Some more than others, some in different parts of the body, manifesting in unpredictable ways and triggers, but all of them hurt. This one will sting too. Years later, it will induce uncomfortable silences, even more than, I suspect, 23rd March 2003, when India got whooped by a substantially better Australia team in another World Cup final.

This team was supposed to win it all. Didn't they look the part too? In form, flying, playing better cricket than they ever have. When you watch James Bond walk down the foyer of a ballroom, hair gelled to perfection, tuxedo without a single crease or speck of dirt, lapel pin on his right wrist sticking out just so, you don't expect him to slip and hurt his knee. James Bond doesn't slip. How could he? The next sentence, the one I wrote and deleted, is the easiest and most overused cliche in sportswriting one can think of. I won't insult your, our, hearts by writing what your best friend tells you when someone you like ghosts you out of nowhere. Roses, especially the pink ones that we like to waft around our noses, aren't meant to explode.

At this point, I think it is important to mention two things. One, there was never a chance that we were going to underestimate Australia. They are an exceptional unit filled with all-time greats of the game, carrying a long history of waltzing into big matches with chests out, gum in mouths, winking at the crowd. These guys can have a drunk night and walk out the next morning to win a World Cup final. Besides, most of our generation carries enough trauma from 2003 to ever be arrogant about a big game against the yellow jersey. A Pakistani writer called them Dozakh Ke Shehzaday, loosely translating to Princes of Hell, and with all due respect, this is an accurate description.

Two, this was our moment in a way that cricket has rarely been. Indian fans have known individual greatness in spades. We have a conveyor belt that produces great cricketers every few years. That said, we have never had a unit that was good enough to walk into World Cups and World Cup finals as favourites, overwhelmingly so for many. That sensation has long been a subject of fantasy. What must it feel like to be Adam Gilchrist on the morning of the 2007 World Cup final? Or Viv Richards before 1979? Or Shane Warne, ever? There is a famous Test match from 2006, between Australia and England at Adelaide, that was heading for a draw. The only other possibility on the afternoon of Day Four was an England win. In the Australian dressing room, Shane Warne was screaming. Not at his teammates, but for them. He wanted to drill the message that no matter what the scorecard, we can always win. And guess what? It was the first of five Test matches in the 2006-07 Ashes series. The series ended 5-0 to Australia.

I digress, but do you get what I mean? This was our moment. Truly, fully, ours. I don't ever remember being so sure of a cricket team wearing blue as I have been of India in the second half of this World Cup. For once, we could feel the buoyancy of wearing replica kits of an all-time great team. More than the irrationality of feverish support, there were cold, logical reasons to pin our hopes on Rohit and Dravid’s boys.

Until the Australians arrived. It had to be them, didn't it? Stumbling through the first couple of weeks, briefly at the bottom of the table, not sure who to keep and who to let go. From the humid Lucknow afternoon where they found themselves staring at impending elimination, possibly even by the following week, they have ended up with the crown. They dished out the most perfect possible performance at a World Cup final. Zero consideration for our hopes, even lesser for our schadenfreude.

Is it all dust now? Tempting as it is to question the point of cricket, life, and everything else at this moment, it would be unfair to ourselves to call the entire thing futile. Look, LinkedIn nonsense about how the journey is more important than the destination can get into the bin today and for the rest of the year, but this journey, this month-long party, was a hell of a ride.

I have written every essay in this series from an objective lens. It would’ve been nice to end the World Cup from that perspective too. You know, call the play, talk up Australia being Australia and Pat Cummins being Pat Cummins and click publish. But it would’ve been inorganic to what this team has done for me as a fan. Unlike battle-hardened journalists, I haven’t yet developed the ability to completely ditch tinted glasses. Sometimes, on matchdays, I have worn blue shirts. I yelped when Mohammed Shami turned Ben Stokes into a torn piece of cloth flailing in the wind; stood up when Virat Kohli got his 50th ODI century; and clapped in awe when Jasprit Bumrah sent back Shadab Khan at Ahmedabad. More recently, I have used cricket and this team to keep me sane at crematoriums and hospitals. I have opened Cricinfo at prayer meetings and final rites, multiple of them. And all of it just from this World Cup alone. If you have followed Indian cricket for a while, the last few years have given us an album to cherish.

It is wild to call a silver medal a low point. Maybe it speaks to our conditioning, or maybe it speaks to the ambitions of this team, that anything apart from absolute glory feels inadequate. 

But it is, without doubt, the greatest compliment we can give this team. They did not need to shout from rooftops about their quality. They let the, as the cliche goes, ball and bat speak, and boy was there some speaking. World Cups matter, and 19th November 2023 will always hurt, but alongside the silent gulp, we will eventually learn to raise a glass to Rohit, Dravid, and the boys.

“The classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual’s or the collective unconscious.”

Italo Calvino’s book, Why Read the Classics, starts with ten definitions and elaborations on what makes a book a classic. While most of those are specific to the experience of reading a book, this particular definition, point number three in the list, feels true for other things too. Think of the movie lodged deep inside your heart because you watched it with your family on a rainy New Year’s Eve, or the song you heard on loop after your first heartbreak, the one that did not need a Grammy nomination to be a permanent favourite. 

While a book, song, or film can capture your imagination years after composition, classics in sports operate differently. To truly experience them, one must be present while it unfurls around an air of jeopardy. Because, by the time I start a YouTube video about the West Indies pace attack from the '70s and '80s, the thumbnail and title have already laid out what’s coming. I know I am going to witness genius when I type Diego Maradona on the search bar. The videos are great but don’t have the same dramatic edge. 

My generation could not witness Maradona or that West Indies team redefine the boundaries of possibility. We had to inherit awe and wonder from our elders, and second-hand astonishment is not quite as organic. 

We did, however, watch the insane efficiency of 2000s Australia in real-time. Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting turned that canary yellow jersey into a danger signal. That Australian team barely ever lost, had gun players from top to bottom, and could call upon world beaters from their bench when one of their superstars needed a rest. They once won a World Cup, unbeaten, after Shane bloody Warne had to be sent back for failing a drug test. Michael Hussey made his international debut at 29 years of age. 

With awe came intense hatred and jealousy. Who bowls a champion team out for 120 in a World Cup final? What kind of a sick team scores 359 in the next World Cup final? And you have to be disgusting to win three World Cups in a row, two of them without blemish. Stop it, seriously.

That Australian side is the gold standard by which most of us measure international teams. And a big part of that jealousy came from the knowledge that nothing we ever produce would be as good as that. The benchmark was too high. We could have better batters and great bowlers, but not as good a unit.

Until now. Late last night, as the floodlights at Wankhede faded into the black Mumbai sky, creating a neon halo above the stadium’s roof, it was impossible not to think of Rohit Sharma’s India as a worthy match to Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh’s Australia.

World Cup performances are not special indicators of talent, of course. Glen McGrath did not become a greater player for winning three on the trot, and Brian Lara did not lose a ray of shine for not performing in any of the five he played in. But World Cups are unique like the Olympics because they are closed competitions between the world’s best with higher stakes than anything else in the sport. They are, whether we like it or not, the grandest of stages. It means a lot to have an outing where you create something so special, that the rest of the field can only play catch-up.

Now that India have gone through ten matches at this tournament, unbeaten almost seems too sedate a tag to bestow on them. They have been in a different league from every other team, obliterating most and giving a sniff to very few. For forty-five minutes last night, every Indian fan was sweating bullets, and New Zealand still needed to get 150 at a ridiculous run rate. The closest India have come to a serious place of concern was when Virat Kohli skied a Josh Hazlewood ball with the score at 20-3. From the moment Mitchell Marsh dropped that catch, their race has moved to a different track. How distant does the sweaty evening of 8th October feel now?

Never before has an Indian ODI team married audacity with skill and efficiency like in this World Cup. Imagine scoring 398 in a World Cup semi-final; imagine being good enough to bag 700+ runs in 10 matches on your own; and imagine how insanely purple your patch needs to be to return 23 wickets at less than 10 runs per wicket. And, finally, imagine being the captain of this team, a legend of limited-overs cricket, a run-accumulator who can score multiple double centuries, and still give away all charm for the number next to your name just so that another number, somewhere at the bottom of a scorecard, is where you want it to be.

How many times does a team win a World Cup semi-final by 70 runs, and it becomes impossible to nail down one proper contender for the Player of The Match award? Mohammed Shami won it and nobody should have a problem with that. But he doesn’t get the platform without Shreyas Iyer’s pyrotechnics, which, in turn, doesn’t happen without the insurance document called Virat Kohli, who gets to return at his pace because Rohit Sharma blunted the new-ball threat within three overs. We haven’t even mentioned Shubman Gill’s 80 and KL Rahul’s late flourish, or Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav giving our breaths back after Daryl Mitchell briefly threatened to leave us gasping.

The true absurdity of this performance lies in its repetition. India has played out a full tournament like this. Three of their batters have scored more than 500 runs; four bowlers have taken more than 15 wickets. Everyone in the top five averages over 50 and scores at a strike rate of more than 90; four of the five main bowlers have an average of less than 25.

Last night could be labelled as the coronation of a batting emperor, and justified as that would be, it really was a decisive step towards the immortality of a team that has done everything possible to be known as one of the greatest ever. Well, everything, except one small detail.

On Sunday, India will face one of Australia or South Africa. As much as the eternal fan in me would want South Africa to progress, it might make for better symmetry for Rohit Sharma’s India to climb atop a mountain beating the same canary yellow jersey that was once the symbol of an insurmountable peak. At this point, I realise I’m getting ahead of myself. No one is entitled to a win, and Australia could very well make these aspersions look silly and land another title, their fifth in the last seven. 

But what Rohit Sharma, Rahul Dravid, and that dressing room will always have, regardless of how Sunday turns out, is a show that evoked the classics.

“A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.”

That ramen pot of anxiety and new choices, commonly known as teenage, is the least conducive environment for tedium. We try our absolute best to avoid long car journeys, walks, and three-hour, slow-burn movies. Even the books we pick up, or the music we listen to, have certain snappy rhythms. In everything we do, we feverishly look for hooks to latch on to.

In a list of the least hook-worthy sports, cricket ranks very high. Every ball takes nearly a minute to be delivered, very few fetch boundaries, and even fewer fetch wickets. Sometimes, the game goes on for an entire day and then the players return for four more days.

In September this year, my friend Shilpa was in Sri Lanka on a leisure trip. She used to be an athlete, so sport is part of her DNA, but thinks cricket cannot be taken seriously. In a stroke of luck, someone at the hotel got her tickets to the India vs Pakistan game in Colombo. “Sarthak, should I go?”

Imagine asking that. But, either way, she and her family went. And then the messages started.

In the game she watched, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul hit lovely, unbeaten, centuries, India scored 356-2, and then rolled Pakistan over. But the thing with those centuries was that you needed to be a cricket fan to truly appreciate them. Kohli and Rahul had to navigate sticky conditions and a rampant fast-bowling attack to build their innings. The flourish at the end took the score beyond 350, but it was preceded by an ODI-cricket masterclass in pacing. Not to sound esoteric, but I can see why many would’ve tuned out midway through this.

I don’t think Shilpa is ever watching live cricket again, at least willingly. But if I could bend time, I would take her to the Wankhede to watch Glenn Maxwell bat against Afghanistan. On the way, I would tell her about the enormity of what Afghanistan are achieving at this World Cup. A bit about their history will serve as a perfect contrast to their calculated deconstruction of England and Pakistan. She would already know about Australia as the powerhouse cricket team. And when they find themselves at 91/7, and as we wipe sweat off our brows, I would ask her to hold tight because her life was about to change.

One four, two fours, six!

Lol, just having some fun while they can. It will be over soon.

Some streaky shots, dropped catches, and close shaves. Mumbai is humid. In fact, too humid to watch an ODI game at the stadium. There is no inward breeze from the Arabian Sea.

Another six. Maxwell is climbing into Noor Ahmed. A few quiet minutes later, Maxwell climbs into Mujeeb ur-Rahman and Mohammed Nabi. He gets a century. Wankhede, including one Shilpa, stands up to clap. But Australia need another hundred.

Everyone at the stadium is supporting Afghanistan. They are now getting a little fidgety. Great innings by Maxi, but enough. Seal the game now, Rashid. The North Stand screams for Rashid Khan and Mujeeb. And why wouldn’t it? We have all seen enough Australian dominance and the Afghanistan story is heartwarming even if you have dropped blind into this World Cup. They aren’t supposed to be taking the mickey out of three, and soon four, previous World Cup winners.

Besides, Maxwell is cramping. This doesn’t look good for Australia. Even Pat Cummins, usually emotionless in the ring, has a furrowed brow. He and the bowlers are not going to get the remainder of the target, so Maxwell leaving essentially means Game Over. He has only recently recovered from a freak injury, so his body is screaming for a massage table instead of tightly strapped pads. Adam Zampa walks down from the Wankhede dressing room.

Alright then, this was fun. Should we book a cab? 

Not yet.

Zampa is sent back. Maxwell will continue. Five minutes later, he smokes Mohammed Nabi for a four and a six. Wasn’t he cramping? Cummins plays the situation perfectly. Aware that there is enough time left in the game, he eschews all risk and calmly plods the Afghan spinners for dots and singles. He knows that Maxwell needs him as much as he needs Maxwell. 

Maxwell hits Rashid Khan for a towering six, Afghanistan bring back their fast bowler, and Maxwell hits him for two fours. 60 runs needed in 60 balls.

Noor Ahmed bowls, four. Noor bowls again, Maxwell pushes for a single, runs, and falls over. For a brief, scary second, his body spasms as if going through electric shocks. The Aussie physio rushes to him. Zampa walks down again. Oh, no. The word struggle undersells what Maxwell is going through. And with him, to a minuscule degree, us.

Surely it is over now? Not yet.

Zampa walks back. Maxwell will continue. Cummins plays out the rest of the over. There won’t be any singles; doubles are out of the question. Azmatullah runs in for the next over. Maxwell first launches him in front, then hockey-flicks him behind the wicketkeeper. What the fuck? 

Less than 50 needed now. Cummins, at this point a sage and guide, plays out a maiden. In the next over, Maxwell hits two fours and a six. 32 needed. New over. Six again. WHAT. 

By now, adrenalin is oozing from his body, so much that I can feel some slip into mine. Maxwell is pumping his fists, running singles like a Charlie Chaplin impersonator with soaked clothes.

It is hard to watch this without squirming in your seat. From the corner of my eye, I can see Shilpa placing the bhelpuri packet to the side. She is crouching forward, hands over her mouth, eyes pinned to the pitch as if she is controlling the bearded man in canary yellow.

21 needed. Mujeeb ur Rahman, the man who dropped an absolute sitter off Maxwell early in the innings, is brought back into the attack. He needs a redemption arc of his own.

Six, six, four, six. Game over. Glenn Maxwell, on one functioning leg, has scored 201 runs in a target of 290, while navigating the chase from 90/7. He holds his arms aloft; we do too. Wankhede is bellowing “Maxi, Maxi” as loudly as possible.

Now, Shilps. Do you want to book the cab or let this sink in for a while longer?

If only I could bend time.

Sometimes, cricket is the best movie in town. Sandwiched between all the dullness and predictability, there are these moments, unscripted and laced with jeopardy, that take your breath away. Glenn Maxwell’s innings at the Wankhede was the kind of gateway drug you pass on to non-watchers and turn them into cricket fans. As a two-hour capsule, there is no greater advertisement for what cricket can do to your body.

Last night’s game was an event, a milestone in cricket history. Those who watched it will talk about it until their throats are parched, drink some water, and talk some more. And every conversation, as this article, will end with wide eyes and open mouths gasping the same expression: Holy Shit.

For most of this World Cup, Pakistan have sometimes played a brand of cricket that makes you want to turn the television off. The energy — see, a better, more civilised term — has been low enough to come across as completely missing. Their batting has been so dull and dire, their bowling so lifeless, that their ODI record in the last four-year World Cup cycle seems like an illusion. More worryingly, they look like a tacky impersonation of the organised unit we were getting used to watching.

Pakistan entered the Asia Cup in September as the highest-ranked ODI team in the world and possessors of the most menacing fast-bowling artillery. Nobody was bowling quicker and with more bite than Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf. Their batting order, forever an afterthought to their bowling, had Babar Azam, Mohammed Rizwan, and Imam ul-Haq. They were so good they didn’t seem to have space for a talent like Abdullah Shafique. In their early league game against India, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah had the much-vaunted Indian batting order pushing and prodding at deliveries, often late and missing the line. 15-1 turned into 27-2, which was soon 66-4. At that point, Pakistan were in everyone’s list of semi-finalists at the World Cup later in the year. Conversations kicked off about the hilarious prospect of them winning the title, right in the heart of Modi Stadium in Modi’s India.

By the time the second India vs Pakistan match at the Asia Cup finished — it was a tournament designed around the Coke Studio Derby — something had snapped. Well, something besides Naseem Shah’s shoulder. That injury would eventually rule the 20-year-old jet out of the World Cup. Any team would miss a bowler of his calibre, but Pakistan managed to lose all balance in their bowling attack. Without his partner, Shaheen Shah Afridi was a different bowler. He was asked to execute the dual job of control and aggression, which is like taking a hammer to a painting competition. Barring a game or two, he has had a forgettable World Cup. Haris Rauf has, well, not checked in. With one league game left, Mohammed Wasim is their only fast bowler who has delivered to potential. Their batting has been middling too. Neither Babar nor Rizwan have scored big despite getting the odd start, and Imam now finds himself on the bench.

At the mid-innings point of their game against South Africa, their sixth of the tournament, it looked like Pakistan were beginning to check out. On a decent surface, they couldn’t accelerate well enough to set an imposing total. South Africa, batting like they have a personal vendetta against record-keepers in cricket, looked good to sort this out without breaking a sweat. Quinton de Kock plundered 19 runs off Shaheen’s first over. Chasing a meagre 270, South Africa were 30 up within 2 overs. Pakistan were done.

Five minutes later, Quinton, probably late for his dinner plans, tried to hit Shaheen’s short ball into the stratosphere and ended up placing it neatly into the boundary rider’s hand. A gift from the heavens on a ball that deserved to fetch a minimum of six runs.

Something snapped again. For the rest of the evening, in the face of Aiden Markram’s masterclass and a brief period where David Miller looked like he was going to finish off the target in boundaries alone, Pakistan clung on. Every time the game threatened to slip out of their hands, they found a wicket, sometimes earned, sometimes gifted.

As the game drew close, Pakistan had found their mojo, their chaos, their vibe. Shaheen, Haris Rauf, and Mohammed Wasim were finally showing fangs. From 35 runs and five wickets, the equation was suddenly 11 runs and one wicket.

Pakistan somehow managed to lose that game, absolutely annihilated a hapless Bangladesh, and entered yesterday’s game against New Zealand needing to not just win but usurp their net run-rate. Babar Azam won the toss, looked at the pristine conditions in Chinnaswamy, its short boundaries and the cold air of Bangalore, and decided to, wait let me check my notes, bowl. If, by this time, you are screaming into your screen, you need to know you’re not alone. New Zealand scored 401. Pack up?

Not even close. Fakhar Zaman unleashed an attack on the New Zealand bowlers that made the target of 402 feel pedestrian. He hit 11 sixes in 81 balls, often making the ground look too small for his ambitions. Those tearing their hair apart at the toss were now on the edge of their seats, crouched, egging Fakhar to hit Ish Sodhi for one more six into the Chinnaswamy terraces. The dark Bangalore clouds opened up once, then opened up again, and Pakistan won. They were 21 runs ahead of the adjusted target at the point of stoppage. The scorecard will say victory through the Duckworth Lewis Stern system because it doesn’t have the provision to say pure, unadulterated, vibes.

This is the Pakistan that the World Cup had been missing. A team that has the propensity to be thrilling in victory and defeat. It channels the spirit of the old Pakistan team that was everybody’s guilty pleasure but nobody’s explicit favourite. The same team that needed rain delays to reach the semi-final of the very World Cup they ended up winning; the same that had Wasim, Shoaib, Saqlain, Anwar, and Inzamam, comfortably amongst the best ODI teams in the world in 1999, but lost to Bangladesh, couldn’t chase 227 against India, walked out in the World Cup final at Lord’s as favourites to win, and got bowled out for 120.

Pakistan’s last league game is against England, the defending champions who currently look like they’ve never played the game. It might help Pakistan’s cause to cut through them clinically, but I hope there is some trapeze-artistry in the process. It doesn’t suit their aesthetic to be orderly, efficient, or even abject. The frame feels incomplete without a shade of electricity.

Instant food doesn't always have to stay hidden in the aisle. Have you ever had instant noodles after a long, tiring day? Or at the top of a trek? It hits like cocaine. A cold glass of processed orange juice can sometimes cure all the worries of life. And for all the French press grounding in the world, instant coffee is a worthy substitute. When bought from the right manufacturer, it can have every bit of taste and caffeine kick that one craves. It doesn’t even take an Olympic sport worth of effort to make the damn beverage first thing in the morning.

Sometimes, it is worth getting lost in the buoyancy of the vibe. Watch Seinfeld back and tell me, which of the four lead characters was having the best time?

In the time you took to read the first paragraph, Sri Lanka lost three wickets. It was four soon after. Thus far, this had been Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami's World Cup, but Siraj, finally, checked into the party last night. After his third wicket of the night, Shami ran in to celebrate with him and slipped in a quiet word, we can only assume, to leave some food for him too. Shami would feast, but before that, we must start somewhere. So let's start with the best thing of the evening, the first delivery of the Sri Lanka innings. Jasprit Bumrah to Pathum Nissanka.

The Wankhede Stadium is a good chasing ground in T20 cricket. During the IPL, usually held in April and May, teams almost refuse to bat first given the choice. The boundaries are relatively small and the pitch offers true bounce thanks to a red soil-dominant composition. Sri Lanka, even if short on their bowling, have been batting decently at this World Cup. One can understand some of the thinking behind Kusal Mendis choosing to bowl after winning the toss. A target of 358, however, is a bit steep for most grounds, even taking early November dew into account. So, during the innings break, Chris Silverwood, Mahela Jayawardene, and the Sri Lankan batting group would have run some calculations about navigating this chase. See off Bumrah would probably be written in large, bold font at the top of the plan sheet.

Bumrah runs in, takes his leap close to the stumps, and pitches the ball in line with Nissanka's middle stick. Nissanka is already batting with an open, almost side-on stance, and this ball, with its angle of release, is looking ripe to be chipped into the leg side. Maybe a couple of runs, maybe even a four. He doesn't know yet that Bumrah has sold him a dream that he will wake up from in another 0.2 seconds. The ball lands upright on its crisp, taut seam, and deviates, devilishly, to the other direction. Delivered at nearly 90 miles an hour, there is no chance for the batter now, especially with the body orientation he finds himself caught in. Opened up like a box of mints on a balmy night, Nissanka can only waft at thin air and hear the ball thud into his pads. A speculative, desperate, decision review later, he is gone. India are here.

Kusal Mendis, the captain, walks in. His mind must be racing. The last time Sri Lanka played India, they were all out for 50. The font on the number 358 seems to be getting bigger with every step he is taking towards the pitch. There are five more balls of Bumrah to come in this over alone. And then 174 more from this fire-breathing dragon that is the Indian fast-bowling attack. Dimuth Karunaratne is an experienced ally. Maybe he can offer some words of comfort. Bumrah is already at the top of his mark, shuffling the ball in and out of his hand, familiarising his index and middle finger with the stitching of the seam. Which way is he looking? Which way is the ball tilted? Oh, boy. Here we go.

Bumrah sends the next ball in, angled similarly to the previous one for half its journey before taking an exaggerated leap and going wide. Phew. The next one is wide too. Alright, the matrix seems to be glitching. Steady. The ball after is eerily similar to the Nissanka one, pitched almost on the same line, maybe just a bit closer to the bat. Surely this one is meeting some wood and fetching some runs. In your dreams, son. The ball moves away, beating the bat, the stumps, and the minds of everyone watching.

The next ball is even closer to Mendis, this time actually in hitting range, but by now he is so spooked that he can only spoon it towards the bowler, evading his outstretched hands by mere inches. He wants to get off strike and transfer this nightmare to his partner, but the Indian fielders are sharp. Wankhede, too, is fully flexing its vocal cords by now. The next two balls are tamely defended back. Kusal Mendis is a gutsy, spunky batter. The way he took down Shaheen Shah Afridi at Hyderabad was a sight to behold. There was no way he was taking an ounce of risk on these two balls, though.

Alright, one over gone; 49 to go. 356 runs to win.

Siraj, slightly out of form and rhythm, runs in. Thankfully it's not Shami. Not yet. The ball pitches on Karunaratne's off stump, he lunges, ball hits his pad. Gone. Jesus Christ. Sadeera Samarawickrama is now in. What a lovely talent, filled with grace and power in equal amounts. He has been batting well too. There is enough time to recover. Siraj gets his next ball to jag back in, the ball again hits the pad, there is another loud appeal, and the umpire raises his finger again. Mendis can barely look. Samarawickrama reviews and the decision is reversed. We live to fight another day. India have three slips now. This is Test match bowling, with a Test match field, in coloured clothing and a target to chase. Two balls later, the batter, probably feeling the pressure of 358, wafts at a rare wayward delivery. Caught in the third slip. Oh my god.

Mendis is on strike for Bumrah's next over. Is he sweating? He must be. But is he sweating from his ears, his armpits, his back, and his calves? If not on the first ball, then after the second ball, which nearly ricochets off his bat onto his stumps, he most certainly is. The third ball almost makes him fall over. A sharp broadcaster needs to get access to heart-rate data and beam them live to the audience. Kusal Mendis would've been operating at, what, 150-160 bpm at this point? Like going through an 18 km/h sprint while standing still at the crease. He mercifully gets off strike on the next ball.

At the start of the next over, this time from Siraj, Mendis is again on strike. The word easy is a bit of a stretch for the bowler who took five wickets in sixteen balls against the same lot just about a month back, but we all grasp for small mercies. I can see Mendis taking a few breaths as he pats his bat to get into stance. Siraj sends his ball in, pitching in the same area that Bumrah's ball to Nissanka pitched in. Alright, easy. Mendis lunges for a forward defence, a perfectly fair option to choose for this ball. And then he hears the percussion from his stumps bending backwards. It's over.

Mohammed Shami has not even warmed up yet. By the time he gets the ball, Sri Lanka are heated and marinated. Shami cooks, and then feasts. 

Words cannot do justice to the performance of the three seamers last night. Hotstar has the entire replay somewhere. Just catch the Sri Lanka innings; it isn't that long anyway.

It was my first time in Chennai. I neither knew the local language nor anyone in the city I could text for help. The new workplace seemed vibrant and young, but, like post-25 friendships, it takes a while to fully turn ice into water. I didn’t know if this place could ever become home. Turns out, most of my doubts were needless. I had not anticipated the extent of warmth my new colleagues would embrace me with. Neither had I accounted for getting offered home food and a place to stay within my first couple of days in the city. It has been seven years since, and I still can’t quite understand why someone would do that for a stranger they share nothing with.

What is the first place I would like to visit, someone asked soon. Marina Beach? Pondicherry? No, Chepauk.

It sounds silly, I understand, but hear me out. For cricket fans of my generation, and maybe even beyond, Chepauk — formally known as MA Chidambaram Stadium — has never been just another dot on a large canvas. It is a colosseum, a wonder of the Indian cricket world.

Stories of Viswanath’s 97 and the tied Test were passed on by our parents like heirlooms. They always spoke of Chepauk with a deep voice and a straight back, as if they were narrating stories of a legend. Even the aesthetics fit the myth. With its cauldronesque architecture, Chepauk looked like a creation from graphic novels. The grey roofs and lumbars gave it an ominous, almost muscular, complexion.

In young minds, grand venues become stages for great events. We got our share. One nice afternoon, as we were marinating in some summer vacation-induced laze, Saeed Anwar came dressed in bright green and scored 194 runs. A few months later, our new hero, soon becoming the only poster available in the market, hit Australia for the most magnificent century, depositing his adversary into those grey stands many times over.

One more year later, the triptych was complete. We got our first Chepauk Classic™. Forget our primary school minds, even those with doctorates in filmmaking couldn’t have scripted the dramatics from that game against Pakistan. Srinath, Kumble, Saqlain, Afridi, Akram, Tendulkar, Saqlain again. All these years later, it almost reads like a fantasy team draft.

The afternoon should have ended with Sachin Tendulkar raising his arms aloft to a loud, adoring cheer – he would get that moment nine years later – but instead crash-landed into a scene so immortal, so utterly unbelievable, it will forever be a branch in India-Pakistan conversations. As the Pakistan team leapt and the hosts watched shell shocked, the Chepauk crowd, still processing the heartbreak from watching a certain victory turn into defeat, rose as one and applauded the Pakistan team. Wasim Akram’s men then took a victory lap along the boundary. A mural of that image is painted on one of Chepauk’s walls.

Renovation has given it the look of a 21st century arena, but its place as an epicentre for significant moments in Indian cricket has never been in doubt. Tendulkar won India’s most emotionally charged Test match in a long time. Mahendra Singh Dhoni wore yellow and turned this ground into a fortress. India, once again, made mince-meat of Australia.

It was always going to be my first pilgrimage after landing in Chennai. Everything else, even house-hunting, could wait. One evening, after work, I took the Chennai local train and made my way to the Victoria Hostel Road, a narrow lane that runs under the gigantic stands and white canopies that one immediately recognises Chepauk by. Security regulations meant I could only go inside on matchdays, but that chance came soon enough too.

In the last seven years, I have been fortunate to experience a Chepauk matchday many times over. The sound of the yellow sea on an IPL night is something I wish I could bottle up and carry. A small piece was still missing from the jigsaw: watching an India vs Pakistan game here. Owing to a complete suspension of bilateral engagements, it was somewhat of a pipe dream. When the ICC released the schedule for this year’s World Cup, my first glance went to all the Chepauk games. Pakistan were playing two games here, one each against Afghanistan and South Africa. Wonderful. Not quite the Tendulkar-Akram Derby, but good enough.

Dil Dil Pakistan

Over the last two weeks, these three words have migrated from the refrain of a popular Pakistani song to a subject of great discourse. After Pakistan's loss against India at Ahmedabad, where the world's largest stadium only had space for one colour, coach Mickey Arthur remarked that this song, now an anthem for his team, was not played on the speakers even once. Not when Pakistani batters hit boundaries, not when their bowlers took wickets.

In a neat mirroring of how international cricket works these days, this World Cup too has been a mostly India-centric tournament with a corner's worth of space for fans from other countries. The bright green of Pakistan, however, has been completely missing. Even on a good day at a kind place, all you get is a handful scattered across vast stadiums, like drops of olive-green ink in a sea. The press box at Ahmedabad had one journalist from Pakistan. Arthur's words, coming minutes after a mauling in the hands of their rivals, felt ill-timed and have been caricatured since, but he wasn't entirely wrong. It was, by all sensory measures, a bilateral encounter placed within a World Cup.

With and without the DJ's support, Pakistan have had a forgettable World Cup. Stuttering and stumbling, they reached Chennai to play two games. Both big, or one big and one small depending on how one wants to view Afghanistan. We know how the first episode turned out. The points table looked ominous as the Pakistan team bus rolled into Chepauk on Friday morning. Five games in, two wins, three losses. Staring at elimination.

Babar Azam's young team, most of whom are probably on their first trip to India, would’ve heard the same stories of Chepauk that we did. Maybe even more embellished, because you hear the fondness in the voices of ex-Pakistan cricketers who have played here.

On Friday, unhinged from the umbilical cord of partisan support, Chepauk turned up at its happiest and most relaxed. Even on a hot afternoon, parts of the new KMK Stand and a couple of neighbouring ones started filling up an hour before the first ball. You could spot dark green jerseys everywhere, some with Bavuma 11 painted on them, some others with De Kock(with a different, naughtier, spelling). I spotted a couple with Babar 56 on the back. By the time the PA system had finished with Qaumi Taranah, Pakistan's national anthem, the applause was loud enough to be called an atmosphere.

The collective cheer after Imam ul-Haq's early four off Lungi Ngidi confirmed what everyone had known walking in. Within the confines of neutral support, Pakistan were the partial home team. Babar Azam was greeted less like a guest and more like a returning family member. When he hit Keshav Maharaj for a soaring six, the ground, almost at 50% capacity already, roared in delight.

As the day went on and South Africa grew into the game, they found generous love too. Their fielding, always a spectacle, was the subject of consistent applause. Gerald Coetzee, with his intensity and pace, drew oohs and aahs. There was a long, anticipatory “ooooo” accompanying his run-up to the crease. In the second innings, Heinrich Klaasen walked in to a reception reserved for home-team demigods. For a second, you thought an India cricketer had turned up. 

Throughout the day, whenever the DJ prompted, “We want…”, the crowd’s response can only be described as a garbled mix of “wicket” and “sixer”.

And yet, the loudest cheers were reserved for the neighbours. The pulsing cheers from Quinton de Kock’s early attack on Shaheen Shah Afridi crescendoed with a bellow of “YESSS” when he hit a pull straight into Mohammed Wasim’s hands.

And this was a game that fit the atmosphere. The World Cup had been crying out for a cliffhanger, and South Africa and Pakistan delivered the best kind. Every time a team looked like they were going too far ahead, there was someone from the other end pulling them back. With only 36 to win and five wickets in hand, including Aiden Markram in the final few stitches of a masterpiece, South Africa looked to have landed the decisive blows. Babar Azam, desperate, handed the reins to his main bowlers. Wickets were the only plausible route to victory.

First, Haris Rauf twinkled out Marco Jansen. Roar. Then Aiden Markram played a wild swipe off Usama Mir. Confusion, claps, then another roar. Markram walked off to a standing ovation. Three wickets to win; 21 runs to win. Keshav Maharaj saw off the four remaining balls from that over. Babar threw the ball to Shaheen Shah Afridi once again. Shaheen handed over his cap to the umpire and walked to the top of his run-up. If you heard the Chepauk crowd at this point, you would think you have been teleported to Lahore. “SHAHEEN, SHAHEEN”. The uppercase lettering is not for exaggerated effect. Not a single person was clapping silently anymore. First ball, Coetzee caught behind. The crowd, suffice to say, took off.

Certainly Pakistan’s game now. A few minutes later, when Haris Rauf gobbled up Lungi Ngidi with probably the catch of the tournament, Chepauk was party central. One wicket left. Even those with Bavuma and De Kock kits couldn’t help but join in. Tabraiz Shamsi was never going to last long. Or so we thought. First ball, rapped on the pads, loud appeal, louder roar, turned down by the umpire. Pakistan reviewed, but missed out by a whisker. No bother, they go again. Haris ran in even harder, but couldn’t find a way through. Eventually, sadly, neither did Pakistan’s other bowlers.

As Keshav Maharaj’s swipe off Nawaz hurtled towards the boundary, nearly confirming Pakistan’s exit from the tournament, the crowd rose once again. This time, less partisan, more neutral, and enchanted by the all-timer they had just witnessed.

Actually, we should change that last bit to the all-timer they had just helped deliver. For all the twists and turns in the game, it doesn’t become as much of an epic without the background score composed by the Chepauk crowd. It would be a stretch to suggest that their reflected energy made the Pakistan quicks bowl better, but it wouldn’t be inconceivable.

Pakistan will have a lot to regret from this tournament. If only they executed their plans better; if only they had taken a chance on Mohammed Wasim’s exuberance before the table turned against them; if only Babar Azam, one of the world’s best batters, lived up to his tag on the biggest stage. But as, and if, they exit early, they will take memories from the night of 27th October, when nearly 30,000 people got behind them in a match that they had to win.

On Friday evening, Chepauk showed that there are significant parts of India where sporting contests are given the respect they deserve. Many of us watch international sports with deeply cynical eyes because it is far from the innocent persuasion of victory that we once painted it as. As rabid nationalism infects sports fandom in India deeper with every passing day, the reception for Pakistan at Chepauk has come as a source of great joy.

It was Chennai unfurling its best colours. It is here that I have met some of the most important people in my life, some of my closest friends. I hope Babar Azam, disconsolate as he must be after his team’s performances, goes away knowing that he has friends in Chennai.

The IPL team from this city is called the Super Kings. The team is great, as their trophy cupboard will exhibit, but maybe that label sits better on those who sit on the other side of the boundary.

Firstly, the architecture. Some fast bowlers carve a niche in public consciousness through sheer athleticism. Allan Donald and Michael Holding had physiques and run-ups that you could write songs to. They were Greek gods gliding on grass. Shami isn't quite that breed. He doesn't bustle in with the venom of a rhinoceros who has spotted trespassing Instagrammers in a forest, neither does he have the languid jog of an Olympic sprinter. His run-up is just about quick enough. Instead, his symmetry sets him apart. It is a visual marvel. The arms are equidistant from the torso, even while moving quickly to generate speed; the torso, itself, is as straight as the pitch he approaches; his leap is so perfectly timed that I don't think he has ever landed wrong; and the final release is a decrescendo where his limbs move in concert before his wrists, loose and perpendicular to the sky, add the coup de grace. It should be acceptable to pause the broadcast for a couple of seconds at this point.

We are only halfway there. After the release comes the craft. As the ball leaves his hand, its alignment is a picture of geometric perfection, as if hand-drawn into the video frame by a painter. There is a subtle, often late, movement in the air, leaving batters with wobbly feet at a point when they should be rock solid. The ball finishes with a zip off the pitch, jubilant at completing a journey directed by an artist. I wonder if the opposition batters feel like clapping sometimes.

No one, and I include Jasprit Bumrah, Mitchell Starc, Kagiso Rabada, and Trent Boult in that list, can make bowling look as artful.

In the winter of 2013, when Indian cricket fans were hyperventilating from the ominous prospect of away tours to South Africa, New Zealand, England, and Australia within the next year, Shami came as a breeze to cool some of the sweat down. He picked up nine wickets in his debut Test match, and we were in love.

It has been a decade since, and that fondness has rarely flickered. Shami has, like every cricketer, had to navigate the sine-wave nature of form and success in elite sport, but without ever losing his artistry. Matches, series, and seasons came and went, Shami would sometimes bathe in wickets and other times make you tear your hair apart with his propensity to dish out buckets of candy to the batters. He could be a miracle and misfit within the same over. Maybe there was a charm to it, because from that volatility came objects of rare splendour. Somewhere on YouTube, there is a clip of Shami's best wickets. It is best watched alone because you don't want to be squealing in public.

With age, that storm has become a steady wind. Shami is now a bank for captains, always ready to bowl himself into the ground, ready to attack, ready to defend. His report card, a sterile accessory to the colours on his canvas, is not half bad. More than 400 international wickets at an average of 26.5. He is a big fish in a small pool of good seam bowlers in Indian history. How, then, does he find himself relegated to the bench so often in limited-overs cricket? Why did it take a few games to pass by before he could bowl a ball at the 2019 World Cup? Why has the same script been reread in 2023? Last evening, after another spell of beauty and precision, and the small matter of five wickets, these questions hung in the thick air of Dharamshala.

Shami's misfortune comes from the shortcomings of an imbalanced side. Over the last few years, which have engulfed this and the previous ODI World Cup, India have played with a batting order that offers nothing with the ball and a bowling attack that offers nothing with the bat. In no other serious team will you find this kind of lopsidedness while also retaining elite-level quality. This World Cup, Shami is competing with the genius of Jasprit Bumrah and the control of Mohammed Siraj for two spots in the playing lineup. Only an injury to Hardik Pandya opened up a spot for him in yesterday's game against New Zealand. On most days, India cannot afford to play all three while also keeping Kuldeep Yadav. That's four non-batters in a World Cup game, a similar adventure to trekking a mountain in Crocs.

Bumrah is the bowling equivalent of Sachin Tendulkar in this team, so his spot is not up for debate. Siraj, however, opens a conversation. He hasn't had the brightest start to the World Cup, and when the other seamer rocks up and turns in a five-wicket haul, questions aren't completely out of order. But you look at Siraj's consistency over the last couple of years, where he has helmed India's white-ball bowling in Bumrah's prolonged absence, and the conversation begins to soften. 60 wickets at a barely believable average of 21. Mostly delivered on flat decks in India. Just a month and a bit back, he reduced an Asia Cup final to a darts game, polishing off the entire Sri Lankan batting order before most of us had even settled into our sofas. One can never begrudge Shami a place in the team - he deserves it - but he was always going to start the World Cup next in the pecking order after two exceptional talents. His fiver last night is not so much a Fuck You to the team management, but a quiet reminder of the depth and variance they can tap into. Great teams often have very good players sitting out.

Shami is 33. Fast bowlers don't usually play into their late 30s, so this could be his last ODI World Cup. Given his sustained brilliance in Test cricket, he might even give this format up soon after the World Cup. Mohammed Shami with the red ball is a work of art worthy of the Louvre, but even with the white ball, he can warrant a spot at most cathedrals. How many can say that about themselves?

Some events just have that special significance. Yanni rarely ever sounded mediocre, but he grew into something else at the Acropolis. Ask Simone Biles about the Olympics, where she won a fraction of her career haul, and her eyes light up.

An ODI World Cup, for all of cricket's excesses, has a special corner in the hearts of professional cricketers. Admittedly, tradition has a lot to do with it. Until 2007, this was the only “world” event they got to participate in. The men had already participated in eight ODI World Cups by the time T20s became a thing. Over the last decade and a half, as the charm of the 50-over format has diminished to the point of near irrelevance, T20 World Cups have probably become the most lucrative and closely followed event in international cricket. And yet, when you think of the World Cup, the mind goes for the ODI version, at least for the time being.

India's official advertising campaign for the tournament, led by jersey manufacturer Adidas, has a song called "Teen ka Dream", Hindi for The Dream of the Third. If we were to count all formats, India already has three world titles. No discussion involving Pakistan and World Cups is complete without a reference to the glory of 1992. The T20 title of 2009 is almost forgotten. The longer format owns the marquee.

Last night marked a fortnight of this edition, and the host team has turned up in its most royal colours. In each of their four matches, they have come out with more smiles than sweat. On the morning after a clinical performance, neatly punctuated by a Virat Kohli century, it is difficult to not get carried away by the kind of form he and most of the Indian team have been showing. New Zealand have been equally solid, thrashing England and making light work of potential banana peels in Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

The biggest story, however, is not about the top dogs marking their territory. The scrawny strays, who have shown up from neighbouring blocks, have brought the noise. In the last week alone, we have had two games that will be remembered long after this tournament is done, maybe even long after the fifty--over format meets its end.

There is a tendency, amongst players, teams, and fans, to consider certain teams as walkovers. When I called New Zealand's game against Afghanistan a potential banana peel, you moved on without pausing. For good reason. Teams like Afghanistan and the Netherlands live on the margins of international cricket. They have to fight for games, often making do with leftovers from a hectic schedule. For all their skill and talent, administrations rarely give them a regular platform to grow. So, often, you see them fighting hard but rarely ever matching the range of technical skills a regular Test-playing team boasts of. Within the boundaries of proper preparation and respect, the England and South Africa camps would have looked through their schedule and marked Ws against those games. 

Under a warm Delhi sun, England got battered from the first ball. Chris Woakes, a picture of consistency for his entire career, bowled wide; Jos Buttler, captain and otherwise a good keeper, let the ball slip. Five runs to Afghanistan before a ball was bowled. Rahmanullah Gurbaz then took England to the sword, cutting and pulling the defending world champions to all corners of the Arun Jaitley Stadium. England never recovered fully, barring a small patch in the middle overs where Afghanistan lost their way, but it was a period all too brief. Afghanistan’s middle and lower-order took the batting effort to a formidable, if not intimidating, 284. And then they made the ball talk. The seamers found swing; the spinners found zip. In between all of that, Mohammed Nabi looped the ball, held it by a string, and made the England batters dance. The final margin of 69 runs was generous to England.

Netherlands, however, had to script a serious turnaround in their match against South Africa. Batting first in hilly, rainy, Dharamshala, they found themselves at 51-4 and 140-7. In ODI cricket, against teams as well-equipped as South Africa, these are points from which your energy is sucked out. The other team just has too many tools in the shed. South Africa made a mess of the final stage, and Netherlands, helmed by a captain who seemed to have glacial water running through his veins, cashed in. The last nine overs brought in the windfall of 104 runs. 245 to defend in 43 overs. South Africa were still expected to chase this down, given the depth and quality in their batting lineup. Instead, they entered the cage timid, possibly carrying scars from their defeat against the same opponents in last year's T20 World Cup. They never looked like getting those runs.

As the euphoria from these two games simmered down, and the sense of history began sinking in, it all felt a bit odd. As if, for events so significant, something was missing. There was no..drama. Neither game had a tense finish, the kind which leaves a lot of margin for luck to play its part. England and South Africa would have had an easier time explaining, mostly to themselves, a loss like that. Last over, should have hit a six, got bowled instead. Shit happens. Even a catastrophic batting collapse could have been a crutch. Teams tend to laugh those days off as a rare tumble on a plain, flat road. Or, on other days, one player from the opposition going ham, having an outing straight from cricket heavens. Cue: patronising praise with a smirk that says, "They get only one of those." Neither game had any symptoms of a wild, shock result. Both, instead, felt oddly calm. The fate was decided well before the final wicket. Afghanistan's win against England could even be called a walloping. Netherlands applied a strangle of such calculated pressure that South Africa could neither move nor breathe.

Given how these games turned out, is it fair to tag them as upsets? With context, it should be. On every day of the week and twice on a Sunday, Afghanistan or Netherlands enter a game against a full-member nation as the substantially weaker side. Before their game against South Africa, the Netherlands men's team hadn't won an ODI against a Test-playing nation not called Bangladesh. Afghanistan, before their game against England, had never beaten England, India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, or South Africa in an ODI. Now, look towards the other corner. Over the last six or seven years, England have been the gold standard of limited-overs cricket. They have led the way in every aspect from planning to execution. South Africa haven't quite been in the first row alongside England or India, but they came into the tournament in rare form and started on fire. After their games against Sri Lanka and Australia, they were cast, rightfully, as among the strongest teams in the tournament. 

For Afghanistan and Netherlands to come out of a World Cup with wins against them is an upset painted by Michelangelo. It is a thumb in the nose of those who design World Cups to garland the most popular and financially lucrative teams. The gawky indies may not win too many other games at this World Cup, but they have left the kind of mark that milestone events get remembered for. This is a World Cup in its natural habitat.

North Korea '66, Kenya '96, and Senegal '02, say hello to the newest members of the club.

Whatever the visuals didn’t convey, the scorecard filled in. 191 all out; chased down in 30 overs. There are no caveats to use as a shield. I was watching the game from nearly 1900 kilometres away, but the air felt palpably light, robbed of the tension that a game of this magnitude carries. The cameras panned to the players exchanging handshakes, hugs, and consolatory pats on the shoulders.

These scenes couldn’t have been more different from the last time the two teams met at a World Cup. At the end of that night in Melbourne, almost exactly a year back, Ravichandran Ashwin was running around with arms wide open, Rohit Sharma was lifting Virat Kohli on his shoulders, Hardik Pandya was in tears, and about 90000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground were trying to find their voice and jaws. That game was so good ICC made a montage of the final few overs. Commentary packages have been edited into Instagram reels to accompany videos from the match.

But that game was also an aberration. The recent record of India vs Pakistan at World Cups speaks of worrying lopsidedness. Since the 2015 World Cup, most games between these two teams have finished without spectators having to dig into their nails. India have ended up on the right side of the result for all barring one, but even on that ashen night at Dubai, Pakistan bulldozed past India without losing a wicket. Thanks to Shaheen Shah Afridi, that contest was over in roughly 15 minutes. 

This one at least had something brewing for two hours. At that point, with 29 and a bit overs gone, Pakistan stood strong at 155-2. Not quite rapid, but steady, which is often a good tactic for tense World Cup games on slow, low pitches. Babar Azam and Muhammed Rizwan, two exceptional cricketers, were looking ready to feast, with a lineup of heavy hitters waiting to join in.

We know what happened next. If you don’t, let me summarise. Babar got out, and Pakistan then lost the remaining seven wickets for thirty-six runs. A collapse so monumental, it didn’t even register fully with those watching. A friend in Mumbai went for a nap at the 30th over mark, hoping to come back refreshed for the final few overs of the Pakistan innings and India’s chase. By the time he woke up, possibly by the incessant pulse of his phone’s notification bell, the scorecard beggared belief.

Outcome bias is an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the result of the decision is already known. Before any such questions arise, I am not evaluating my friend’s choice to get some shuteye. 

There, instead, is something else that warrants evaluation. If you look at the ball-by-ball commentary from the Pakistan innings, you will notice Mohammed Siraj bowling that 30th over. His cross-seam ball to Babar Azam triggered the collapse. Rohit Sharma had brought him back for a spell two overs earlier, replacing Ravindra Jadeja. At that point, Pakistan were 131/2 at 4.85 runs an over. A good time to keep Pakistan’s run rate in check, and who better than Jadeja to execute that? Siraj’s first over back went for 13 runs.

Rohit persisted for another over. From that Siraj spell onwards, every single bowling change brought wickets. Before one could catch their breath, Pakistan were all out for 191. Genius? Lucky? How do we read this?

Reading it through the prism of a closed scorecard will be a repeat of the folly we all commit way too often, so let’s not do that. The alternatives present to Rohit, when he makes certain decisions, start telling a story. At that 30th over, Rohit had three bowlers who had done well: Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and Jasprit Bumrah. Siraj, Hardik Pandya, and Shardul Thakur had been expensive. Rohit had to get at least ten overs out of Hardik and Shardul, so squeezing them in when Pakistan were still building a base seemed intuitive and safe. Keep Jadeja, Kuldeep, Siraj, and Bumrah, the main bowlers, for a majority of the final fifteen where they’d be in a place to stifle an assault. Hardik and Shardul may or may not have the same range of tools.

It is one, entirely valid, way of thinking. In big games, top coaches and captains, across sports, often tilt towards risk aversion. Another school of thought, divergent in approach, would point towards wickets and the possibilities of counter-attack.

There is no way Rohit brought back Siraj in the 28th over to stifle the flow of runs. Jadeja and Kuldeep were doing that just fine. Rohit was thinking of wickets at a time when it would’ve been second nature to think about preservation. For that, for persisting with Siraj and Hardik in their opening spells, and for immediately looking towards Bumrah as soon as Kuldeep twinkled out two wickets in the 32nd, Rohit deserves his laurels. 

We often think of Virat Kohli as the last bastion of aggression in captaincy, at least amongst the Indian ranks. While that reputation of ferocity is well-earned, Rohit, a little muted in his body language, is no less ruthless. He is proactive and analytical, often relying on data to inform his decision-making. The aggression wasn’t specially reserved for this big day; it’s natural to him.

By the time India were walking back, smiling in disbelief, after polishing Pakistan off for 191, Rohit Sharma was already having a day to remember for his life. By the time Pakistan were walking off, glum-faced, unable to create a contest in their defence of that total, Rohit Sharma had a day that no one watching will ever forget. His innings of 86 included six fours and six sixes, each sweeter than the previous. To compliment Jasprit Bumrah’s surreal mastery of the cricket ball, Rohit Sharma brought jaw-dropping beauty with the bat.

After days like this, you begin to wonder if Rohit Sharma, already considered a pearl of Indian cricket, is worth a pedestal even higher, amongst the greats. To be honest, he has a serious case.

Fast bowlers are creatures of speed and electricity. And often, the pitch is their only friend. The good ones can, sometimes, make a lifeless pitch look menacing — think Dale Steyn at Nagpur — but even the best of them need a little help on most days. Dead pitches can suck all the energy out of a quick ball, giving batters ample time to get in position.

In the long term, species are defined by their ecosystem. Asian pitches were once famous as fast bowling purgatories. Spinners, aided by their abrasive nature, thrived.

Unless you were Pakistani, in which case, you were plucking out express speedsters from a kind of tree that only grew within their borders. For a long time, it was difficult to find jealousy like what an Indian fan harboured. Under similar playing conditions, while we could have about two medium-fast seamers on a good day, an average Pakistan team could field about five bowlers who sent that red pill at more than 85 miles an hour. The news bulletin often ended at Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, but the absurdity started from the line beyond them. Aaqib Javed, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammed Zahid, Mohammed Sami, Asif. I can go on but my head is hurting from the trauma these lot have caused. Their current setup has Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah, both of whom, health permitting, should end with more than 300 Test wickets.

Which is why, it is a bit unnerving to watch Jasprit Bumrah. His predecessors, Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath, have serious cachet within cricket fans, but realisation has dawned that Bumrah is cut from a different cloth. Indian fans from a certain generation, maybe ever, are just not used to this.

His action, unique and asymmetrical, is often spoken about as the key to his success. His control over a ludicrous range of skills says otherwise.

Most great bowlers have a finite set of skills they are exceptional at. Glen McGrath, James Anderson, and Shaun Pollock could land a ball on a six-pence and make it talk; Waqar Younis could telegraph his intentions of hitting your stumps and leave you unable to change much about it; Allan Donald and Curtly Ambrose could make you smell leather and discomfort. One-trick ponies don’t get 400 Test wickets, so of course they had other skills too, but you kind of knew what you were getting. Just that it was too good most of the time.

What sets Jasprit Bumrah apart, and what places him — pardon me for my sins, St. Andy Roberts — in the same bracket as Wasim Akram, is his mastery over all of those things. Bumrah is not just good, he is peerless at most things a bowler can be possibly asked to do.

In one ODI game, lasting fifty overs, enough for about three to four spells, Bumrah displays all his colours. Early in the innings, he is fast and full, making the new ball move in the air, drawing batters into awkward shapes. If there is bounce in the pitch, he uses it as a special effect, leaving batters as good as Hashim Amla stranded on their toes. Once the ball loses a bit of shine, goes soft, and stops moving, Bumrah hones in on a spot on the pitch and dishes out 12-18 deliveries with unerring accuracy. Batters are often keen to score at a high rate in this phase of the game, and Bumrah makes them play shots that just, don’t, work. In the final phase of an inning, the slog overs, where batters unleash vengeance and bowlers tend to be happy if they don’t get walloped, Jasprit Bumrah is the best in the world, one of the best ever. His yorker is touched by the gods and Waqar Younis, and the deceptive quality of his slower ball would make Shane Warne proud.

It is tempting to suggest that the best place for Jasprit Bumrah would be a spicy Durban or Melbourne pitch. Bowlers like him become nearly unplayable in these conditions. It’s only fair. You get to see a glorious bird in full flight, weaving shapes as it glides in the sky, leaving everyone wanting for more. On the other hand, an ODI game against Afghanistan on a flat Delhi pitch sounds like a concrete jungle on a dusty, rainy day, where nature itself is a reluctant participant. For Bumrah’s kind, there is no such thing as a placid surface. Terraces become open fields. If you look carefully, you can see every colour on a feather. It isn’t their favourite spot, but this is where they get to strut around with their wings out. Ask a Pakistan fan about Wasim and Waqar on the dead pitches of Karachi and Sharjah and you’ll notice tears.

Jasprit Bumrah isn’t quite the bowler who will make batters fear for their lives. On the contrary, I wonder if they’re ever thrown off by the constant smile on his face. Most fast bowlers exude menace as they run in; Bumrah oozes joy. But he is the kind of bowler who probably makes batters question their life choices. Why have they chosen a profession that leaves them looking like a bent thermocol cylinder in the middle of a pitch, as fifty high-definition cameras broadcast this sight to millions of viewers across the world?

For a few months before the World Cup, there was legitimate fear, including within me, that Bumrah wouldn’t be fit enough for the first few matches. Back injuries and fast bowlers are sworn enemies, and Bumrah has had to deal with a stalker. In Ireland, as he took his first steps back into international cricket, he looked a little gingerly, as if he was finding his groove. The sound check, so to speak. But within a month, by the time the Asia Cup was done, all doubts had vanished. He was tuned and ready.

Last night’s game against Afghanistan will and should be remembered for Rohit Sharma’s batting. That said, even Sharma will be happiest with what his premier fast bowler was able to extract from a barren pitch. Jasprit Bumrah is back. And he is making India look as lethal as himself.

In limited-overs cricket, going this long without scoring is rare. But going this long without scoring in the powerplay, where bowling teams are only allowed to place two fielders on the boundary, is almost unheard of. That is, unless, a gun bowling attack stumbles upon a spicy pitch. Hyderabad likes its spicy stuff, but the playing conditions and the Dutch bowling attack didn’t quite fall in that category.

As Ryan Klein stands at the top of his bowling mark, waiting to start the fourth over, I am already dressed up and walking down a familiar lane. Could this be their day? Against Pakistan a couple of days back, they teased and tantalised, but couldn’t quite get over the line.

You could tell their inexperience showing up against a team that knows this format like the crest on their kits. The Netherlands, on the other hand, don’t play a lot of cricket at the highest level. Only a handful from their World Cup squad are regular first-class cricketers, and it is rare to find their players in franchise T20 leagues. Their route to this ODI World Cup took them through a qualifying tournament, where they had to battle nine other teams, including Sri Lanka, West Indies, Ireland, Zimbabwe, and Scotland, for one out of two spots.

A crazy run, including a game against West Indies, where they chased down 374, later, here we are. After qualifying, coach Ryan Cook used his press conference to ask for matches to prepare for the World Cup. “This is a call-out to anyone who wants to play us. We'd love to have a fixture or two.”

The next two overs go for nineteen. It is still a decent bowling platform, but the New Zealand batters are stretching their arms. Devon Conway sometimes looks like he is born to bat. His movements are minimal and fluid, and the ball pings off his bat even if he has seemingly only caressed it. When in form, Conway’s bat is more paintbrush than a log of wood. Within two more overs, the score reaches 52. The early strangle seems like a distant memory. Back to home base.

Now that the game against Pakistan is done, and this one against New Zealand seems to be taking an expected route, I look through their schedule to find opportunities. They face South Africa and Australia soon. No chance. But maybe Bangladesh and Afghanistan could provide ripe possibilities. A result, or, miraculously, two, won’t do enough to prevent a group stage exit, but it will create enough noise. The Dutch are the late-invite plus-ones at this party, expected to come and leave without getting too loud. Some didn’t even think they would turn up. But picking up the karaoke mic and belting out Summer of ‘69? Sign me up!

Why are so many people happy they are here? And why am I chatting them up? Because they bring something that no other team does, definitely not to the same extent: an air of the underdog with no serious chance of success. On experience, talent, and skill, every other team at this tournament ranks higher than them. Never mind a win, even pushing teams to the limit would be an achievement worthy of sincere praise. This is a pure, thoroughbred, underdog.

A day later, I am collecting my jaw off the floor as Kusal Mendis deposits Shaheen Shah Afridi and Hassan Ali to various corners of the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. A plucky batter taking down some of the world’s best bowlers is always fun; Mendis makes it exhilarating. There is a muscularity and explosiveness to his hitting without it ever looking jagged. Every time a Pakistan bowler seems to have gauged his instincts, he hits them somewhere else. I am thinking of the captain, Babar Azam, as he looks puzzled about where to place the fielders, or if he should ask them to take a break because Mendis is sending everything to the stands.

Kusal Mendis is the perfect symbol of this Sri Lanka team: incredibly talented with a capacity to suddenly look like they’ve just discovered the sport. Their recent record relegated them to the qualifying tournament for tickets to the World Cup. At the recent Asia Cup final, they were knocked over for, let me check my notes quickly, 50. Just fifty cricket runs. It is an insult to the traditions of Sri Lankan cricket, and the wealth of talent it sits on, to speak of them in the same breath as teams that live on the margins of the sport, but here we are. They will finish well above the bottom, but, even with Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama’s pyrotechnics, they’ll have to play out of their skins to be in the hunt for a semi-final spot.

They will be fun to watch, either way. While their potential puts that halo on them, admittedly, some of the light comes from them entering most games as the weaker of the two sides. We love underdogs like nothing else.

The University of Richmond once conducted a study called The Perception of Shapes. For $5, students had to watch four clips of 15 seconds each. The clips were similar: circles rolling up and down a hill. But each clip was slightly different from the other and students saw them in a random order. In all barring one of the four clips, there is a second circle that is quicker than the first. And every time, the students rooted for the slower circle trying to make its way up a hill.

“When the favourite you’re rooting for wins, the payoff can be tepid. A minimal spike in mood, perhaps merely a sense of relief. Throwing in with the underdog, on the other hand, is a riskier proposition, but when you hit on the long shot, the bet pays much more. Backing a favourite can’t match the exhilaration of winning with an underdog.” - L. Jon Wertheim, This is Your Brain on Sports

Some of my favourite recent memories in sports have come from watching less-fancied teams and athletes push their boundaries. Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee beating their Chinese, world number 2, opponents at the Asian Games? Yes, please. Carlos Alcaraz defeating Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic on consecutive days at 18 years of age? Inject it into my veins. Morocco sending Portugal home from the FIFA World Cup? My face is going to melt.

I was out of my chair when Max O’Dowd caught Keshav Maharaj, practically confirming Netherlands’ victory against South Africa, in the T20 World Cup last year. And had it not been for West Indies playing well below par at the qualifying tournament this year, I wouldn’t have gotten to watch him facing up to Trent Boult with the confidence of a Test opener as his glorious mullet flops outside the back of his helmet. And there lies the central hypocrisy of watching a team like the Netherlands.

There is more to Netherlands cricket than exotic offerings on a global buffet. Because of how they are cast, they only ever get noticed when they play beyond their limits against stronger opponents. In a sport so limited in its reach that you could utter the name of every team playing at a World Cup while holding your breath, it is a pity that the team that has defeated England twice in T20 World Cups has to rummage for international matches.

The same could be said of Kenya two decades back, especially after a semi-final appearance at the 2003 World Cup. That was one hell of a team, formidable on a bad day, capable of upending apple carts on good ones. Or, more recently, Afghanistan. In 2018, Afghanistan made their Test debut against India at Bangalore. It should have been a platform, a catapult to send an already promising white-ball team to the next level. Instead, they are struggling to establish an identity beyond T20 cricket. In the five years since their debut, Afghanistan have only played six more Tests. Two each against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, one each against Ireland and West Indies. When promising teams fritter away, like we're seeing with West Indies lately, it is less a sign of systemic rot within their offices and more of systemic indifference from those in charge of the sport at a global level.

Think, similarly, of Zimbabwe. Next summer, England will host Zimbabwe in a one-off Test match. The last time Zimbabwe played Test cricket in England, George Bush was in his first stint as the President of the United States. After beating Pakistan at the T20 World Cup last year, their talismanic star Sikandar Raza went to the post-match press conference. He was asked, with a crisp timbre of condescension, if and when he thought Zimbabwe could win the game.

Every time Netherlands do well at this tournament, raise a drink to those magnificent party-crashing, leather-jacketed rockstars and say a silent prayer for at least one competent brain to enter the ICC top brass. A World Cup cannot be an exclusive party.

The next day, I had to show up at work because of a meeting, which, thankfully, was ending about an hour before the first match started. So a few colleagues – calling them friends would be a stretch – and I put up a couple of 55-inch monitors near our bay and plugged in the streaming platform. Imran Tahir ambled in to bowl the first over as we muttered “Let’s go”. The noise from two minutes later, after Tahir nicked off Jonny Bairstow on the second ball, made an office floor sound like a pub. By this time, about twenty people had flocked to our bay, some with laptops, others with a mug of filter coffee. We watched the first half an hour together.

Yesterday afternoon, less than 10,000 people, maybe even 5000, watched Trent Boult run in for the first over of the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup. It was an unnerving sight. The first match of a major tournament, played between the two teams who gave us the most unforgettable final last time around, unfurling in front of giant empty walls of an orange fishbowl some people like to call The Narendra Modi Stadium. During the pre-match show, I was hoping to hear the crowd noise compete with Ravi Shastri’s larynx. Instead, Ravi had a monopoly over the airwaves as he fumbled through the toss, momentarily forgetting the name of Tom Latham, New Zealand’s captain.

As the game moved, the sight grew even more jarring. The vastness of The Modium – a term borrowed from here – highlighted the lack of a participating crowd in fluorescent orange. Everyone had noticed the lack of hype or general fucks in the air, and the excess of world events fans have been subjected to in recent times, but no one expected an empty stadium for a match of this magnitude.

The initial chatter placed the blame on BCCI for lacklustre planning and logistics. Releasing the schedule a hundred days from the start gives fans precious little time to plan. Releasing tickets just a month before the World Cup leaves them with an even lesser margin. Withholding a chunk of tickets because you have to please sponsors is just criminal. People based in the host country are finding it tough to sort out tickets or travel; imagine those who have to fly internationally to support their team at a world tournament. Fans give texture and colour to any event. Instead, we got empty, pigeon discharge-covered seats. One curious fan even found available tickets from the game on BookMyShow, the official ticketing partner.

And then the floodgates opened for the funny stuff. Apparently, and this is just inferred from what many are revealing on Twitter, a large percentage of the tickets were distributed to women for free under the pretext of free food and water. Some were even told they were attending an India vs. Pakistan game.

https://twitter.com/cuttackgupchup/status/1709902132382716307

By the evening, a few more people filled up, but even then, it was not nearly close to capacity. Rather than quoting a number, I'd like to present you with a screenshot from the peak of the evening.

The Modium – get used to it already – is installed in Ahmedabad. The biggest city in the home state of our country’s Prime Minister, Home Minister, and the Secretary of our cricket board, who also happens to be the Home Minister’s son. The BJP and BCCI, interchangeable soon, have marketed this as a diamond in India’s attire. Its inauguration coincided (lol) with the visit of then-US President, Donald Trump. About a hundred thousand people, kids and senior citizens included, filled in for the Namaste Trump event in orchestrated clothing and headgear. Completely normal behaviour. Since that awful political rally, The Modium has become the centre of Indian cricket. Most important matches are played here and it is given precedence over traditional cricket centres like Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai, or Bangalore. This World Cup, it is hosting the opener, India vs. Pakistan, Australia vs. England, and the final. No big deal.

Stadiums are known for their atmosphere. Even the 25,000-seater Selhurst Park in London can be a scary place to visit for opposition teams. The sights and sounds can get to teams, sometimes even the best of them. If erecting a monument was all it took to build a cricket culture, no stadium would stand still for too long.

Ahmedabad likes its cricket, as the crowds at the old Motera Stadium often suggested. Instead, the lack of incentive and marketing for a game that doesn’t involve India has blown up in the faces of the BCCI. Will I skip work and other daily chores to attend an England vs. New Zealand game on a hot Thursday afternoon? Make me and I might just.

The BCCI will be hurting. They are all about optics and this turned out to be a missed opportunity. Imagine the energy they could’ve infused into the tournament had they curated a carnivalesque atmosphere for the opener. One would think they would go to great lengths to show up Ahmedabad as the Ibiza of cricket. It is rather curious how badly they have messed this up. But, no problem. They have a ticket out of Thursday’s Svalbard impression.

They host the party next weekend when India and Pakistan come to town. You won’t find an empty seat, hotel room, or hospital bed that day. Even the game after that, a couple of weeks later, has England playing Australia on a Saturday. Sorted.

There will be hype around both of those matches, but nothing will scrape off the shambles from 5th October 2023. That’s about the only thing I will remember from the first day of the 2023 World Cup. Which is a crying shame because New Zealand have just executed a run chase written by batting gods. Hopefully, I can write about Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra on another day, when the sights from a large orange fishbowl weren’t making me cry with laughter.

There was a time when, within cricket fandom, World Cups were looked at like the Olympics. The rhythms of the cricket calendar built up over four years culminating in a carnival where everyone and their grandmums got involved. And these festivals left their imprints on our lives. We remember small things and incidents from two decades back like it was yesterday. Where were you when a young Bangladesh beat an imperious Pakistan team? Or when Ireland beat England? Did you too get a new television because Sansui were running deals during the World Cup?

The rare occurrence of this mega event added to its charm. In football too, despite all the Champions Leagues and Copa Americas, the World Cup is when the party truly comes to town. It, to borrow a popular phrase on the internet, hits different. I remember seeing massive posters and hoardings go up in 1996 and 2011. Newspapers carried reports and analyses, broadcasters carried programmes. In the weeks leading up, the World Cup is all you heard of.

Cricket hasn't quite bothered with protecting that allure. Since 2019, this will be the fourth men's World Cup across two formats. Add to that some overprocessed Asia Cups and we have ourselves a ramen pot when memories from one tournament blend into another. I need to look up Cricinfo to remind myself that New Zealand thrashed Australia in the World Cup of 2022 and not 2021. The mind does much of the work to form the allure, and fans haven't had the time to breathe to fully build up the anticipation. One day before the grand tournament, it is still without an accompanying groove. The news of there being no opening ceremony for this tournament -- thank god for not subjecting us to another Ranveer atrocity -- has passed by without anyone caring.

I do think some of the noise will find good range as the tournament kicks into full pelt. It is a long, long tournament, spanning six weeks. Hopefully a fun one too.

Which brings me to this piece and this Substack. Over the next month and a bit, I will try to cover the World Cup here. Maybe some weekly roundups, some daily reports, a mish-mash of whatever works. But hopefully, there will be ample things to write about. I will title them "Notes From The World Cup: " so you are warned. In case cricket is not your thing, you can zone out from the title itself.

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