Learning how to lose


Watching the T20 game between India and England was anything but fun the other night. Call me a sore loser but somehow I wasn’t ready to see my team out of the World Cup.

Sure there are better teams than us and sure many would say we didn't deserve to win, but cricket has actually become the one thing to look forward to in these horribly depressing times.

You turn on the news today and there's either news of racial discrimination, further repercussions of the economic crisis, or another case of swine flu making the headlines. An aeroplane mysteriously disappears from the sky, leaving so many bereaved families with no time to even say goodbye. So many unanswered questions. Sufficient fodder for news channels. Very few silver linings.

Is it justified to pin all our hopes on 11 men in such a scenario? Do they really have no other choice but to win at all costs? ‘We don’t care how you do it, boys, just get us something to be proud of.’ Never mind that there’s an equally intense women’s World Cup on simultaneously on in our world. We want the men in blue to bring us the glory.

Is the fact that a billion people are presumably watching the game, enough reason for M.S. Dhoni to make an apology when his team didn't come up with enough runs in a game? The teams’ PR group rapidly pitching in, to come up with a reasonable argument, for defeat to calm the fury of heart broken fans. “Maybe if we had Sehwag, or Sachin or we didn’t play so many warm up games or if it didn’t rain or it didn’t shine, we would have won.”

Even a five year old learns early enough in life that every game has both winners and losers. You win some and yes, you do lose some. What is important is to play fair. Hardly a lesson learnt by some over zealous fans who’ve torched the houses of their cricketing legends when they’ve lost in the past.

Just because we won the cup previously is no guarantee we will do it again this time. The Aussies can write the book on that one! Now that the post mortems on our big loss have begun it is interesting to see how we fans will support our team when they make it home without the cup.

Meanwhile in case anyone’s interested, the women’s Indian team is still in their version of the T20 World Cup. They defeated Sri Lanka by five wickets the very next day that the men were disqualified.

This image was taken in Khandala at Don Bosco's Shelter for young boys one of whom was enthusiastic enough to play with one arm in a sling.

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