The still sinew

It was the evening of September 4 in the year 2021. I was watching a wonderfully evolving five-day test match between India and England. It was the third day and it already felt like a fascinating eternity in which I had found my life captured in it. The Indians had started batting on Day 1 in utterly hopeless fashion only to find themselves being given a sinew to clutch hopes from Shardul Thakur who had effervescently blazed and blasted fifty-seven runs off a mere thirty-six deliveries. He was very much threatening to be the latest avatar of Lord Krishna, whose birthday had gone by three days earlier on August 31^st.

Parallelly, I was also watching the historic day for India when we won two gold medals for the first time on a single day in Paralympic sports in Tokyo, an event that can be juxtaposed or even dared to beat the often-justified hype around the normal Olympics.

Coming back to the test match cricket. Indian bowlers had rekindled hopes of stealing the match by showing steel during the final hour of play on Day 1 when they dashed three top order England batsmen. Since then, I have been ogling at the match with great adulation and hope to learn some lifelong lessons. I have not been disappointed with Ollie Pope hitting a quite marvellous and magnificently composed eighty-one runs, and Chris Woakes offering so much variety, composure, runs and wickets. I instantly took an idyllic photo of those two nice human beings playing the hard way but looking so soft and pleasing to my eyes.

England then raced to a 99-run lead. India was relying on one of their bowlers to limit the fast-vaulting English lead to below the three-figure mark. It was then as if Lord Krishna heard it and offered a chance by dismissing the England team for a lead of 99 runs.

It was the last straw that Indians were mentally telling themselves to hold to. Within ten minutes, Rohit Sharma and Rahul came out to bat, and what I saw later across twenty-four hours is the Lord Krishna like quietness, calm, yet mischief being shown by Rohit Sharma. He didn’t race to his first foreign century in this format. Instead, he gardened his way to that milestone. The three flashes of Lord Krishna that he showed were when he smashed a sixer to reach his milestone of a hundred runs, followed by his raising his bat every so softly and humbly that the English fans sitting far in the stadium could feel a friendly twinge in their spine that led them to stand up and give an adulation and honour. The last and final flash reminiscent of Lord Krishna showing by Rohit was when he could not resist the temptation to smash the new cherry out of the ground, and in the process, flicked the ball straight into the waiting hands of the fielder who was stationed at the boundary.

In this entire process, I feel that the English fans and cricketers would have felt the still and stable charming influence of Lord Krishna in Rohit. They would also realize that it was quite the last sinew that he had provided to India for completing what would be a truly pyrrhic victory but most importantly, to show the world the way to behave, play and celebrate in a quiet and still manner. His demeanour also teaches us to how to respect the thing we love the most, such as cricket, and to always be generous, humble, and tempered and mild mannered.

Performance speaks louder than words.

The pain that he endured when the cricket ball was hitting him on his legs, hands and each sinew later eventually got transformed to a beautiful rendition of runs, style, grace and the last straw that Indians were so hopefully yearning for in order to complete the victory, and to transcend the way the world looks at Indians as pleasant, graceful, caring and hard working.

His performance is perfect in its timing as it came just a few hours before Teacher’s Day.