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It is always a point of interest to recollect and reminisce about the
moments surrounding important events in history - where
one was when Kapil Dev lifted the only World Cup that came India's way,
how things played out when Sunil Gavaskar walked out the field for the
last time. It is not so much as the actual event, or the gravity of it,
that would be remembered long after the moment has passed, but its
impact and the impression the moment leaves in the mind that is often
cherished. As the wise Einstein once put it, it is all relative. Sure,
the World Cup has seen one precious moment after another unfolding on
grander stages, each one surpassing its predecessor, and each one
dwarfing the impact on the populace of the proceedings just the day
before. What started as an arithmetic progression, gained steam as a
geometric progressions, snowballed and finally settled into a harmonic
one. And the funny thing is, none of these events had anything to do
with the actual game played out on the green in the middle.
The first casualty was Pakistan - Woolmer's death and Inzamam's exit;
next came India - India's capitulation and Chappell's resignation;
England soon followed suit - Fletcher's hanging up his boots and
Vaughan's sincere mea culpa. Not to be left behind in the dramatics,
the biggest of all, Lara's last campaign, a lost one. In between South
Africa came close to stealing the thunder from all, following the
shocking drubbing, and an all well too known, the prospect of yet
another exit from the World Cup. With so much drama happening off the
field, it is no wonder that the actual game has paled in history and
histrionics, and its cause is certainly not helped by the length of the
tournament and a simultaneous lack of serious contests. This World Cup
has been a boon to the sports writers, while the statisticians sat
there twiddling their thumbs, gathering dust, in anticipation of that
one great match that would forever remain synonymous with 2007. As luck
would have it, the drama department currently holds a large lead over
the sports section with only one week left in the campaign. Unless the
semi-finals and finals promise the kind of intensity, action and
excitement of the '99 semifinal between Australia and South Africa
(that Australia won on a technicality in a tied fixture) or the '96
upset victory of Sri Lanka over the Aussies again, this World Cup is
going to go down as the most dull and drab tournament ever.
If runs, scores and wins cannot whet the fan's appetite, how about
intrigue surrounding Woolmer's murder? It has all the drama of spy
games back in the day of the Cold War - or if the preliminary reports
are to be believed and the presence of a 'foreign' substance in his
system can't be ruled out completely, it has the dramatic re-creation
of the latest assassination of Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, poisoned by
injecting a radioactive substance into his constitution, allegedly at
the behest of the Russian premier, Putin. Who would have thought that
the term 'cricket' could be taken in the same breath as KGB, Putin and
murder? And then there was Inzamam. It is hard not to sympathize with
the big man. Never a man given to the wild ways, even outside of the
sport, unlike some of his more (in)famous teammates, he is cursed to
always find himself amidst controversial, hairy, and if the latest
incident is taken into account, even dangerous situations. Right from
the tussle with the booing spectator down to the comical, and sometimes
controversial, ways that he got himself, and his partners, out, right
from introducing religious elements to curb rebellious tendencies in
the team, down to the last ball of his one-day career, when he managed
to find himself underneath a flier, off the bowling of, of all people,
Mohd. Yousuf, the man found new ways of staying in the limelight, with
or without his knowledge. For all the years he remained the constant
fodder to columnists and critics, pundits and purists, Inzamam's exit
from the one day game created a huge void, one that is hard to be
filled or replaced, in years to come. The epitaph of his one day career
would not only read the great victories that he single-handedly won for
his country and his genial and unintentionally comical demeanor, but
also would include the murder conspiratorial aspects - a rarity for any
human being, leave alone a cricketer.
Greg Chappell's welcome to the Indian stage was marked by hope, promise
and results. His exit from the stage was marred by back-biting,
name-calling and lot of internal bickering. In between the two,
transpired years of stubborn refusal to a accede to the country's
culture and conditions. He tried to ram through the walls of egos that
were built on years of over-adulation and hero-worship. He tried to
instill the ethic that the game is bigger than the individual. An
opener accustomed to a style of play and a slot in the roster is shaken
up from his comfort zone to change his play to suit the conditions than
to continue his style regardless of conditions. One played called it
"questioning his attitude", one other "divisive policy", another so
called senior labelled it "ignorance of culture". If the player whose
attitude was called into question could delude himself into thinking
that attitude alone can translates to runs and wins, then the world
could become one big happy place, where a player could play on for
eternity and not be bothered by such trivial things as form, faults,
technique and mental make-up, not to mention, withstanding the
onslaught of time on instincts, and having the wherewithal to stand up
against mightier and smarter oppostions. It is indeed unfortunate that
the said player could not understand the true meaning and real motives
of the coach and instead launched his own counter measures to divert
the attention from the real issues plaguing his form and thus, the
team. The experimentations, the process, and the battle-readiness had
little to do with the individual than it is with the team and it is
really sad that the seniors weren't able to grasp this obvious fact,
culminating in the public humiliation on a grand stage and a much
needed return to the basics.
So what would be Chappell's legacy? That seniority wouldn't necessarily
earn a tenure with the team and that everyone, junior and senior,
deserves the same chance and the same rules of engagement and judgment.
In a nation full of demi-gods and demagogues, this concept takes a
little time to take root, but Chappell should certainly be appreciated
for taking the initiative (and consequently, the blame) to lay the
first seeds.
The last link to the glorious past has finally given away. Lara is the
last man who bridged two generations - the generation of Richards,
Richardson, Walsh, Ambrose and other heavy weights on whose broad
shoulders the laurels of Carribean cricket stood upon for so long, and
the current generation, that is just a sorry sad shadow of the glorious
past. Every team, yes, even the now invincible Aussies, goes through
the painfully terrible process of rebuilding, once its main-stays leave
the stage, but it is unfortunate that it is only the only West Indian
team that is either not done with the process yet, or still have to
embark on it, depending on however one looks at it, long long after the
stars shone brightly and the Gods smiled benevolently on the team,
decades ago. And Lara found himself right in the middle of the
non-existent rebuilding through major parts of his career. Cricket, as
much as it is touted to be a team sport, is still a game that is
stitched together with individual brilliances and personal
accomplishments. Unlike in true team sport, like say basket ball, in
cricket, a great player in a mediocre team can still get the team
ashore purely on his individual merit more times than not. And that is
exactly what Lara did for more than a decade, scoring double, triple,
and even the near impossible, quadruple centuries. The results,
however, cannot be anymore knee-jerk. A player who scores consistently
over a certain period, automatically gets rewarded with captaincy,
immaterial of his leadership mettle. And likewise, any captain leading
a mediocre side, faced with a string defeats down the years, faces
similar harsh judgments, again, immaterial of his individual
contributions. And so come down the curtains on an era, that regaled
the cricketing enthusiasts all over the world, with an array of
dizzying strokes, and with the kind of patience (to accumulate scores
in excess of 300s, repeatedly) that completely contrasts (and is even
unheard of in) such an attacking style of play. Even till his last day
on the field, Lara topped the list of batsmen, that bowlers all over
revered and feared at the same time. He stood his guard representing
the aggressive best of the old West Indian cricket. He cuts a sorry
figure standing post to the current defunct and dilapidated institution
that is the Carribean cricket. Between the two epochs, history would
remember his prodigious scores and his prodigal ways.
The Cup certainly bid farewell to the best whom the world would never
see them again in their current capacities. What should have been swan
songs for the most of them turned into silent dirges. There is a week
more game to be played out. It is too early to say the parting words.
The God of Drama may not be done yet, and once he makes his next
dramatic move, it might be yet another 'Stop Press' moment, because as
the wise Einstein said before, it is all relative!
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