The Day of Reckoning

India vs Pakistan. World Cup semi final. Few other things get bigger, fiercer and tantalizingly close to disaster than this. In fact, it does not have to be a World Cup semi final to assume such outrageous proportions. Any match played between these two countries dwarfs all other happenings, if not around the world then at least in this part of the sub-continent. There is far too much of history, friction, intolerance, prejudice, a plethora of commonalities and even more differences that come alive on when the two teams clash. It is no fun to be an Indian or Pakistan cricketer on such days. How nice it could be to go in to a sporting contest knowing that at the end of it you could be on either poles of public perception.  Media in both the countries is scathing. If on the Indian side it is fuelled more by an opportunist desire to cash in on public interest, in the Pakistan side it is pure vitriol spewed in a no barriers barred fashion. Each represent the present state of the country, one on the cusps of implementing a flawed capitalism and the other forced to look inward to redefine itself. No matter what the players do or do not, each of their moves is watched with a fiendish zeal to point out lacunae. Even a James Bond cannot give such tight vigil a slip. If the build up is frenzied, the event is a deluge of testosterone and the end a Shakespearean tragedy or a celebration of the most deranged kind.

Ever since India evicted Australia out of the World Cup in the quarter final, the anticipated semi final clash has eclipsed all other news. Domestic and foreign media both have tried to project this as an epic of the order of an intercelestial fight to finish. So much so that even the Japan Tsunami has been pushed aside, the corruption news have beaten a reluctant retreat and no aliens are abducting cows from UP on India TV. The symphony has turned into a crescendo. Anyone who ever came into a fifty yard vicinity of either team’s dressing room is a trusted insider worthy of 30 minutes of video bite. To be called an expert you need know no more than the name of Sachin Tendulkar. A minister, feeling peeved at such adulation of the cricketers has cried wolf already receiving terrible flak on its wake. This event has also promised to bring three arch enemies together, the Prime Minister of India, the Opposition Leader of India and the Pakistan Prime Minister. The presence of any two of these three is bonanza time for reporters; imagine what all three and the cricket match will do to their appetite. Well, Bon Appétit fellow scribes.

Behind all this cacophony, Sri Lanka has silently crept up to the finals. Whoever they meet in Mumbai would be in a state of over buoyancy and emotional drain down. Nothing would augur better for the Lankans. If they meet Pakistan, rest assured the audience will volunteer to be their honorary cheerleaders. If it is India, they can play to their strength and still spring a victory, belligerent crowd notwithstanding. This makes one job in the whole world the least desirable at the moment, the Captain of the Indian Cricket Team. Had the Imperial Sourav Ganguly been at the helm, his countrymen would have been assured of impetuous disdain of the opponent. Had it been Anil Kumble, it would have meant a pragmatic approach with German precision. Rahul Dravid would have gotten an algorithm to win developed by an ace research team of the Carnegie-Mellon university and adhered to it against the advice of the Lord Himself. But none of these greats are donning the dreaded Blue Cap at the moment. The man in charge is an Iron sinewed bloke from the hinterlands of India. 

He came in to contention with an acute paucity of technique but with the power of a monsoon cyclone, a lack of finesse but a zeal to take the bull by its horn. And he has been successful, immensely so. Some say he is lucky, others credit the team for his success. But he stands aloof from the crowd keeping a shepherd’s eye on his flock, marshalling resources, fetching victories and then walking into the sunset with his back to the naysayers. He neither has Ganguly’s awe nor Kumble’s stature nor Dravid’s acumen. But he has his guts. Those are made of entirely un-biodegradable material. And he has won India a World Cup with them, albeit the one in the shortest format. He won the tournament taking with him a team made up of rag tags; a few survivors of a disastrous World Cup campaign and another motley group of hitherto unknowns sans the big names of Indian Cricket. But he tethered them to the finals facing the equally unlikely finalist, Pakistan. And he handed over the last over to Joginder Sharma. The plan was to bowl wide of off  stump at the risk of being called wide. It worked at first but seemed to come apart as Misbah ul Haq hoinked one over mid off for six. But the man stuck to his plan with the outside off stump zone. This time the batter fell in to the trap. India won a nail biter. The choice of Joginder for the last over, though brilliant in success, would have been outrageous in failure as the experienced Harbhajan had an over left. The same situation confronted the Iron Man against South Africa in the league stages of this World Cup. This time though the ploy with Nehra did not work. How dented is India’s captain from this? Will he go by his super human guts in a pressure situation again or will he look for the conventional options? This match will put the Indian captain’s coolness to the ultimate litmus test. In victory or in defeat, time will tell whether the middle class boy from Ranchi embraces immortality or falls to the all leveling floors of failure. This is the day of reckoning for Mahendra Singh, Dhoni.

Meanwhile....let's BLEED BLUE!!!!!!!!