God of nineteen runs « makeSplash.com by Sush Jaitly

God of nineteen runs

November 7th, 2009

One God communicating with another

We all believe in destiny, almost. I’m no different. I believe whatever happens is because it was destined to be that way. Last night we were destined to loose. Destiny wanted to tell us that we don’t deserve to have a cricketing god amongst us. This country has indeed been fortunate to have someone like Sachin Tendulkar take birth from it’s womb but yesterday I realized that he was born in the wrong country. We really don’t deserve him. A god surrounded by mediocres was reduced to being part of losers. And that too losing to a third rung of no hopers.

While Praveen Kumar was batting I was praying for another four if not six. And this time I was not praying for India. I was praying for Sachin. After the kind of innings he played even if India did not deserve to win Sachin did. Yes, it was the other way round yesterday. Sachin deserved to win. India did not, even if it sounds absolutely hypothetical or even ridiculous for that matter.

The sight actually spoke volumes. This was a sight when the Indian dressing room was literally seen with players keeping their fingers crossed but keeping your fingers crossed doesn’t win you matches. Playing good cricket does, more often than not. And it was only a symbol of all round good cricket which Aussies displayed yesterday. They waited for the god to leave and when he did they pounced on lesser mortals. It was only a symbol of good cricket by which they managed to kill two with sharp run outs and another with equally sharp bowling and field placing. It was only a symbol of good cricket that a side with only half the regular players beat us right here in our backyard. The god tried his best to avert disaster but I guess he too is a god of just lesser mortals only.

The so called greats going by the names of Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harbhajan and few others failed to do justice and once again when Sachin left it was more or less all over. Except for one last deep breath when Praveen Kumar hit a six the Indian challenge had breathed it’s last, last night. No, they did not fail by just three runs, it was the god who failed by nineteen runs. Or may be we needed another god. A god of nineteen runs. Like in Jan 1999 against Pakistan at Chennai while chasing 271 he got out after scoring 136 despite his illness. At that time too we needed another god. A god of seventeen runs. But there was none.