The World Cup — Magazines, posters, and school bags
Hasan Minhaj keeps it real at most times. In Patriot Act, his Netflix special which isn’t technically a Netflix special, he keeps it real…
Hasan Minhaj keeps it real at most times. In Patriot Act, his Netflix special which isn’t technically a Netflix special, he keeps it real at all times. The latest episode, almost timed perfectly, is centered on cricket and its darkest sides, yet he still manages to shoe in a bit of perspective on the difficulty of following a sport so long and arduous by design.
The longest form of cricket consumes an entire workweek. The shortest takes up more time than a football match with thirty minutes of extra-time and penalty shoot outs. And yet, this has somehow rarely mattered for those drawn to this peculiar battle between wood and leather.
Starting tomorrow and over the next month, this attraction will meet its two most potent catalysts — the World Cup and nostalgia. The sport is granular now, with so much happening at all times. Shorter formats are being invented and played at a rate faster than we can comprehend. The quadrennial pattern of tournaments like the World Cup allows us a warm look back, a time-series perspective if you will, into our journey with this sport. No World Cup is ever complete without a share of reminiscence about its previous editions.
Mine started with a rack of Sportstar magazines at my childhood home. I was too young to fawn over long-form literature, but I would browse through for the pictures. One man stood out for sheer persistence across different editions. He was curly-haired and baby faced, and to the melting pot of genius that was my five-year-old brain, it made no sense that someone who looked as young as me should be having double-page pictures on a major national magazine.
Sometime in 1996, I remember running back from school one afternoon because India were playing Kenya in their World Cup opener that day. I managed to catch the better part of the Indian batting effort, where the man from the magazine scored an unbeaten century. The rest of the month (and the next few years to be completely honest) followed a funnily similar pattern — a hasty jog back from school, almost building up to a run as I entered the gates of the apartment complex, and switching on the television to watch Sachin Tendulkar weave his blue magic with a bat that stood out for its barren, yet pure, front face. I was hooked.
Yet, the most exhilarating memories of that tournament came from one tiny neighboring island. It hurt to see your team not finish on the top, but so much of that World Cup was also spent marveling at Sanath Jayasuriya’s brutal, almost violent, batting, and Aravinda de Silva’s obstinacy in crunch moments. They called cricket The Gentleman’s Game, yet there was very little that was gentlemanly about Jayasuriya’s attack on Venky Prasad.
By 1999, the year of the next World Cup, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was the face of world cricket, nevermind India. Advertisers seemed to give him more airtime than even his almost-flawless batting could. I had grown a bit too, in physical age and love for this all-conquering, Shane-Warne-mauling genius.
I remember hearing at school (everyone in India watched cricket back then) that Tendulkar had flown back to Bombay on the eve of India’s match against Zimbabwe. His father had passed away and there was serious doubt about a grieving son returning to play ball.
He did — stone-faced, with thick sunglasses and a broken voice. His father would’ve wanted him to play, he said, and India needed him. The next match, he scored 140 of the most emotional, heartfelt runs. If anyone had a dry eye, I don’t know how they managed it.
1999 was also the year of Lance Klusener and South Africa and the concept of neutral favorites. Everyone wanted South Africa to go all the way and they were knocked out in a tied semi-final. Something about tragedy and romance that makes for compelling memories.
By 2003, Indian cricket had changed inside out. The team was younger, fitter, well-rounded, and led by someone with primal hunger for success. Sachin Tendulkar was still the bedrock on which the success of this team rested, but this time, he had support from every direction.
Cricket was growing concurrently in India and my heart. I watched the 2003 edition with a lot more enthusiasm than the previous two. Some of my favorite cricket memories, to date, come from that tournament.
Sachin had a major part to play in most of them. That six off Caddick. That six off Shoaib. That cover-drive off Wasim.
India reached the World Cup final. All cricket fans in India are brought up on tales of 1983 — of Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, and Balwinder Singh Sandhu bowling out Gordon Greenidge. Suddenly, there was a legitimate possibility of getting to witness the same great triumph that we had heard monochrome stories of.
And then, Ricky Ponting. Grace is a difficult attribute to hold, more so in defeat and dejection, even more so when you are twelve and your team has just been thrashed in a World Cup final. This time, it was forced. Australia were the defending champions, sure, but this was our first rendezvous with their yellow winning machine. Their captain was on the wheel, and he played an innings of spellbinding skill and ferocity on cricket’s biggest stage. The anger and disappointment gave way to resignation and acknowledgment of power well before the final formally ended.
Everything about 2007 was farcical — from the organization of the World Cup, India’s performance, to the chemistry practical exam I failed.
Which brings me to 2011. Cricket had changed from its core between 2003 and 2011. Everywhere you looked, there was an irrelevant series going on. T20, too, had become a force, so this one time, we had two T20 World Cups within nine months.
Going into the home World Cup, the buzz was visible and audible, but it lacked this intangible added motivator. I remember missing some matches, shrugging some others off, and letting the grind of university life dictate what amount of World Cup I’d watch.
The 2011 edition, as with every World Cup, had its fair share of memorable brilliance. Sehwag’s brutal curtain raiser, Kevin O’Brien’s blitzkrieg, and Sachin’s customary silken touch made it quite the spectacle before MS Dhoni applied the most glorious coup de grâce.
When the tournament started, I remember hoping for anyone but Sri Lanka in the knockouts — mostly because we had played them so often over the previous few years. By the time the semi-finals began, I was ready to make my first temple visit in years if it could help in drawing a known opponent in the finals. The celebrations after Dhoni’s twirl of the bat went long into the night, even seeping through to sunrise. India don’t win the World Cup every day.
Also, this sport’s greatest individual talent had won its greatest collective award at long last. Our generation’s hero rode into the sunset, carried on shoulders by the heroes of the next generation.
2015 was unusual. The Australian timezone isn’t quite conducive for the Indian cricket fan. A lot of matches clashed with work — and by the same token, school and college — timings. India versus Pakistan was, as always, held on a Sunday. There is barely a bigger box-office contest than us playing our noisy neighbors in a World Cup. Virat Kohli, like Virat Kohli does, walked himself to a century.
Brendan McCullum’s New Zealand team played cricket like we all secretly hoped our team would — bold and completely fearless.
Before we knew it, India were playing Australia in the semi-finals of a World Cup. India had played excellent cricket through the tournament, and Australia weren’t quite setting the world on fire, but that day, the Aussies showed why you should never look past them in a big match.
In the other semi final, South Africa, like South Africa do, choked.
The final, poetically featuring the two host countries Australia and New Zealand, was probably the tournament’s most insipid match.
I have waited for this year’s World Cup for many reasons. Primarily, the English timings make it very comfortable viewing for us back in India. Secondly, India are a strong team, and they have a freak of nature leading them. Thirdly, the format. There is nothing better than everyone contesting everyone else and the best teams emerging based on merit rather than luck and net run-rate and all that nonsense.
Between now and tomorrow afternoon Indian time, there will only be one track playing on my headphones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt5BybCUY5E
Stand By, the World Cup is here.