A love lost, A life gained

Themis' Scales

I love how much Sourav and Rahul stood up for Mahi during that horrible Test team transition phase. Main thing they kept saying in their interviews was give up some of your workload, because man, he had a horrible and frankly unhealthy level of workload. Captaining in all formats plus in CSK, keeping wickets, maintaining form and handling transition phase along with the media dogs is no joke. And Rahul was straight up like bro, you can't keep doing it on your own ask for help. Then Sourav also mirrored it, he was like you need to take breaks.

But Mahi has to be an extremist, he worked his ass off until he couldn't anymore and quit Tests altogether. I am so sure they had a facepalm moment then, everyone felt he should have played longer, this was their boy, they wanted him to play longer. And also because until Rishabh came along, no other keeper contributed with batting as much. If you look at his stats, he maintains a good average of 40+ in all countries except Australia. People cry about no overseas centuries, but they don't see how good he was at anchoring the innings and guiding India out of trouble. Sure he played second fiddle to others but he played a really good second fiddle, he had good partnerships and he could play really gritty knocks. And there was no one like him behind the stumps, that too we know, I mean bro stood up for 140+ kmph balls of Ishant Sharma in a match. Now THAT takes different kind of balls to do.

I love that small period of time from Dada's comeback to his retirement. I mean there was the '07 World Cup that was a big dark mark, but during that time, everyone really sorted out their priorities. I intend to write about the England tour in particular. That tour, if I am not wrong, had no vice captain in Tests. It was a bit of a wounded team, Rahul had made up his mind that it was his last series as captain, Mahi was still under fire for his keeping techniques this time and his unorthodox batting, the entire team was recovering from the dark Chappell era. And in that they sort of came together so strongly, so determinedly, they wrestled that win away from England. First Dhoni and quite a bit of luck saved the first test. Then they all chipped in with everything for a win and then Rahul decided to play the last match out safely and not risk the series. And in all this the seniors stepped up to mentor the team, since they had no coach. Indians do everything in a dramatic fashion, be it that Gabba win or the Kolkata Test or this first series win in England after 21 years. It is in our blood XD.

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Mahi swung his legs absent mindedly from where they were dangling off the side of the terrace, kicking the side of the wall every so often. He and terraces were an old love story; as soon as he found a way onto the abandoned terrace of the administration building of the grounds they were using, he had stayed back on the pretext of playing tennis under floodlights. Everyone including most of the staff had left, he was sitting at the back of the building anyway, no one was going to spot him. If any of the seniors spotted him sitting this way, they were going to beat him black and blue nevermind it was just a two storey building. It might look wrong to them but in his defense, he had been doing this since childhood days. It gave him a surreal understanding of how the world was constructed to be an endless game made up of countless smaller temporary games. Change, was the way of life.

Things had definitely changed from the initial tension and stress to high strung energy, a single minded determination that turned things around dramatically for the team. And the credit for that belonged to one man only. If at any point he had thought he knew what made Sourav Ganguly, THE Sourav Ganguly, he was wrong. It was awe inspiring how infectious his passion and determination was. That late night drive had somehow flipped a switch in him, he had seen him as Captain Ganguly, as his elder brother- his Dada, even some glimpses of the Prince of Kolkata as they called him- there was undeniable stature and authority he could exude when he chose too. But the hardened eyes that met Chappell blow for blow, the hunger with which he was leading them from match to match, the strangely magnetic fire that had ignited in him which in turn was fueling the rest of them on; this wasn't the prince, the captain or the brother. It was probably a glimpse at the version of Dada they called the Bengal Tiger. He was an awesome sight in Mahi's humble opinion, an inspiring persona which had lead them to win their next three games in a convincing and dominating performance. Now, only the final was left, though if they kept up their storm of energy, it was already in their hands.