BackAgony, ecstasy and a bit of indifference: A cricket fan’s musings
The results of the Under-19 World Cup final and the India-Sri Lanka T20 series leave this fan with bittersweet emotions
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Last weekend, the Indian cricket team lost the final of the Under-19 World Cup to the West Indies. On the same day, the senior team—over-19s, by and large—crushed Sri Lanka in a Twenty20 match, extending a run of success that fuels optimism about an upcoming World championship in that format of the game.
Reading about those two results later, I found myself with a curious mix of three emotions.
First, I couldn’t bring myself to give much of a damn about India’s T20 win over Sri Lanka, nor even about the optimism I mentioned. This is partly because I don’t like T20 cricket. But it’s also because captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men play so much cricket that after a point it all starts to look and feel the same. How is it possible to drum up excitement, game after ball-bashing T20 game?
What’s more, for better or worse, I simply don’t like a few players in that team. One example, Shikhar Dhawan. Despite his often spectacular batting talent, Dhawan spoiled his copybook forever for me with the way he once mocked the injury of an Australian opponent. That kind of crassness has no place on any sporting field. Besides, imagine the uproar if an Australian had done the same to an Indian.
To me, that incident says something about the real substance in this man. It should have been reason enough for a long suspension from the game for Dhawan. Yet, nothing like that happened. In particular, as his captain, Dhoni did nothing to reprimand Dhawan, whether right then or later. You couldn’t help wondering, did Dhawan’s behaviour have Dhoni’s sanction then?
Marry that to the dullness of T20 and you start to get a sense of why India’s victory and the World championship prospects leave me indifferent.
Second, and in contrast, I was truly sorry that the junior team lost their final. For one thing, younger players are by definition less experienced, and therefore less jaded than their senior counterparts. Several of them may even know that this is their one moment in the sun, for how many can realistically expect to move up the ranks to the senior team? To me, this suggests that they will play with more verve and passion as well than their senior counterparts. I realize this is one sweeping generalization—but again for better or worse, this is how I see the junior team.
I didn’t watch the final, but I did read reports that several of the Indian players were openly weeping at the end. That’s how much they cared about this game and tournament; that’s how much it must have hurt when, batting first, they were shot out for far too few runs by a fired-up West Indies team.
What’s more, the Indian juniors were coached by someone I believe is the country’s finest-ever cricketer, Rahul Dravid. Dravid could easily have settled into the glamour of coaching the seniors, or into doing regular commentary on TV. Instead, he chose the relative backwaters of the junior game. If he is able to instil in these young men half his own fibre and fire, he will have done his job well. But it’s beyond that.
Dravid’s great virtue to the Under-19s has got to be that he has thought deeply about the job, just as he always seemed to do about playing the game itself.
Last year, Dravid delivered the M.A.K. Pataudi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, and focused entirely on junior cricket, down to five- and seven-year-old beginners. It is a remarkable statement of purpose filled with all manner of clear thinking. “At age-group tournaments," he said at one point, “there needs to be strict guidelines to allow more children to participate, rather than have the more accomplished kids rack up big centuries."
Think of that in the light of a recent score of 1,009.
Later, he had these lines: “It is important for our young cricketers to continue with their education—even if all the time away from schools makes it hard for them to finish their graduation. It will be something they can go back to in case the cricket dream doesn’t come true for some reason. But aside from all that, it is important to stay connected to school and college because it will mean they have friends outside cricket, conversations outside cricket and life experiences that are not connected to cricket. It will give them the perspective needed to become well-rounded adults."
Fine advice for not just young cricketers, but young citizens-in-the-making too.
But here’s my third and final emotion from the two results last weekend: utter delight that the West Indies won the U-19 World Cup. Anyone who enjoys this game and knows something of its history will know about the great West Indians who have thrilled fans for decades. Here’s just a partial list: Everton Weekes, Learie Constantine, Clyde Walcott, Frank Worrell, Rohan Kanhai, Wes Hall, Garry Sobers, Andy Roberts, Alf Valentine, Sonny Ramadhin, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Curtly Ambrose, Shiv Chanderpaul, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner...
I could go on and on. Men like these made the West Indies the best team in the world not just for their achievements, but for the joy and awe their exploits fuelled in us all. Yet, West Indies cricket has been on a downward spiral for many years now. They seem unable, there in the Caribbean, to find either players or administrators who will turn that descent around. For me, this is by far the saddest story in the game.
So, when a West Indian team actually win something significant, I find myself hoping frantically for that turnaround. Even if it is the U-19 team. Then again, maybe it’s because it is the U-19 team that I find hope. Just maybe, the passion with which these kids play will take them to greater heights in the game.
Just maybe, they will bring West Indies cricket back.
Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His latest book is Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar.
His Twitter handle is @DeathEndsFun
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com
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