It was the D day, the finals of the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup. Before the match started my gut feeling, based on the actuals that I had witnessed in the past clearly indicated that the match is going to be one sided and that the stronger side in Sri Lanka. But by seing Sri Lankan's batting pace, I then felt that our guys can easily chase the "about/going to be low" scoring match with 200 to 210 on board after fifty long overs. I even had a nap for around 1.5 hours during the first innings; bored by the way the Sri Lankan batting order were scoring runs on board :). I later headed to my friends place in the midst of 30 odd overs to cheer for Team India batting. By then the Sri Lankan batting order had abruptly destructed the hosts on their soil to put a massive final total of 274 runs on board. This was the interesting turning point, that brought back my interest towards the game again as I realized that with bowlers like Lasith Malinga and Muttiah Murlidharan it is going to be a tough time for the Indians which our very famous hard hitter Mr. Virender Sehwag proved :D. The next hope was on Sachin and rest of the team. When Sachin was dismissed then for sure the whole nation would have thought the cup can no more be ours; including me. But with the exemplary execution by Gautham Gambhir without losing his wicket proved fatal for the Sri Lankan's. I appreciate the fact that Virat too was supporting Gauti but I somehow don't like Virat's batting :) and hence you would not find my appreciation towards Mr. Virat. My apologies to you, if you are a Virat fan ;). After Virat's dismissal our very famous team india luck factor & the coolest chap on the field MS aka Mr Helicopter Shot made an entry to the ground, but this time with lot more responsibilities. Believe me, I started hating this man a lot because of his poor presentation in all the previous matches, but I saw the thirst that he displayed during his entry into the Indian cricket team yet again after a long time yesterday. Unfortunately Gauti dismissed without being able to complete his ton :(. Gauti deserves a lot of applaud for his commendable performance during this crucial day. By now because of Gauti the team had become very stable with cent percent chances of biting the world cup. At the end soon we thrashed the Sri Lankans to clinch the title of The World Champions in Cricket with few spare balls to be bowled. There were tears and cheers of happiness all all around both inside and outside the stadium. What a moment and day it was in the history of Indian sports! :) Truly remarkable and memorable ...
When it came to celebration, the whole nation got united during the wee hours just after we were declared the winners of the ICC 2011 world cup via various broadcasting mediums. I got a chance to cheer for team india and cheer for the nation as a whole for the humongous victory that we attained after 28 years with lot and lots of strangers on the streets starting from Marathahalli road(#Bangalore) all the way till Mahatma Gandhi road and back. I was happy to see the support provided by the bangalore police to keep an eye for any anti-social behaviour on the road whilst the celebration was on and loud. There were people of all ages on the road expressing their happiness by screaming 'india india', 'bharat mata ki jai', 'sachin sachin', yelling, dancing on the road, dancing on top of car roofs, bursting crackers, patting, give me 5, give me 10 and executed almost all forms of happiness gestures in and around the roads. Mahatma Gandhi road was like a get together junction for celebrating the victory. The online social networking and meetup's biggies should sit and think of such ideas to wave and express their feelings with strangers instead of the typical friend request, friend acceptance workflow, which makes me think of some concepts around making short term friends and long term friends as every one knows that even sometimes long term friends become foes in a short span of time. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment as it these are some occasions that can be witnessed very rare in one or two centuries as every other team get more and more hunger everytime to bite & chew this cup.
My heartiest congratulations to Team India 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and the whole nation.
~ Vijay Kumar Jayabal
