I was born a year after India won cricket world cup for the first time in 1983. From the days I got to know about cricket in my childhood, I had a dream to watch Indian team lifting the world cup. In a country like India where we breath, drink and eat cricket, it was not a dream of just an individual, it was a dream of more than 50% of Indian - who were born after 1983 and a great desire of the rest. In short, an aspiration of 1.2 billion people!
Defeat after defeat in all the world cups after that made us frustrated and bitter, but we didn’t loose hope. And then came the world cup 2011. We always had great players in our team, this time we have a great TEAM with not a charismatic but a magnificent captain. The team did not appear like a world champion form the first match, but they improved their performance in each match they played.
And came the final after another two spectacular wins in quarter final and semi-final. The opposition gave India a very decent target and made a welcome to Indian Batsman with an outstanding bowling attack. It didn’t take much time to dismiss the panic striker, Sehwag and the hallmark of Indian cricket, Tendulkar out of the ground. Then appeared a void. I know many switched off their TV. Some of my friends in Facebook updated their status message during this period:
“Guys I going out for shopping, anyone wants to join me ?????????????”
“Can't loose hope...now m sitting at the farthest corner to the screen and peeping into...”
“I m not able face it. Today might be my last day following cricket . God save India . May be my last post on FB”
Suddenly a dark picture appeared in front of my eyes – semi final of World cup 1996. The same opposition! Tendulkar got out and the rest of the team collapsed like a house of cards in Kolkata. It was really a scary situation, but did I mention before, ‘we have a great team’?. Indeed! ‘No, this can’t be repeated’, replied my heart. I couldn’t resist to update my status message in Facebook, ‘”We can!!!”. What happened in the match in next three hours is the history. Then followed the grand Six by Dhoni. Unbelievable – We were all screaming, jumping… The wait for 28 years is over! It felt like I am in an early morning dream – I just prayed, ‘Oh God, even if it’s a dream, please please don’t let my eye open…’. In fact it was not a dream now, it’s the reality! A much cherished reality for more than a billion.
Cricket World Cup 2011 is another milestone of shining India! The team India lead by the captain did a superb job through out and set a new standard of excellence for rest of we Indians.
Thank you so much great Indian cricket team! We’ll live up to the standard set by you, but now the celebrations and extravaganza would continue for some time 
It was 1996 semifinal not Qf..btw nice article..
ReplyDeleteThank you so much the comment and correction dude, I have rectified now!
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