How India won the Cup--a behind the scenes story Post 4.

How India won the cup --a behind the scenes story

A guest post by Satish Shenoy

What a cricket match it turned out to be! India are undoubtedly the deserving world champions and the whole team deserves all the credit and glory that they are getting (barring Sreesant who seemed to be playing for Sri Lanka – probably forgot it was the World cup and thought it was IPL and that all teams were mixed up).  But anyway, all is well that ends well. The cup is ours and like the saying goes “Ek baar Lakshmi ghar aa gayi toh she will never go back again” – the cup is here to stay forever.

In the midst of all the celebrations, does anyone realize what it actually took to win this cup – aside from the skill and the wonderful cricket played by the team? Behind the scenes, in every Indian house, something or the other was happening to ensure India won. We are all so superstitious by nature and the urge to win makes us do things that seem so silly later on but at that time are oh-so-valid! Here are some of the things that happened at our place during the semi finals and the finals.

1.       I was on chat with my friends throughout the match. One of my colleagues mentioned that every time he went down from his room on the second floor to the smoking area on the ground floor a wicket fell for the opposition. Had to plead with him, a number of times, to leave his work and go down so that wickets fell regularly and we won the match. To do the poor guy credit, he came to office even on Saturday and humored me by going down every time I asked him to and guess what, we WON and wickets fell. Must also add that he wanted India to win as much as I did, so the arrangement worked just fine.

2.       Every time Preeti went to the bedroom upstairs and then came down a Pakistani or Sri Lankan wicket fell. No surprises, I kept asked her to go up and down through out, the opposition innings. And it worked like clockwork. It also had the added effect of extra calories being burned out for her, so she too complied. My passion for India to win, I guess prompted her to ask me in the middle a couple of times, when the opponents were flourishing, whether I wanted her to go upstairs and then come back down.

3.       Another friend of ours was bitten by a dog on the morning we played Pakistan. When the match was won the first reaction of mine (and I am told his other friends too) was that the dog biting him was the lucky omen. He received multiple requests to get bitten again on the day of the final. If not for himself, at least for the sake of his country. The alternative posed to him was that if he did not agree and we lost, then every guy would take turns biting him. Whilst he finally agreed to do so for the country’s sake that bit of extra luck, finally was not required. He raised a valid question – if I die of rabies, even if India wins the cup what will be in it for me. I assured him that I would try to get him a Padma Shri award by starting a campaign, if such an eventuality did occur. Thankfully the DOG is safe and happy at not needing to bite the friend again (once bitten twice shy you see), the FRIEND has taken his injections and the World cup is OURS, nor did WE have to bite him. Truly a win-win situation.

4.       Then there was this other friend, who every time he praised an Indian batsman or bowler for the way he was batting or bowling would end up getting out the next ball or being clobbered. We Indians are good at turning every adversity thrown at us, to our advantage. My strict instruction to him was that he should praise only the opposition batting and bowling and not open his mouth about India or else….. Preeti initially scoffed at all of this until he sent a message saying one of the Sri Lankan bowlers was bowling very well and the next ball got clobbered by Dhoni for 6. In addition 3 Sri Lankan batsmen owe their wickets to  the text messages praising their batting, by this good friend of ours.

5.       I have always believed that a match that I did not watch fully would be won by India. I did not see quite a bit of the match – we went to buy a cake for my son's school party  to Nilgiris (during which Pakistan lost 2 wickets) and then kept doing some work or the other, in the kitchen and other room for most of the match, whilst the TV was on in the background. In addition, there was this particular spot on the floor that I would sit in, when India was batting which seemed to be a lucky spot. Every time I moved from there to answer the door bell or make tea, we would lose a wicket. Finally I just stopped moving no matter who rang the bell and additionally all of us ate food only at 11.30 PM when we had won, since if we had moved during that time even to eat food, we may not have won the final. During the match when the normal stuff was not working I also tried something different too like standing in one place till we won and also not answering messages from friends for fear that the spell would break and we would lose a wicket.      

I am sure every household in India must have had done similar things. To the foolish, all of the above would sound really silly, but to the wise and learned this was very important and helped India win the Cup. So before all the credit is given solely to Dhoni and his boys, BCCI and Dhoni please note the kind of effort and pain we went through to ensure India won the Cup. Sachin seems to be aware of it since he did mention that the cup was for the 1.2 billion Indians who were praying that the team won it. We are also a very tolerant nation and in spite of the team giving us a few minor heart attacks when Sehwag, Tendulkar, Kohli and Gambhir got out, we forgive and forget all of that, since India has won. And last but not the least I think Hero Honda got their slogan wrong. It should have been “Come Cup Come” instead of “Go India Go”. The opponent’s slogan for us undoubtedly was the latter so that we would exit the world cup early, but we picked that up early enough and spoiled their party.