Pride without Prejudice

Yesterday, while I was reading the reviews of the fourth day's play, one thing stuck out amongst the rest. It was a mail from an Indian cricket fan, in Australia, written at the time when India had slumped to 150/8 in the first innings at Calcutta. The girl wrote, with despair written all over the mail, that after the rout of the touring Indian team by the hands of the Aussies, she had to face a lot of humiliating remarks from her Aussie co-workers.
She had waited patiently, till the Aussie tour, to give them all a befitting reply.

Needless to say, she got little or no chance after the first test loss and now that India was tottering at Calcutta, there seemed to be none in the offing either. All that she asked from god was a drawn series.
Through all of yesterday, I could feel the pain that she must have undergone, thanks to the shoddy Indian showing. I kept thinking what was it to be an Indian cricket fan.

As it is there are a few things that the odd billion Indian population takes collective pride in. Cricket happens to be one of them, and cricketers, thus, become demigods. Seeing them fall from grace gives immense pain to every single individual. We curse the cricketers when they get involved in match fixing. We swear to never watch the team play again, but when the d-day arrives, we find ourselves glued to whatever gives us information about the match. Because we, as Indians, take pride in the game.

Today, the Aussies have been humiliated. Heck, we have mothered them. Shane Warne and McGrath have been reduced to first class bowlers and the Aussie batting has been exposed to the bone by a twenty year old. This is our moment of glory and for once we will mince no words even if it's at the cost of the Aussie pride. I will take a leaf out of Julia Roberts’s book and say what she said on getting the golden globe. "Oh good golly!" I'm just shamelessly filled with joy.

I can't help, but think of the girl, back in Australia. She must be waltzing away to glory now. True to the characteristic style of the shy protagonist of an Indian film, who after getting battered for the initial two and a half hours walks away with the girl!!!

Oh Eden! the garden of pleasure.

Win! at last or should I say loss.......finally! :-)
If you ask me, both the phrases give me equal amount of pleasure. Not only did we destabilize the throne of the erstwhile mighty Aussies, we did it in great style.
One hundred and seventy one runs win as against a ten wicket loss. We seem to have leveled the series, in all meanings of the word.

The match review column in rediff made an interesting observation, it had to do with the invincibility of a player or team and the myth/mystique that comes as a part of the package. I agree to it fully. Many a times, it so happens, that the teams go on winning almost habitually, till the time someone throws in a spanner in the victory march. Within no time the spell breaks. The invincible air disappears and the same team which boasts of demigods appears to be comprised of mere mortals, who can be beaten.
India, thanks to their unpredictability, does not really inspire enough confidence in me as a team who can perform the task of taming the Aussies (oh! and I would love to eat my words!). However, we have done this 'belittling the goliath' act earlier too! (remember '83 world cup and '85 World Series). So if we go on from here and win almost everything in sight, I wouldn't be much surprised, either.

That is akin to Gopichand winning the all England title. Hey that happened, didn't it?
Whatever happens, I am going to drink to this long awaited win, and drink silly!!!