League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

It's very early in the morning and I am already on the ground having a broom in my hand clearing the pitch for practice. This was me, almost all days in my summer vacations while I was on field for practicing cricket. My parents and sisters used to look at me from the window and boy, weren't they angry on me for doing so? I had then put lot of hard work like this to ensure I get batting and bowling when the game is played. This was the desperation I had in me to be in Indian cricket team.

I still don't remember whether I had started playing cricket first or watching it on TV but as long as I go back to my memory, I couldn't forget Sachin's last over to West Indies when we tied the match on a modest total of 126 at Australia in the year 1991, that's when I embarked my passion and love for the game and with no prizes to guess Sachin from then till now is my role model for the game. A very low profile young boy who other than “I want to play cricket for my country” knew nothing to talk. With the greats like Sunil, Kapil, Dilip and others departing from the team everyone started looking up to Sachin to sail the past glories of Indian cricket ahead but for me things were not this complicated, I had to sit glued to my TV set and pray for my team to win, it was very easy for me to be in the team then. Studies and cricket never went along together, I had lot many troubles managing for good scores in both the fields as surely I used to take plunge in either one of them all the time but as the time progressed my interest in the game and players grew more and more to the level that I started believing I'll have a career in cricket. I started playing cricket in all the level when I reached high school.

But this is not about me, this is about my passion and persons who are responsible to get me so much involved in the game that despite long haul of loses and controversies I still bond my self emotionally to the game. I am sure just like me there were millions of viewers used to get up early in the morning to watch match live from Australia, stay awake late to see match when it happened in South Africa or West Indies. The passion was the result of the poster boys Sachin, Sourav, Rahul, Anil “The fantastic four”. The era of mid nineties was dominated by these names who were the role models for the generation next then, the league of people I grew-up looking up to. It was not only because Sachin's bat could stroke any shot in the cricket book, not because Sourav's flashing off drives had no answers by the opponents, not because the great Indian Wall Rahul was the toughest nut to crack and not to forget our beloved jumbo (Anil Kumble) who although was a leggi but for me he was no less than a short run-up medium pace bowler who could bowl wicket to wicket without tiring hours but because of the high standards on and off field they set. The elegance in their game also carried forward in the lifestyle they live. A lifestyle no one would give a second thought to live, flying so high still the legs are firmly grounded. The moral lessons from a son who scores a century for his country after returning from his father's funeral, a leg spinner who gets wicket of Brian Lara bowling with a broken jaw, stroking back to back centuries to awake the world and then leading team with the intense ferocity or be it standing on the crease all day blocking all the fire from opponents to seek a draw or a win for team; these legends have done it all.

But everything that has a beginning has an end, similarly the flagship of these league of extraordinary gentlemen is now started bidding adieu to the game. Our Beloved Dada “Saurav Ganguly” and Jumbo “ Anil Kumble” have put down their caps and taken backseat, time is not far away when two other leaves will also comedown and the sun for these fantastic four would set forever. An era of a life time will come to a dismal end where no one would be there to take forward same grace and lead by example. The young lot of team which is wild and aggressive to win has forgotten the grace and elegance. Once my last heroes put down their bats forever, cricket will no longer be a gentleman's game for me. That day I may say that I have lost a part of me which used to live to watch cricket getting so much involved that tears never took a permission to come out when we lost, smile got just broadened when we beat our traditional rivals.