Great Expectations

Sports in India have been making history on the international map. Our performance at the Jakarta Asian Games this year is one such example. It is commendable to see so many young girls and boys from extremely humble backgrounds achieving such a great feat.

However, one sport which interests a majority of Indians both on domestic and international grounds is Cricket. A few weeks ago, the finals of Asia Cup was being telecast on television. I started watching the game from the second innings. India was chasing a target of 223 runs against Bangladesh. Bangladesh had had a commendable first inning with good performance from the opening batsmen.

The overall score did not seem to be much of a challenge for India with stalwarts like Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Shikhar Dhawan.

Guess the Indian spectators took the opponent’s bowlers for granted. The splendid performance by the fast-paced bowlers giving maiden overs one after another led to the fall of the crucial wickets of Shikhar Dhawan and thereafter the dismissal of Rohit Sharma with 2 runs short of a half-century in the middle order. Bangladeshi bowlers took the spectators by surprise. Their captain was so strict with his teammates that his team left no stones unturned. They charged on the Indian batsmen with complete force and aggression. We as spectators sitting on a cosy sofa kept getting impatient with our Indian team’s performance. We could not fathom how the World Cup winners could falter their performance against a country which is quite nascent in the sport.

The wickets dropped one by one.  By the time, Dhoni entered the field, we were very far off from the finishing line. Dhoni was his usual calm self. He surely improved the tempo but unfortunately, his partner, Kedar Jadhav suffered a leg injury and could hardly run or walk. This situation brought the overall rhythm down and after a point, it was difficult for Kedar Jadhav to continue. He was retired hurt and the next player came in.

Thoughts ran into my mind that how tough it is for a player who has millions of fans having sky-high expectations from him, to handle each ball with grace. There is no room for mistakes. Their minds are tamed to handle extreme pressure situations. Sometimes they come out victorious and sometimes they falter and lose against their opponent. We as spectators have high expectations from them for every game. Once a match starts, we do not look at the rationality that it is ultimately just a game and with such dynamism

in cricket, anything can happen until the last ball before the end of the innings.

If we lose a game, we freely curse the players and if they win we consider them heroes. The fact remains that they are not magicians but yes they religiously practice towards perfection with each coming day. The players need to be extremely disciplined with their health and have to rise before the break of dawn every morning to hone their skills. They remain away from home for months together, thanks to the onset of various national and international matches.

Their career ends during the early 40s and then most of them are naturally forgotten. The limelight is short lived.

During the Asian Cup, Dhoni couldn’t perform his usual magic. It was Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja who managed to bring some critical runs into our kitty. The game was extremely nerve-wracking with the number of balls left being equal to the runs required. The suspense on the Asia Cup winner lingered on until the last ball of the fiftieth over. Rest is all history.