Inconsistency and Magic. Sometimes.

The Indian Cricket team has had a horrid outing this season in Australia. Outbatted, outfielded, outbowled - and thus outplayed by the perfect mercenaries game after game, they rapidly hit rock bottom within a year of winning a coveted prize and becoming the darling of a billion fans. Could you not detect the sense of dejection - in the resignation of their approach, the reports of infighting and the captain's nonchalant ways.

Then, out of the blue - comes an electrifying win where the same bunch of beaten men conjure up magic in a momentous win, and overcome an insurmountable target. One for the ages. As if to jolt us out of our jaded minds, our inertia of giving up on a bunch of humans who practice a skill we have come to value. These men are not gods, although we would like them to be. Some of us were quick to ask for replacements, retirements and rectitude. We burn effigies and often attack their homes, assuming these mortals could conquer their weaknesses every time they face a motivated opposition hammering at the same weakness. When they fail, we are merciless and unforgiving.

And because they are merely human, maybe we need to remind ourselves of their mortality when we celebrate their successes and castigate their failures. Maybe they are right in being a little nonchalant about facing success and failure. Maybe they have come to know themselves better than we think. And maybe they do really want to win every time they don the national jersey, but accept it is merely a sport where there will be losses on the way. Maybe they had paid attention to Rudyard Kipling while we were looking for an ego boosting world domination.

.....If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same; ...

From - "If" By Rudyard Kipling - http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm


I am willing to hold out for a few days of magic over the boring consistency of a dominator. I will always remember the old vaccum tube radio carrying wonderful news of an emerging nation in 1983, Dhoni's steely eyes at Mumbai - Circa 2011 and colossal Kohli on Feb 28, 2012.

And on the days magic remains elusive, I will wish for Yuvraj to get better, because he is mortal. As we are.