Expectations and Hope are the horses that keep our carriage going in the journey of life. There are all sorts of threats to these horses in the journey, but as long as we can keep them alive, we can move ahead. While moving ahead we may or may not get what these beautiful horses promised us. The biggest threat to them in the journey is from us ourselves. As soon as we don’t get what they promised, we are ready to pounce on them and kill them. We need to keep them alive to move in life. We need to keep on moving, let them guide us, and guide them with a whip when they are straying to a dangerous territory. But killing them is not an option.
- We expected India to avoid any upsets and reach the Quarter Final before losing to a top team in another group.
- We hoped that they miraculously attained the form of their life for 3 matches starting from Quarter Final and retained the Cup.
- We got to see a team in the form of their life for 7 straight matches, and eventually lost in the Semi Final.
What we got has been a brutal attack on our horses. By ‘we’, I mean Indian Cricket Fans. By ‘Indian Cricket Fans’, I mean true fans, not fickle minded people, media houses and especially not despicable people like Arnab Goswami. Well let’s leave it to that.
After this brutal attack on our horses, we need to keep them going; the carriage must go on and the journey is long. Analysing things and reasoning out things to accept this defeat would be one of the ways to keep our lives as an Indian Cricket Fan going. This is not to relieve the Indian team of their accountability, this is not to say that the Indian team is invincible or perfect, and this is definitely not to protect them from criticism that they deserve for certain things. This is just to accept things as they are, to keep the carriage going.
What we expected
India had been winless in Australia for over two months, any team, any format, any day, any match; they had lost it or at the best, drawn the match. The bowlers, despite having pace in the 140’s, were terrible and average at their best. The batsmen had nothing to boast of, except for a consistent Virat Kohli, inconsistently consistent Murali Vijay and consistently unlucky Ajinkya Rahane. Fielding was never so good in Tests, they missed the tenacity required for fielding in a test match, and the poor form somewhat continued into the Tri Series.
India had to face teams like South Africa, Pakistan and West Indies in group stages. Expecting them to defeat any of them would have been termed stupid by most people. Hope was always different from expectation. Then there were teams like Ireland, UAE and Zimbabwe, two of which were expected to cause upsets. Horrors of 2007 were coming back to haunt the fans.
But still, the expectation was that India will finish no lower than 4th in the group and no higher than 2nd, assuming that South Africa will get the top spot in pace friendly Australia and India were, despite the winless past two months, not so bad that they can’t beat the associates.
What we hoped
Hope is the more beautiful horse. It always brings out positivity. Even if there’s a lava ocean you come across in your journey, hope will be ready to go through it, but expectation and reason will have their say too.
Our team were the defending champions. We had hoped “we won’t give it back”. The most ardent of followers voiced their hope in such a way that it became an expectation almost. That we will win the cup is just a hope or an expectation was a matter of inner conflict for every fan. Most of us, even though we may like to deny, knew that it was just a hope after all. Expecting a team who were defending champions, led by a leader who has more silverware than stainless steel at his disposal, supported by fanatics more than fans, to win was practical enough. But considering their losses to a team like England in ODI format just the previous month was a great setback to this expectation.
We only hoped that once India avoids upsets and reaches the quarter finals, they will be just good enough to win 3 matches on the trot, against the better teams (based on form). It was almost a crime to expect this in reality.
What we got
Star Sports gave us a gem of an ad to start with. “Mauka mauka” became a household phrase. That poor Pakistani fan depicted in the ad was the butt of all jokes in the build up to the first match. Somewhere deep inside, we had the fear of 5-0 becoming 5-1 this time. Pakistan had awesome pacers, India had brittle batting line up; India had terribly out of sorts pacers, Pakistan had batsmen talented enough to make any attack look mediocre on their day. But we got a great result for Indian fans as well as for Star Sports “Mauka Mauka” campaign. India outplayed Pakistan in all departments and showed the world who is the boss in World Cups. It was a dream start.
But considering that it was pressure more than anything else that defeated Pakistan, we expected a defeat in the next game, against South Africa. What happened in the match was something MS Dhoni himself would not have expected. South Africa was outplayed by India in all three departments of the game. It was a humiliating defeat for them. India were on top of the world.
The two month experience in Australia, albeit winless, had started showing the better effects it had on the team. Australian conditions became home to India, and with the omnipresent Indian fans making their presence known in every stadium India played in, it was a home away from home.
Eventually, India was the only team except for co-hosts New Zealand who won all their group matches. All of a sudden, the brittle batting order had become tenacious, a waywardly bowling attack had begun to find the perfect lengths and lines and pace (in case of spinners), low on confidence fielders were showing skills even a fly catching frog would envy, and the captain was at his astute best. The worst bowling attack in the world had taken 70 wickets in 7 matches. It was a great turn of fortunes.
They say that when you reach a peak, the way ahead is always downwards. India were ascending a peak, with giant strides, and we would have hoped that they reached their peak on 29th March 2015 in Sydney. Unfortunately for us, fortunately for Australia, we had already gone past the peak. Even the Quarter Final was a downward step, considering that the man who batted the best for us must have been out much earlier.
What happened in Sydney was inevitable. The same pacers, who had taken majority of 70 wickets in previous 7 matches, gave away 29 runs in 8 balls to a tail-ender. The same Shikhar Dhawan who blasted pacers of South Africa was all at sea against Australian pace attack, and when he started to attack, he played the wrong shot at the wrong time and holed out in deep. The same Rohit Sharma who had hit a 145 km/hr bolwer like Mitchell Johnson for a six in front of square off a bouncer, played on to his stumps to an innocuous delivery the next ball. The same Virat Kohli who has blasted Johnson’s bouncers for fours in front of square throughout the tests, miscued one to the keeper. The same Raina who has played best innings on biggest stages was completely ineffective on this big stage. The same Rahane who has been unlucky to always be on the wrong side of dubious umpiring decisions, was on the favourable side of a wrong decision this time, but a review and an extremely accurate Real Time Snick-o-meter got him out. The best runner between wickets, the master of chases, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, got run out and could not finish out the chase.
In other words, it was just not meant to be this time around. If you see all these things that went against us in this particular match, and then recall similar things that went against other teams when our team went on to attain glory, you can sooth your heart. T20 World Cup 2007, ODI World Cup 2011 and Champions Trophy 2013 – everywhere there were moments that could have gone either way, and they went in favour of India.
This time around, it was not meant to be ours. Just like it was meant to be ours when things went our way, this time it was meant to be someone else’s, because things went their way.
Mourning for the World Cup is acceptable, but to blame the team for one off-day after 7 great wins is not. We can feel sad, we should feel sad; World Cup is a big thing, the grandest prize in Cricket. But we can’t lose hope and stop expecting from this team. We need to keep our hopes and expectations alive, just like we had before this World Cup, and we will get much more than what we got this World Cup.
After all, hope and expectation are the greatest horses the Almighty has given for our carriage in the journey of life.