Strength of the Genius

The whole nation is watching with bated breath. Even Australians are sniffing for some chance. Sachin had been hit with a beamer from Bret Lee. His concentration might be wavering. He son had told him to hit a six when he is on 94. He has failed in 90s seven times. What will a man do with 1 billion expectation on him to score a century? But does he an impeccable genius think any of this on his mind. Perhaps these thoughts do arise in the thoughts of this great man. But are sent packing out of his mind just as he sends the ball to the boundary. His whole self is waiting for the ball, nothing else... Finally he is able to steer away the ball for a single..the whole India erupts who have spent their only day at home in front of the television...and he has achieved one thing that has been elusive for a whole year...

This is where sports really scores over every other form of entertainment in the world as this is the only real thing that on display. The thoughts, the emotions all conjuring up the high that is not even found even in the best of nicotine or alcohol.

But the point here I want to stress is not the high the sports give but the mental toughness of the Little Genius. Nobody except he can shrug that Brett Lee's beamer like he did. The pain was enormous. But the only exterior sign of that pain was that of a momentary surprise on his face else he remain unfettered. He was even able to smile in the pain betraying none of the pain he is enduring. This is where the strength of his genius comes in. Its not the enormous talent he has that is making the difference, or even his hard work, but his competitiveness. He doesn't' want to give an inch (I believe inch is too big for him, maybe he is not ready to give an millimeter) to the opposition. There are lots of geniuses in the world, even larger amount of talented individuals having may be probably more talent than him, but only point where he scores is this fierce competitiveness...No words come from his mouth but his bat .. it never stops dictating terms....

On tomorrow's match as i talked in the last post, India have to win the tournament to show that they are worthy challengers and to silence their critics as Sachin did yesterday. I think he has set a great example for the youngsters watching the game. Finally its now your turn to bat with your comments....

India - Down Under

Tomorrow the final phase of the triangular series is going to begin.... The entire Indian tour of Australia has been marred by incidents which have enhanced my vocabulary to a great extent....It all began with "Monkey". After some days another term "Teri Maa ki" came into my colourful vocabulary. This rate of enhancements of my vocabulary has been the highest since my school days.... But really the enhancements came in both English and Hindi..really would make my Old English Teacher proud as well as the guardian Hindi teacher... Just when it seemed that the series was ending with only the sparks remaining of the old fire.... Hayden put some more wood by calling Harbhajan "Obnoxious little weed".... Really my sixth grade teacher would be fuming red with the kind of vocabulary enhancements her illustrious students are getting :-) .....

So now where does this leave tomorrow's match for India.... Really if India has to show that they are worthy contenders to the world champions title, they need to win against them on the field. Of course they have shown lots of guts till now...but what matters is the victory.... 5 years down the line everybody is going to read the Test scoreline as 2-1 to Australia and the umpiring issues would never be looked at... similarly assuming India loses the finals... nobody is going to talk about the fight India gave.... The only talk will be that of the dominion of Australia... Really can't blame anyone on that... but if we see the cold stats, India has just won one test and one ODI in the entire tour against Australia... so if Indian team wants to be considered as a worthy challenger, they really need to win the tournament...Because people always forget the losers.... So invite your comments on possible fall-out this series will have on the team standings as well as the cricket as a whole...