Cricket: The Great Unifier – The Week

For those of us who are fans of cricket, it is so much more than just a game. It is an emotion, a craze, a passion, a bond with each other as Indians and a whole new definition of patriotism. Winning the World Cup in the recent T-20 ICC tournament was an occasion that reminded me that we are doubly united as a nation every time India is in a Cricket World Cup final!

It was building up throughout the tournament as India kept winning against most of the countries including our arch rivals Pakistan and slowly it dawned on us that India would be in the final. However, after the debacle in the Test World Cup final against Australia which was such a shock to the entire country especially as we had not lost a single match till the final, we were a bit afraid of getting complacent too soon and kept our fingers crossed.

The day had arrived and my husband and I were looking forward to an evening full of energy, hope and excitement. Our son, an avid cricket fanatic who recently moved to Gurgaon after getting married, had me deliver his favorite blue shirt of team India so that he could cheer India on and create the atmosphere for the match!

When the match started, the biggest disappointment was that within a few overs our top order collapsed, including Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant and unbelievably Suryakant Yadav! I couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have our best batters sent back to the pavilion by the South African bowlers. In anger and frustrated disbelief, I changed the channel. However, missing the final over was not an option and within seconds I turned it back on. My husband’s wise remarks like Anything can happen in cricket helped calm me down.

And lo and behold, what followed was a great interplay between Kohli and Axar Patelt, two of my favourite players. We kept shouting, screaming and getting excited the entire match. It was a beautiful symphony of our team working together to win!

The best thing about a close match is how we relate small, insignificant things to the fate of the batsman or a fielder who misses a catch. I truly believe (based on verifiable incidents) that if both batsmen are playing well and I have to go to the toilet, one of them will be out before I can sit in front of the TV again, where we sit, how we talk and who leaves the room, sometimes even what we wear affects the fate of the players. It is absolutely ridiculous but true that all our superstitions revolve around this game, no matter how rational we are in our daily lives! Of course, there are some rules too. Praising the batsman who is playing an exceptional game is absolutely out of the question because then he gets our angry look and is out. If we change seats and the batsman is out, all hell breaks loose and the family members start blaming the person who caused this disaster. In fact, as Indians, all our rational thinking goes out the window when India is playing in the final!! Sometimes the high praise of the commentators leads to the batsman failing too, or so many of us believe. It is amazing to see how the most rational of us behave in a totally childish and ridiculous way when we are in the middle of a cricket final!

Food and cricket are both metaphors for love and passion and that is why in our family, the World Cup Final is always accompanied by pizza and garlic bread! I can still vividly remember the 2007 World Cup Final which we won so well after so many years. That year, a new beer called Fosters was launched in New Delhi. They took out a big advertisement in TOI inviting people to get free cartons of beer if they signed up to creatively wish whatever they wanted on the day of the World Cup Final! Needless to say, since both my husband and I were beer lovers, I decided to write Eat Our Favourite Pizza with Fosters Beer. My son was in school then and was a pizza lover.

Yep, I think if I had asked for anything that day, I would have gotten it. Two boxes of Fosters were delivered to our house in the afternoon and pizzas in the evening! That evening turned out to be perfect and India's win was the icing on the cake. Of course, it took a few weekends before we had finished the beer.

Coming back to some of the traditions around cricket, India Gate in New Delhi is a place where the victory of Team India is celebrated every time we win a cricket final. Crowds of people, old and young, men, women and children, come from every corner of Delhi NCR to India Gate carrying flags, dancing and playing music to express their solidarity and joy. It is an atmosphere of sheer desolation and an indescribable feeling of being truly Indian. This time, my son and his wife drove from Gurgaon to India Gate at midnight to be part of this celebration. It was an extraordinary experience to see him on my phone video, wearing the Team India jersey, with great happiness on his face and dancing with his wife to celebrate India’s victory.

Later I saw the same celebrations on Instagram in different places around the world: Dubai, London and New York. Indians are the same everywhere and faith in our country has been restored in me.

In short, we realise that this sport, cricket, has the ultimate power to bring us all together… to be proud of our team and our country, to live life to the fullest and to see what we don’t often see; our beloved cricketers feeling emotional, being human and most of all being excited beyond all expectations.