India United

India as a nation probably was never that united that she became on the 2^nd April, 10.45 PM. As the lofted shot of Dhoni landed in some twenty or thirty rows back, I felt with my heart and soul that we, the Indian can also conquer the world and beat champions after champions to become the champion. After the gap of 28 years, Indian cricket team brought the Cricket World Cup home once again, after 1983 but this time it was different. In the year of 1983, when I was 3 ½ years old, Kapil Dev’s team was not at all the favourites to win the World Cup. Hence, they had no pressure to perform match after match to the Cup. What they did was to play the matches according to the merits, gave their best and upset teams like Australia, England and the mighty West Indians.

During this World Cup of the new millennium, M. S. Dhoni’s team was the favourites to win the Cup. They were playing at their backyard and had to take relentless pressure from a billion people, and suffer the scrutiny of the experts to live with. At first, the team did not start the tournament in the right note; they could not defend a score of 338 against England and settled with a tie rather than an easy win. Then after that once again, excellent partnerships against the South Africans could not get the respect by other team members as India lost 7 wickets in around 30 runs and gave up a winnable match to the opponent. To me these hiccups were needed so that the team kept on their toes. The turning point of the tournament came in the quarter finals, when we won a tight match against the former world champions ‘Australia’. This particular match was so tight that a stage came when many people thought India would go out of the tournament! It took a great partnership between Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina to bend the tie in our fortune.

Pride is the word which has been used in a negative sense by many people, who unfortunately thinks that having pride harms the character of an individual. But according to me, having the pride and be proud about something brings out the best from an individual.

The pride of the Indian army is such, that to salvage the liberty of the people they smilingly take bullets right on their chests and save our country from falling to many enemies.

The team India that we are seeing now started to evolve as the Great Sachin Tendulkar, the pride of India, gave up the leadership position during the first half of 2000. When Indian cricket could have gone to the ruins, a character rose and came to take the responsibility on him to save the team from corruption. The attitude of team India started to change as The Sourav Ganguly rose as a leader of the billion people. It was for the first time that Australians were given the taste of their own medicines. The first strike which cracked the unbeatable tag of the Australians came at the Eden Garden, where a great, full counter-attack by the team of Sourav, made the mighty Australians crumble under pressure for the first time in many years. Skeptics thought that it was a one time phenomenon but they got their answers, slamming into their faces by that aggressive young role-model who would never shy away to thrash the oppositions by leading from the front.

I still remember a morning of the 3^rd test of the same series in Chennai, where a batsman like Steve Waugh had to circum to such pressure that he got out by “Handling the Ball”. It was quite unexpected to many cricket experts as Waugh’s cool and calm composure could be disturbed by Sourav’s aggressive team strategy.

Then after that quite unexpectedly, team India reached the finals of 2003 World Cup in South Africa and that too in an unexpected manner. Nobody expected that a team which has weakness in bouncy tracks and moving ball could do that. The self belief that Sourav brought in team India once again could be seen as he himself scored a magnificent century at Brisbane, the second most bouncy track in Australia. He tackled Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee with an ease that as if he was tackling ‘his favourite’, any left-arm spinner in the world. And after that when India beat Pakistan in their home territory, the unique attitude was imprinted within any cricketer of India.

This particular night of 2^nd April 2011, was the ultimate point that Indian cricket could reach. Now, the time has come where other teams would like to beat India just like it happened during 70’s & 80’s to the West Indian team and the whole of last decade to the Australian team.

A person from a very humble economic background and a gambler to many gave the nation, the moment which gave away the difference between the people for their caste, class, region and religion. Our nation was united after a very long time when people actually forgot who they were and was proud to be Indians. It was a day which can be compared with every day of our freedom movement where we were always united. But this time the politicians were not the masters who united the people, though they have the power to unit the country but it seems that some vested interest do not allow them to do so.

M. S. Dhoni had a horrible tournament as a batsman. Many people said and teased to tell that he should be a non-playing captain but now I would like to see their blackened faces. When time came, he took the responsibility upon himself to show what a leader can do. Mastering the fear is the most important aspect of a leader. Dhoni did so like he was destined to do so. A true leader would always like to go and lead from the front. Even after he took the trophy from the podium itself he talked about the mistakes that he made. He told that the mistakes would be overlooked as the team won the cup. But I think he would never overlook the mistakes owing to fact that he is a great leader. I hope he brings many successes to India and I would like to request some politicians who make the policy decision to accept the mistakes because MS has shown that accepting the mistakes and taking the responsibilities brings success to the person and the nation.

I hope the republic of India stays united and many honest people comes up to take leadership positions and share the immense responsibilities by throwing out the corrupts and standing up against them. It is possible as last ten years of Indian cricket history has shown that.