India vs England : The true man of the series

OK, the hysteria behind Siraj is probably justified. Shortly, as the intoxication wears off, the pundits will hasten to claim that this is a team game and that this victory belongs to the whole team. Hell, some of them would even rush to credit the people who worked behind the scenes like the team masseur, the backup coaching staff and so on. True, they do deserve some credit. But the real casualty in all this euphoria is that the one person who worked tirelessly for the victory will continue to be unrecognized and hence, unsung. Who, you ask? Well, not to crow about it, but with all the humility at my disposal, I put up my hand as the unsung one.

 

Any lay cricket enthusiast will only know that Siraj bowled a good yorker and got Atkinson. Most Indian fans, in their utter naivety, will probably attribute it to various factors like Siraj’s fighting qualities, his never say die spirit and the like. Little do they know…

 

Seasoned sports writers will dissect the match, every session and indeed, the whole series. The sad thing is my contribution in the whole episode is not going to be recognized by anyone – not even my near and dear ones.

 

Take the critical first session of day 5. For the first over, I sat cross legged on my bed, not moving an inch, forcing myself to have an ever so small sip of water almost metronomically after every delivery by Prasidh, with my mobile phone face down to my left and at a right angle to my A/C remote and generally did all the other things that I knew would send the right energy to the Oval. But it didn’t quite work with England scoring 8 runs off the over. It was going to end very soon unless I nimbly changed my approach. For the next over, I moved to the living room and watched the match with the A/C at a setting of 24^oC and the fan at medium speed. Bingo! Siraj struck right away! Jamie Smith was history. 3 more to go…

 

Gratifyingly, a couple more overs down, the 8^th wicket went. And then, a slight drizzle. That was not good. I had to ensure that the rain didn’t pick up to the point where the match had to be suspended, even while guiding the course of the match. Much like Spiderman (the Toby one) who had to hold the cable with a hand to prevent MJ from falling down while fighting the Green Goblin with the other. 

 

This clearly called for another quick shift in strategy, leading me to watch the rest of the match on my mobile sitting in the balcony, facing the direction of the Oval (roughly 32^o North of East from where I sat). And shortly thereafter, and quite inevitably, the fat lady had sung! 

 

But before you run away with some simplistic take-out, let me expand a little. The “sitting on the balcony chair” thing channelized the Chi only for that point in time. Sometimes, results improve when I watch the match on the move, sometimes I have to completely refrain from watching the match to bring home the bacon. I must confess that in my enthusiasm to provide tailwind to our team, I sometimes tend to go overboard. On the first day of the last test, I watched sitting in a Padmasana pose on the floor in my study with all the lights off (a tactic I use only in extreme cases), resulting in a nasty shoulder injury to Woakes. OK, that was testing the boundary of fair play but cricket is a tough sport and I believe in competing hard. 

 

It is not just about the room or the position, sometimes even random things like working on a presentation during the match helps in generating positive outcomes. Word and Excel though, I avoid. Empirically I’ve found them to be quite disruptive and harbingers of bad energy. You’ll never believe this one - through sheer trial and error, I have established that I can unfailingly change the course of the match when I use this contraption that I have for inhaling steam. I just switch it on, inhale the steam for a few minutes, all the while watching the match from above the rim. It delivered solid results on day 5 of test 4, when I held firm like a wall between the Englishmen and the Jadeja – WaSu partnership.

 

I serendipitiously discovered this faculty of mine during IPL 2010. When I realized that my leaning on the cupboard in my son’s room while balanced on one leg had led to that over where Dhoni hit Irfan Pathan for 18 runs in the last over at Dharmasala, I knew I had the gift. I have since become somewhat of a specialist in reading the signs and doing the needful for CSK. That CSK are one of the most successful franchises in IPL is a matter of utmost pride and gratification for me.

 

By now you would have gleaned that the approach has to account for the tournament, the opponent and so on – multiple and complex factors to contend with and I confess I do sometimes get it wrong. Like with CSK over the last two years. I have just been unable to  find the right combination of device, room, chair, posture, diet and all the other small things that would have ensured victory for CSK. I try to take solace in the fact that everyone goes a bad patch, but one can’t help feeling miserable, especially when an entire franchise and all its fans are hoping for good results and one is just not able to do enough to bring it home…

 

I realize, at this stage, some of you may be a little incredulous. To the sceptics, I’ll point to chaos theory which postulates that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, it could lead to a tornado in Tennessee. In all humility, I’ll not claim to be the only one who can pull this off. The story goes that when India won the famous Eden Gardens test match against Australia in 2001, nobody moved in the Indian dressing room when Dravid and Laxman were at the crease. Though, as an expert practitioner I must say that simply not moving sounds like beginner level stuff. 

 

Anyway come September, we have the Asia cup in the UAE. I’ll be a little tired from seeing Sinner through to the finish line in the US Open just before that, but hopefully will have enough juice to ensure a good outing for team India as well. I only hope Gill and Gambhir adopt a bit of strategic continuity. This constant chop and change of tactics has me, in turn, moving tack continuously and frankly It becomes a little tiresome. Especially when I am destined to go through my lifetime without any sort of reward or recognition for the favourable outcomes I engender…

 

 

Dedicated to all the ardent Indian fans who refuse to see their role as mere spectators of a sport and instead consider themselves as an integral part of the team, venting their angst through social media posts, breaking things in the room or, from a more utilitarian standpoint like me, doing all they can to channel the right energy to our boys…