Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dada's last inings

I am a proud die hard Sachin Tendulkar fan and I can do anything to watch him play. But this was a strange moment. The best partner of the greatest batsman was retiring on that day. This was his last test. I had never seen a test match live. This match was to be played on Nagpur, to the place I am related to.

I wanted to see Master and Dada play together in an international match for the last time. If I do not see them on this match then I knew I won’t get a chance again. So against all odds like – travelling back to 1000km after 2 days, leaving some work at office etc, I decided to go and watch. My only worry was whether India will get to bat on Saturday and Sunday or not. Australia has played well on second day of the test to score about 200 runs loosing only 2 wickets. Then I decided why not take a chance leaving everything to the time.

I reached Nagpur on the 3rd days of play. My brother in law was waiting for me and he was a die hard fan of Dada. We started late, post lunch. We saw first session of cricket in TV when again Aussies dominated.

We reached stadium around 13:00 and yes, my dream came true. I will be watching my God, his best partner, the wall and not to forget the man who has VVS, the man who tortured Aussies often. Australia was in a good position when we reached and I saw my dream not coming true. But with me came the luck to Indian team, Mike Hussey was run out by the new player Vijay and I knew I will get it. Australia started scoring slowly and also loosing wicket. Meanwhile Dada, Master, Mishra, Shewag and Zaheer came near to the stand we were sitting to field. I saw my God from so close. I still can not believe that was my God, Sachin. By the end of the day India had a lead of 86 runs.

The fourth day when I reached Shewag and Vijay were making the deadly Australian bowling look like a Bangladeshi attack. I knew I will get it today master and dada together. After lunch India started loosing wicket. First were Vijay and then Dravid. The strange part of Indian crowd is even after scoring 10,000 runs in both test and One dayers when Dravid departs they feel happy. Time for master to come and the DJ played the best song Don… Yes, the Don has come. Then when Shewag got out, the crowd stood up to see who is next, is it our dada, our most lovable captain. No, it was not to be as in this series Laxman came before Dada in all innings except one. When Laxman got out the crowd again cheered.

I feel so lucky that I was there to see one of the great to see his last innings. I realized it was worth spending some money and more than that time to come here. I will never forget the song DJ played when Dada came. It was from movie Jodha Akabar and the song was Ajeebo Shan, and the song suited to the man. Yes, it suited him. He showed all cricket lovers of this country we can. He made us believe in ourselves. He made us realize that we can win and achieve anything. Yes, he is the loving prince of India cricket and its fan. As one line in the song is Hindustan teri jaan, tu shane Hindustan, Dada is the one. He is our shan.

I know you all know what happened next. As they say, you do not get everything in life, I also did not. Though my dream came true to see Master and Dada play together. But I came out of it in a few minutes as Dada gave a simple catch and got out on his first ball doing a Bradman.
No matter what may come, India might win world cup in future, will be a test champion in future, the no 1 team, but the belief of doing this came from none other than Sourav Ganguly. Sourav, you are a Gem, Thanks for everything