Life Before Sport: India Won On a Day when Cricket Lost

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Sreelata YellamrazuMar 3 2009

Colourful scenes like these may become a thing of the past. India have registered a creditable win in Napier against New Zealand, their first win on tour in the first ODI. However, their victory, and their match itself, coincided with one of the darkest days in international cricket. And the message is positively terrifying.

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First the match: India recorded a 53 run victory in a rain curtailed match that reduced the match to 38 overs a side. However, rain continued to trouble through the day even as India kept their eyes firmly on victory. Suresh Raina’s blazing innings of sixty-six was the perfect partnership as skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni himself made a match winning unbeaten eighty-four. Earlier in the day, Virender Sehwag showed that his brief glimpse of form in the two Twenty20 matches were no fluke with another astounding innings of seventy-seven.

India chalked up 273 for four and then, had New Zealand in a difficult position at 111 for four as Harbhajan Singh picked up the three off the four wickets to fall and needing 105 more to get from 43 balls as rain interruptions once again made themselves to the ground. New Zealand knew that the real storm had blown strongly off the Indian cricketers’ bats. New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori expressed it as much as the reason why New Zealand ended up on the losing side. The defeat then in difficult situation against an opposition that, it appears, has brushed off their Twenty20 losses, then became New Zealand’s bane.

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But the mind for most people aware of what happened at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore was far from the pitch in Napier. There was no ecstasy at India’s victory. What happened with the Sri Lankan team could have well been India’s nightmare because Sri Lanka had agreed to tour Pakistan after India pulled out over growing tensions in the region over the terror attacks in Mumbai.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was not wrong in saying he was glad he was not in Pakistan, after all, without life, what is sport?

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