They came, They Saw, They Conquered....Well Almost

The tri-series had just concluded. The World Cup was a week away. The batsmen looked out of sorts, the bowlers looked jaded, fielders just went through the motions; team India never had the ideal preparation for the mega event especially when they were defending champions and like always, the stakes on them were inhumanly high.

A match against Pakistan is a World Cup final on its own. It may not be as acrimonious as it was in the past, but for every Indian and Pakistani, it is a matter of their egos, a matter of pride and a matter to earn bragging rights for the next four years. Pakistan thought this was their best chance to beat a tired, battered and bruised India that had the word 'Team' nowhere close to its prefix.

But little did they know that a different bunch of eleven players were turning up at the Adelaide Oval. The batsmen brought out their 'A' game, bowlers suddenly began to find the right line and length, the fielders began to throw themselves around. The Pakistani challenge was overcome with relative ease.

Opponents came and Opponents went. South Africans were choked, UAE was never a game, West Indians were overcome after a stutter, Irish were conquered and Zimbabweans were brushed aside. India again became 'Team India.' Bangladesh were knocked over in the quarter-finals.

Then came the big moment. The team at the hands of which the Indians suffered for three full months stood between them and a second successive World Cup triumph. To all our worst fears, the game was lost.

The fact that India is a cricket crazy nation would be known to an Eskimo in Greenland as well. While victory brings out their pseudo-patriotic fervor, defeat exposes the hypocrisy under which we all live. Just three nights ago, Dhoni was the man with the midas touch, Dhawan could do no wrong, Lady Luck was with Virat Kohli and Shami was the next Wasim Akram. To cut a long story short, they were no less then demi-Gods.

The moment India began to stare at a defeat; twitter trolls began their job. Arm-chair critics who had their faces hidden so far sprang out of nowhere. Anushka Sharma again became the reason for Virat Kohli's failure. The narrow mindedness and shallow memory of people is evident from the fact that just a month ago, on the same Sydney ground, against the same bowling attack, Virat Kohli had scored a memorable hundred in front of Anushka, that helped India save the test.

News Channels treat this defeat as a matter of national shame. Arnab Goswami screamed his lungs out as to how these players have insulted a nation of a billion plus people by not winning the World Cup. Mr. Goswami, I am sure that no amount of screaming can help you put a 150 kmph Mitchell Starc missile to your bat. It pains me.

Yes. It does pain me. It pains me to see how ungrateful we are as Indians. It pains me to see that the same Virat Kohli, the same Dhoni, the same Team India, that won seven games on a trott, the same Team India that bowled their opposition out on all seven occasions, the same Team India who out of nowhere became a force to reckon with gets branded a bunch of losers with just one bad day at the office.

We feel ashamed when India loses a match. It's unfortunate that we don't feel ashamed when a farmer kills himself; we don't feel ashamed when honest people like DK Ravi kill themselves due to our rotten system; we don't feel ashamed when a woman gets raped and our misogynist leaders get away despite passing one sexist remark after another.

Nobody likes to lose. But true sportsmanship is only when we rejoice in victory and gracefully accept defeat. Unfortunately, we Indians don't like our team to lose, we don't want out team to lose. We maybe a cricketing nation, but as Abhinav Bindra said, there is still a long way to go before we become a sporting nation.

Come back with your heads held high Team India. You have done me proud. I have never seen you play cricket as ruthlessly as you have in the past month and a half. You may have failed to win, but you remain champions for us!