Chak De India, Once Again!

And finally, it's over - another exciting world cup, the best for India ever! Yes, we still have the finals in Mumbai, but that's like going on a honeymoon when you have already... LOL.. you get my point.

Early in the morning is when I get my bright ideas and yesterday was no exception. I was wondering how best to plan out the day when I thought of catching it at ESquare... we quickly booked 7 Platinum tickets on BookMyShow (it's amazing how freakingly friendly the site is - kudos to them!), caught a quick lunch and plunked ourselves in the airconditioned comfort of Screen 5, the mega high definition screen, where you can clearly pick out the poor fly getting squashed between the ball and the bat when there's a nick - technically, that should be not out, isn't it? With a thousand crazy fans screaming Bharat Maata Ki Jai, it was going to be a very exciting evening!

India had won the toss, and as I predicted in my earlier post, Dhoni chose to bat. Like me, he had read the pitch wrong, and gone in with an extra seamer Ashish Nehra, in place of the done-well-so-far-and-expected-to-play-today R Ashwin. Sehwag gave India the kind of start that only he can provide, smashing Umar Gul to the boundary 5 times in one over. He raced to 38 with 9 boundaries before Wahab Riaz did him in with a beautiful LBW. Gambhir joined him and stroked around for a subdued 27 before he perished stumped behind in the attempt to up the scoring rate. Kohli managed just 9, and then the shocker that silenced the nation - Yuvi going for a golden duck to a beautiful reverse swining yorker from Riaz. Tendulkar meanwhile was leading a very charmed life, dropped not once or twice, but 4 times! He also survived an LBW after a referral, and a stumping after a 3rd umpire review. Sachin was approaching his 100th 100 when his luck finally ran out, caught Afridi bowled Ajmal. Dhoni tried to hang around, but when he left and India were pretty much tottering at 205-6, Raina played another of his stellar knocks in the company of Bhajji and the bowlers, giving India a more than respectable 260 on the board. With the start India had got, 340 was not impossible, but the pitch had got slower and it was difficult to strike the ball. Would Indian bowlers be able to make a match of it? Would Dhoni's decision to drop Ashwin for an extra seamer come to haunt us?

And what a bowling performance they put in! Hunting in a pack, the seamers Zaheer, Munaf and Nehra, using guile and deception, the spinners Harbhajan and Yuvi using control and variation of flight and length, struck at regular intervals, backed by absolutely stunning fielding, even by the much maligned older members of the squad. Singles were impossible to steal, the returns fast and quick. Catches stuck like glue, and the pressure was building up every ball. From an asking rate of just over 5, the rate kept climbing as one Pakistani batsman followed another back to the pavilion after some excruciating moments on the pitch. The mastery and control of the Indians can be gauged from the fact that the first extra came only in the 35th over or so, and India conceded only 8 wides (5 of them came in one crazy ball from Zaheer that went right off the radar) and no no balls!

Pakistan never really got the upper hand, and barring the statistical possibility of winning the match, the Indians never lost grip on the innings. And the inexplicable strategies of the Pakistanis only served to make matters worse - Misbah played like he was trying to save a Test match, blocking and defending countless deliveries, never looking to even steal a single. Shahid Afridi refused to take the powerplay until it was too late. (And then came up with some unintelligible explanation during the presentation ceremony, ending with "I think the Indians played better than us"!)


With 30 to score in the last over, Misbah couldn't get a single shot to the boundary, ultimately holing out to Virat in the deep.
 
And it was India 5 Pakistan 0.
 
And it was only the beginning of the show! As fans streamed out of their homes, restaurants and theatres to celebrate, roads jammed, the incessant beats of dhols, tashas, car horns and chants of Chak De India rent the air. But no one was complaining.
 
On our part, we piled into the Endy, blasting Chak De India on the speakers, driving through town (wherever we could squeeze through traffic) with folks sitting on the car window sill.... the celebrations were unrestrained... there was no religion, caste, age, sex, or income bracket... people hugged and wished each other, with just one identity - proud Indians!!! India had beaten Pakistan, yet again, and there were no two ways about it... once again, a proud nation was adoring its heroes.
 
A lot was said and written - and along with the war cries were thoughts that this was all a hype. It was just a cricket game, after all, they said. But no, it was not just a cricket game. It was an event that united a country. It made millions of youngsters feel proud to wave our flag, to sing our anthem, and wear our colors. And when I see my daughter, first in 2003 and now in 2011, proudly wear India colors and wave the flag, proud to be an Indian, I think I have done well to expose her to the madness and hype called Cricket!
 
India travels to Mumbai on Saturday, and yes, I will be at ESquare too... but hey, now it's just a game of cricket :)