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A roller coaster of emotions

ByVarshneya Rao
Mar 11, 2015 12:12 PM IST

Watching the Indian team play their cricket over the last few years has been a roller coaster ride of emotions. The last wicket, the last over, the last stand, the last ball. They all came to mean so much more than the six odd hours the family sat glued to a television shouting match-fixing conspiracies at the screen and claiming to have 'known we'd bounce back' when someone hit a six.

Watching the Indian team play their cricket over the last few years has been a roller coaster ride of emotions. The last wicket, the last over, the last stand, the last ball. They all came to mean so much more than the six odd hours the family sat glued to a television shouting match-fixing conspiracies at the screen and claiming to have 'known we'd bounce back' when someone hit a six.

It's an everyday thing for most ardent cricket enthusiasts in the country, but for a regular Joe, the World Cup brings such patriotism. It's like screaming out the national anthem at school when you were 6 years old.

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Four years back, that fever reached its peak for everyone in my generation, who were lucky to have witnessed India lift the World Cup, after years of only hearing about the 1983 dream team that achieved it all.

Personally, it was watching captain cool, MS Dhoni smash the last ball far over the fence for the winning runs that put the icing on the cake.

A match that started with Virender Sehwag getting caught behind the stumps (a truly heart-wrenching moment for every Delhi-ite) and went on to see Sachin Tendulkar fall cheaply was reminiscent of the choker tag that India shared at the time.

The top order collapse was something the Indian team is generally good at, so it wasn't unjustified when people started murmuring that this was the end.

A million dads, in a million living rooms all over the country stood up and declared the match dead, and directed the television to be turned off to save electricity. But a million little hopeful heads begged to be allowed to watch for another wicket, just another over, just one more ball!

And what a wait it was! The comeback, led by the strong display from Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli and Dhoni put a smile back on a million faces, and the words "I told you they'd definitely come back" in the mouths of another million uneasy faces.

That match was truly one of the most magical moments of all my days spent in the living room glued to the television screen (which is a lot of days!).

The team's performance till now in the 2015 World Cup has been really good. It's the sort of performance that turns a lot of fans into the kind of people who start talking humbly with their eyes closed.

A great start to an exciting tournament, and I'm hoping to see more awe-inspiring performances from the whole team as a unit and leadership mastery from 'captain cool' Dhoni.


(If you want to share your thoughts on the game, mail your write-ups, with a picture and brief bio, to perspectives@hindustantimes.com)

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