Notes From the World Cup: Heartbreak City

Shit.

All heartbreaks hurt.

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.

Abiding memories. Source: Team India instagram

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.