day when Dravid kissed the crest on the India cap at Adelaide...
(I did actually bunk an engineering Internal exam, just to go to a nearby college mess, and watch Rahul Dravid win that Adelaide test in 2003!!)
From the days of Sehwagian brilliance at Multan...
to the days of a twin series win in Pakistan...
From the days of a record string of ODI victories.....
to the days of test series a win in West Indies...
From the tumultuous Chappell regime....
to the out-of-the-blue victory at Johannesburg....
From being knocked out of the 2007 World cup,
to that famous series win in England driven by an inspired Zaheer Khan..
Coupled with the T20 world cup victory when nobody believed...
From the days of Sydney-gate.....
To the days of a Perth knock out ..........
And the CB series win...
From seeing Kumble and Ganguly bid farewell,
To the days of Dhoni and Kirsten forging a brilliant partnership...
From the days of going great guns in test cricket............
to one of the biggest day of all our lives, the World Cup victory ....
We have seen them all...and then we saw what we had not seen for a long time...string of morale crushing defeats after defeats...and yet we need to support them. Not sure if it would be the same vigour with which we can support the younger generation of cricketers...
Gone are those days....
When we rushed to friends' houses to watch cricket on cable television...
When we used to bowl and bat like our idols...just imitating them was a privilege..
When we spent hours in front of our TV sets without moving, not even for a toilet break..
When we spent time discussing stats and trivia..
When we used to SMS live scores during college hours..
Indian Cricket has come a long long way... and so have I as a person....as a
cricket fanatic...From the hurt of 1996 to the hurt of 2012 !! With 16 long years of several joyous moments!
Yes...with time, these defeats will be forgotten...and fresh hopes will be ignited.
But hey...a generation is about to end..and this is one generation that gave us immense happiness. They kept fighting to give us joy..they failed sometimes, but they gave us joy more often than not...and they are completely irreplaceable..both the greats as well as the joy they gave us !!
Thank you so much..To the golden generation of Indian cricket...The Adelaide test match signals the end of a major part of a journey....but the journey needs to continue...to achieve those goals which were dreamt by these greats when they vowed to get Indian cricket back on the world map in 2001 !!
But do these defeats matter ?
To the players ? To the administrators ? To the huge fan base ?
Can we bounce back ? The intent remains, but do we have the hunger ?
If we do not see any hunger, then as they aptly sang, did Linkin Park, "In the End, it doesn't even matter !!"
Next time around, my thoughts on where Indian cricket can do better with.. Coming shortly..
Till then keep your spirits high :)
