Belief

For those who are not aware, there is an ODI series going on between Australia and India. Yesterday they played the 5th match in a series of 7. Australia went ahead to score 350 runs in the allotted 50 overs. I was with a friend before the Indian chase began and I was going on about how if we got a good start, this total could be chased. His reply to me was " You are talking like a typical Indian Cricket Fan. You should know a lost cause when you see one. We have already lost this match".

I can tell you upfront. I am not a big optimist. But I have written earlier about supporting the underdogs. In this case, India was firmly the underdog. But more than that I believed in one man. I believed in Sachin. He has this habit of seeing victory when others see only defeat. In 1998 during the Coca Cola cup in Sharjah, when India was faced with a target of 285 and needed around 254 to qualify, most of the country would have believed that we wouldn't win the match but atleast we can qualify. But one man believed that the match could be won and his now famous "Desert Storm" knock of 143 almost did the job. Yesterday when everyone else seemed overawed by the size of the target, one man went about doing what he does best....hitting a cricket ball hard.

When Sachin bats like he did yesterday, he makes believers out of us. As a famous banner read "Do all your crimes when Sachin is batting. Coz even the god would be busy watching him". As long as he was at the crease, no target seemed too big and it seemed the first double century in ODIs seemed near. But he fell at 175 needing 19 more to win. The others were good enough only to make 15 out of it. But I can vouch that noone who saw Sachin bat yesterday would have said that we were going to lose the match. The kind of surety in his strokeplay, the sheer domination of the bowling...who the hell said Sachin needs to retire?

Yesterday when Sachin was on the verge of 17000 runs, Sunil Gavaskar made a comment. He said that the crowd is celebrating his 17000 so hard because seeing them makes them feel that each of his runs are theirs. Thats what sets this man apart. You want to end all the communal issues in India in one stroke? Declare cricket as a relegion. Nothing...i repeat Nothing unites India like cricket and nothing personifies cricket better than Sachin.

As the saying goes, "If Cricket is a relegion, then Sachin is God".