The Cup that Matters

I read the score card wondering if the fool’s day had come in a bit late! It was probably my hallucination – after all I wanted it so selfishly for the past few weeks now. It never sank in really that the day has come to pass when we can call ourselves “world champions” at last!

I couldn’t sleep for another hour or two just imagining the “madness” that would have followed suite. I must have re-read the scorecard at least a few dozen times feeling emphatic, hysterical, elated, ecstatic and – very much disappointed! Am I missing India at the moment! From behind the veils of the “Great Wall” and the limited freedom of “legal” internet that I have come to restrain myself to, all I could do was just take a sneak peek at the score every few minutes.

Needless to say I got a bit frustrated and dozed off after seeing the openers crash out of the party pretty soon. ‘Maybe my switching off would bring in some luck‘ I felt and boy did the ‘mindless’ games work! I woke up in the middle of the night to read the news that India had won the edition of Cricket World Cup 2011.

I woke up my wife to inform her. She was joyous as well. But then there was the dilemma of how to scream in the middle of the night with the little one sleeping nearby! Eventually we settled to a few suppressed hurrahs and smiles, started discussing the scorecard as much as we could and read every bit of news article that we could, to know how it unfolded. We definitely missed the fireworks 🙁

India would be having one heck of a weekend I am sure. Yeah, “God‘s” century of centuries is still missing and that would have made it more perfect but for all that I know the entire nation would have erupted in joy for sure!

It was not the first match of the tournament that had come to disturb my sleep, but this was definitely special. Before I slept I kept wondering how on earth will the high score be possible to chase, especially after the early loss of openers – memories of 2003 WC haunted me (I am sure a lot many people as well). But the middle order laid it all to rest.

What a time for our Captain to find his form and play one hell of a knock! The next day when we saw the highlights in the ‘official site‘ we were awestruck with that last SIX – WOW! What a way to finish it off; we could still feel the intensity of the moment – monumental in every way. The dream of a nation had come true at last and it took the next generation of cricketers (literally) to realize it.

Here’s my way of saying thanks to them. This is just a simple tribute to no one in particular (in the team) but rather to the entire dressing room – from the coaching staff to the players to the supporting staff to the board; they played as a unit and made it count.

A million dreams were realized yesterday night and a billion more have just begun – let us make the next few years the “Era of Indian cricket”. Let us not settle with one cup – win them all! 🙂