The Other Side of Cricket

The sacred game of cricket has always been highly revered in my family through generations – right from the time of Colonel C.K. Nayudu to Virat Kohli, cricket has been a religion of sorts and has been watched with everlasting enthusiasm across the years by almost everyone in my family. My grandmother was a huge fan of Farrokh Engineer and my brother grew up on a staple diet of Sunil Gavaskar. I remember the time when my brother had drawn a couple of his sketches and mailed them to him. Imagine our joy when the great Gavaskar responded with a thank you note appreciating his art. This letter was prominently displayed on our school noticeboard for a week. Those were the sunniest days of our childhood.

Probably I am one of the very few odd ones out who are not as enamored by cricket as the rest of my family and my understanding is fairly limited to the rules & format of the game. I usually just watch match highlights and follow the wins & losses through the news.

Last yearend was a little different though. Whenever my mom visits me, we have a ritual. While having our breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. we usually watch something or the other on her iPad. In December last year, she suggested we watch the interviews of the 1983 cricket World Cup winning team. So, we started off – first with all the comedy shows, then the more serious stuff on the various Sports and News channels. Once we were done with this, we watched the movie “83” and ultimately rounded it off with the actual recording of the final match. Through these couple of weeks of watching the shows, interviews, movies & matches, I got to know each player, each member of the team, and each character of the movie closely. By the end of it, I started to vaguely remember the national frenzy of getting the Prudential World Cup home back in 1983 when I was just 13 years old.

What I did not know back then and what I discovered now were the intricate details of the events that led to this victory and the part that each team member played to orchestrate the win which seems almost magical today. When you know that a team has in it to win and is already a hot favorite, victory is expected. But when it has been popularly decided that they do not have it in them to win even a single match, but they emerge as underdogs to actually win the finals, it is nothing short of a miracle. But what is even more commendable is the evolution of the team within those couple of weeks when a band of boys out to have some fun transforms into a league of men who create history.

The process of norming, forming, storming, and performing within the boisterous group of 14 was clearly visible through the weeks leading up to the final. What was also evident was the unique personality of each individual player that shone through the team and eventually contributed to their overall success. The quiet poise of Roger Binny, the infectious charm of Sandeep Patil, the hilariously affable humor of Kris Srikkanth, the striking yet highly underrated performance of Mohinder Amarnath, the unconventional rawness of Kirti Azad, the eccentricity of Syed Kirmani, the dynamic versatility of Madan Lal, the classic well-balanced stance of Dilip Vengsarkar, the sublime talent of Ravi Shastri, the fascinating impact of Balwinder Sandhu, the significant contribution of Sunil Valson, the jovial yet gutsy humility of the late Yashpal Sharma rounded off with the stoic professionalism of Sunil Gavaskar and the prolific leadership of Kapil Dev ?– this is the stuff that winning teams are made of and this is the combination that could pull us out of the most certain defeat to most certain victory through a build-up of confidence with each incremental triumph.

I had the good fortune to come across Kapil Dev at the Mumbai Airport in May last year – the time I was going through some serious issues on a personal front. While I may not be the kind of cricket fan who is crazy over her idols, I did not want to miss the opportunity to invoke the jealousy of certain friends and hence decided to take a photograph along with him. What I noticed when I sat next to him was the book he was reading entitled “Guts Amidst Bloodbath”. I considered it as an omen motivating me to fight my own personal battle with guts & grit and today, after all these months, and after knowing everything about the victory of 1983, I know that if that team could rise to the occasion the way they did, why can’t I turn my circumstances around? After all, in life, just like in cricket, in the words of Kapil Dev himself, “We here to win. What else we here for?”

Photo Credit: Photo by Suzy Hazelwood: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-playing-cricket-on-green-grass-field-4219639/