The school promotes a global outlook, cultural understanding and respect for traditions
It was perhaps easy to align with the dominant narrative in the build-up to this year’s T20 World Cup final in Bridgetown, Barbados. That it was the clash between the game’s perennial chokers (South Africa) and the chokers of the last decade (India).
If you have followed cricket passionately, there is no way you would miss the irony of it. In many ways, South Africa’s failure to lay their hands on the biggest trophies has remained the greatest mystery in world cricket.
Since their return to international cricket in 1991 following the two-decade-long ban in the apartheid era, the Rainbow Nation has produced some absolute gems — Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs, Gary Kirsten, Brian McMillan, Lance Klusener, Jonty Rhodes, Graeme Smith, Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla, Ab de Villers, Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Quinton de Kock.
Yes, the old-timers would argue that no matter what, these guys still pale in comparison to some of the South African wizards who never had a chance to dance on the big stage. A monster called apartheid had them on a tight leash, and the only form of expression those marvels found were on the picturesque county grounds of England, miles away from the glamour of international cricket.
Yet, Gibbs, Donald, De Villiers, Kallis, Steyn had known nothing other than heartbreaks in the World Cup.
It’s now easy to draw parallels between South Africa and the Indian story of the last decade. Despite boasting an embarrassment of riches, the world’s most powerful cricket country could never translate their potential in the big tournaments after their ICC Champions Trophy in 2013.
Their failure to win the big knockout matches in ICC tournaments since 2013 was perplexing even for the game’s most famous pundits.
Who could blame them when it’s India that can proudly claim to possess the greatest match-winner with the bat in Virat Kohli?
Has the game ever seen a more magical batter — who is capable of repeatedly snatching victories from the jaws of defeats almost single-handedly for his team — than Kohli since the glory days of the incomparable Viv Richards and the maverick Brian Lara?
Kohli, in his own words, can only dream of matching the technical excellence of his childhood idol Sachin Tendulkar. Nor could he effortlessly hit sixes like Rohit Sharma. Yet, in the last 12 years, he became the most ruthless accumulator of runs and a match-winner of epic proportions.
But somehow even the mighty Kohli didn’t quite live up to the expectations in the knockout matches of the World Cups. And when an unbeaten India stormed into the final of the T20 World Cup, mainly on the back of their skipper Rohit’s swashbuckling batting at the top order, the irreplaceable Jasprit Bumrah’s brilliance with the ball and Kuldeep Yadav’s loop and turn, Kohli was a man struggling for rhythm and runs.
In front of India was a South African team devoid of players of the calibre of their past superstars. But it was a team that knew how to play T20 cricket and they could also stop the other team from playing.
And just like India, they had also stormed into the final without losing a single game.
But in the match that mattered, it was the history of both teams’ past failures that pundits would pounce on.
In the crunch moment, who would blink first? Well, we all know now who did it first. If it was a grappling contest, South Africa had India gasping for breath on the mat. How could they have lost the grip, or some might say the plot? The reason for that was the unbreakable spirit of Rohit’s India which, in Bumrah, have arguably one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time and one that even the iconic Andy Roberts believes would have been good enough to get the new ball even for the mighty West Indies of the 1980s which had four fearsome pace bowlers. Bumrah was simply unstoppable in the death overs as India produced a stirring fightback. The romantics will also sing about Suryakumar Yadav’s breathtaking catch and Hardik Pandya’s redemption for years to come.
But this Indian team perhaps would not have been in a position to put up a fight if Kohli had not delivered his only meaningful knock of the tournament in the final.
The master batsman weathered the storm after India lost early wickets before dragging the team to safety with sheer resilience and willpower.
A country of 1.4 billion was moved to tears when its most loved cricketer after Tendulkar choked with emotion when the last ball was bowled in that cliff-hanger.
At that moment, it was perhaps hard for him not to think of the dark night in 2006 when he lost his father, the man who, after sacrificing a lot and even fighting a corrupt system for his cricket dreams, didn’t live long enough to see his son become one of the brightest stars in the cricketing galaxy.
— rituraj@khaleejtimes.com
The school promotes a global outlook, cultural understanding and respect for traditions
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