Magic

Sorry for the racism but I love it when white skin goes red, especially if there is something supernatural that ensues their clueless minds. When you are stung by a scorpion, you can revive, but getting caught in a hurricane renders you helpless. That’s the magic the maestro, the greatest magician of the world, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar creates.

It’s a feast to watch him play. He was greeted by a Waqar bouncer in international cricket. Since then there has been none who has tamed the round thing more aptly than him.

I will talk about one match in particular, the Hyderabad match against Australia. The despicable Indian bowling attack enabled them to get past 300 to post a target of 351. In reply was a fearsome Sehwag with a genius on the threshold of becoming a legend. He was a touch slow initially as he was nearing 17000 ODI runs. Who knew the landmark was just a nascence of a giant. When he was at 6, 1 short of 17k, the whole ground was praying. He pushed it for a 3 leg side and they erupted. After that it was Diwali being celebrated a bit late. An aggressive shot over long off started it and one could see he was going to roar big that day. He had been getting dismissed while hitting on offside, so he turned every delivery to leg. Eventually he played all around the park and even over it. Outthinking the bowler every time, and maintaining an over rate above 7. Such was the magic that even my mom didn’t switch off the TV to send me to study. He got the horse to the water, 175 runs in a match and they’d said he’s lost the magic. He was right people do ‘throw stones at him’ but he converts them into ‘milestones’.

I am not a believer of god. I did pray for an Indian win that day. The master’s demise was by some intelligent bowling by a debutant. India was still  in  comfortable position, but as fate would have it, we lost. My mobile flashed a message ‘Sachin sucks!!! He is not a finisher’.

Being adjudged the man of the match one could see his pain. He was barely holding a dam.

To his defence he made 175 against an Australian attack and made a match out of it. I read it somewhere 10 years down the lane we won’t remember who won the match, but what we would remember would be that a single 5’4 tall man had a team by its throat. My limited vocabulary and hoards of emotions leave me with just one word….. ‘Magic!!’.