World Cup ’11: A Weakest Review

Finally, the most awaited dream of the every cricket fan of this country where cricket is practiced like the first religion was fulfilled when Mahindra Singh Dhoni smashed the ball for a long six into the crowd in his very own helicopter style. The wait is over and the cup is ours after 28 long years.

In between we had our chances of ups and downs but were never able to bring the cup back in our courtyard. Now, we are the champions for at least four years. Critics raised eyes on many-a-times on the decision taken up by the skipper Mahindra Singh Dhoni, but always his management of team kept all of them at bay. 

This cup symbolizes not only a great victory and teamwork but also it shows the world and the country the importance of small towns. The scenario in the country has changed, due to rapid industrialization and development once small towns have risen up to a level to get engrossed with a feeling of competiveness. These small towns will soon become the modern day Delhi or Mumbai and will shine like any other developed city. 

Winning Cricket World Cup 2011 was a very proud and yet emotional moment for the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar. Every record in the cricketing book is under his name yet he had to digest the painful fact that his team had never won the Cup. It’s not like as if though India had never been close to a World Cup win in between all this 28 years. In one of the occasion we reached the semis and then in 2003 we were the runner-ups as we lost to the much better side, the Aussies, in the finals.  

Indian team had the inherent advantage of playing on the home ground but tackling pressure in one’s own country was never an easy task. Also from the day one we were the favorites of not only the Indian media but also of the foreign media, which further aggravated the pressure. So credit must go to each and every member of the team and the management for the way they handled such an immense pressure. 

I know we won this cup just because of the sheer skill and talent of our playing eleven but, we must never forget the important roles played by many other players from time to time in making this dream come true. Contribution from players like Saurav, Srinath, Kumble, Kaif, Agarkar, Laxman, Dravid, Jadeja, Robin Singh, and Prasad to name few must never be forgotten. This cup belongs to all of them as much as it belongs to the playing eleven. 

 

I don’t know whether our PM would agree with this or not but certainly cricket provided him the much needed respite he was looking for from so many days. Cricket diverted even the attention of the sharp-eyed opposition for the time-being. Yet, our politicians never underestimated the power of cricket and used it wisely to suit their political career. 

One thing I love the most about cricket is its social influence. Nothing binds us as strongly as cricket does, which was quite apparent in this six weeks. Never for once I heard the Shiv Sainiks and their sister organization restricting a North Indian from coming to Mumbai for watching the finals. 

But then, I find it quite painful and hard to digest whenever I read news stating various state governments and PSU’s announcing gifts worth millions. Isn’t all this money the same which we borrowed from the World Bank? So the money which was in reality must have been used for the various development programs now is been used otherwise to make a multi-millionaire become a billionaire. Also, I guess most of our PSU’s are in a very bad taste and are undergoing the process of disinvestment to raise money. So from where the hell are they going to sustain the cost of liberties which they gifted otherwise?

It was really heartbreaking when I saw the whole stadium doing boo in Quarter final match against Australians when Ponting got out instead of raising their hands in unison for greeting such a splendid knock. Also, the jingoism associated with the Pakistan match and all those messages circulating hysteria backed by the corporate giants ebb the true sporting feeling of the cricket. The skyrocketing price of the tickets for the stadium baffles me up.  Words from my gatekeeper truly symbolize this, he says… “Yeh sab Amiro ke chochle hain bhai g”. 

To end this post I must again congratulate MSD for his brilliant captaincy, team management for backing and providing the team with the support they needed and all the players who made us proud. 

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Image source: Google