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While Indian batters walk into the Kotla fog under a new captain this morning, the series well sealed under their belts; it is the electricity, the energy that once used to vibrate in the stands, that is no more. The dew wet chairs are empty, the sparse crowd is quiet - no shouting, no chirping, no clapping.
One hour into the play and not once the ball has crossed the fences. Things look unusually quiet. That is what your difference make, dear Sehwag. While the world of cricket identifies you as a quick scorer, a swashbuckling batsman, someone who takes the bowling apart from the word go; I had known you as that obvious difference between ‘noise’ and ‘quietness’, between ‘screaming' and ‘clapping', between just a ‘test match’ and a ‘celebration’.
The crawling score board, the fearlessness in the mind of the opponents and the empty stand shall continue to loom like an impenetrable shadow for many…many years to come.
One hour into the play and not once the ball has crossed the fences. Things look unusually quiet. That is what your difference make, dear Sehwag. While the world of cricket identifies you as a quick scorer, a swashbuckling batsman, someone who takes the bowling apart from the word go; I had known you as that obvious difference between ‘noise’ and ‘quietness’, between ‘screaming' and ‘clapping', between just a ‘test match’ and a ‘celebration’.
And as I push myself to believe against your absence, I realize that you have had already put on the jersey for the last time, leaned into your stance with music on your lips and have struck the last glorious boundary ever.
It is emotional to watch you in a suit in the stands today, talking about the golden memories of your immortal career, as a part of me continues to believe, may be long with desperation, that you would just come out again in the sun, swinging your arms and insert the amazing ‘difference' that you are into the silent corners of Feroz Shah Kotla and recreate magic once again.
As you walk off into the glorious sundown of your career, I get a strong feeling that may be it is just not retirement. It is the end of India's hope to go to lunch with over 250 runs on board. It is the end of the Mexican Waves that your shots raised in the crowd. For now it is once again the welcoming of a ‘game’, that you with your Midas touch did transform into a breezy ride of love and laughter over the last one and half decade. Or may be your bidding adieu to this sport that holds the heart of billions of Indians together, is a gentleman’s silent slap to two and a half years of being kept waiting and neglected by the BCCI.
At the end, you won it all. And they lost it forever.
The crawling score board, the fearlessness in the mind of the opponents and the empty stand shall continue to loom like an impenetrable shadow for many…many years to come.
So very true but the time was right and the man went out with all his honour and that's the reason we remember viru the way he was and is.....
ReplyDeleteSo very true but the time was right and the man went out with all his honour and that's the reason we remember viru the way he was and is.....
ReplyDelete