Paradise Lost

All my childhood, cricket was the only game i knew. I would dream in my classes about the sixes i would hit that evening on the playground and if by one of the bleakest of the means they actualized, i spent the next day in the class thinking of how i could have gone on to actually hit a half-century. I was a total nut case, which normally all adolescent boys are. When it was a holiday, it was time to play. When it was about bunking school, it was time to play. When it was about taking a repose from the diligent study sessions before the exams, it was time to play. And there no no other meaning to the word play other than cricket.

Cricket was the only pastime i knew.Apparently the only time we did not play and stayed back at home also was to watch Cricket on Tele. I and my brother used to play Antakshari with cricketers’ names and the game lasted for several hours. Same was the story of almost all the normal young boys who have grown up watching Tendua , Dada, Jammy , Jumbo and VVS define what the words sublimity, resilience , endurance , courage, perseverance , elegance and hard work stand for.

I know we have not been the best cricketing team but we had our moments and over the last 10 years we have been having them too often. Hrishikesh Kanitkar hitting the boundary to stomp over the arch-rivals Pakistan by chasing the then highest ODI score of 314.Tempest Tendulkar swept the OZ bowlers in Sharjah when he hit back-to-back centuries and in a manner i had never seen before. Kasprowicz and Moody were hit for the best sixes ever. Dada improvising to hit Ntini , the RSA seamer, to hit a six on the square leg . Laxman’s maiden double ton in kolkata against one of the meanest bowling attacks in the world. Dravid was always there serving the purpose of a true aegis for the team. Kumble’s 10 wicket howl will always stand out as one of the greatest spells.

But now that era has started to come to an end. Like every beautiful possession is lost and every time well spent has to come to an end, we now see the era of the great Five ending. I know that the blog is redundant and this is the news now, but i write this to pay my regards to men who have been a part of my life and made sure that when i watched them play cricket i forgot everything else and relaxed. The great five when i remember what i remember will be – Sachin – majestically noble, Dada – princely tiger, Kumble – perseverance and endurance personified, Dravid – reliable and elegant, VVS – lazily sublime.

My childhood days are long gone.Things like cricket with these great players around used to make me remember how i grew up. Now even this is going to end. Cricket will never be the same for me. An Indian team without Sachin, Saurav, Rahul, etc. is imaginable but would not be COOL. There will be no more watching the cricket match with a bunch of crazy friends and shouting our wind pipes out. I do not watch TV the way i used to when i was a kid. But now there will be one less reason to turn it on.