Cricket on TVs and Newspapers
Cricket, when we were growing up, lived inside the television and in the Hindi Dailies.
Not the flat TVs of today, but the bulky ones that sat in the dimly lit living room. The CRT ones. Matches were watched with whoever happened to be around - parents sitting, neighbourhood uncles, family members shouting from the kitchen - it was kind of a community affair.
You did not control the broadcast. Doordarshan did. The logo had National written on it. There weren’t many advertisers. And boundaries were mostly BSNL chauka.
If you missed a ball, you missed it.
If the electricity went out, the match disappeared for everyone in the house at the same time. And someone would tune in on the transistor - whose feed were a little early compared to the TV’s feed.
Scorecards did not exist on phones. Memory is all you had.
For people my age, the first ODI World Cup final we properly remember is India vs Australia in 2003. A young Sourav Ganguly and co., playing in South Africa.
I am writing about two finals. Eight years apart and they have different memories in my mind.
2003 World Cup Final
The final was played at Johannesburg. India had come to the final beating Kenya in the SF - one of the high points for Steve Tikolo and co.
As I ruminate 2003 WC, certain names come back immediately — Javagal Srinath, Anwar, Ashish Nehra, Sachin Tendulkar, De Silva, Charles Coventry and at the end of the road, Ricky Ponting, fucking Punter.
Leading to the final, Sachin had already scored 669 runs, the most by any batsman in a World Cup. As a kid with wishful thinking, all I wanted was a huge score by Tendulkar.
Australia batted first. Rains loomed.
Zaheer Khan opened the bowling and things went wrong south right there. Gilly and Hayden set India up. The first few overs, now feel like a bad dream. The white ball disappeared to the boundary more often than not. But the bad dream had just begun.
And then Ponting walked in with his effing Graphite Bat!
What followed was an annihilation. Ponting and Damien Martyn started hitting the ball everywhere. Pulls, lofted drives, smart cricket and well, everything connected.
Ponting finished with 140 not out. Martyn made 88 not out.
Australia ended on 359 for 2. Mammoth for a WC final even today.
India started the chase with Glenn McGrath opening the bowling. I remember reading the Hindi daily, Hindustan in the morning, there was column - where McGrath had an interview - he said, he had prepared a stock delivery for Sachin. Sachin pulled him for a four through midwicket on the 4th delilvery of the opening over. For a brief moment it felt, that our Master has got this in his hands. But on the very next ball he tried to go again towards midwicket, a hard length delivery, slightly slow(i don’t know if slower one was a thing back then) - mistimed it, and skied it to short midwicket. And from then on, it was bloody curtains for us.
Sehwag fought the only way he knew how. He attacked. Cutting and pulling - refusing to slow down. He made 82, but the target was too big.
Somewhere in the back of my mind as a kid there was also this strange hope that maybe rain might arrive and somehow reset the match. They would have to replay the final, if the second team couldn’t bat for 20/25 overs - weird rules back then. The rains never arrived. All those prayers went unanswered.
Childhood ignites that kind of optimism. But reality arrived slowly. Wickets fell, the RRR climbed - and we were eventually bowled out under 40 overs.
For me, that was the first World Cup final I ever watched.
And it ended the way many Indian cricket memories of that era ended - with India losing the final.
2011 World Cup
Eight years later came 2011, and the feeling around Indian cricket was very different. The WC had come to India. A young Bihari skippered India, a wicketkeeper at that. The whole country was oddly synced.
India were playing good cricket going into the knockouts. MS Dhoni had not really fired with the bat during the tournament - but was captaining fine and changing his bowlers well. Yuvraj Singh, who we would later learn was battling cancer - was carrying the team with both bat and ball.
One of my favourite memories from the league stage was Sachin dancing down the pitch and hitting Graham Swann for back-to-back sixes in that famous tied game.
The QF was against Australia in Motera. At the toss, Ricky Ponting said 265 odd would be a par score. Australia made almost exactly that.
Ponting himself scored a hundred - slow, stubborn and defiant.
India’s chase was tense. Brett Lee was charging in hard, blood trickling down from a cut near his eyebrow. 155+ consistently, bloody bowlers of that era. Sachin made a half-century but nothing felt comfortable. Towards the end, it was Suresh Raina who played a decisive innings - 30 odd runs that took India home, with Yuvraj on the other side.
We met Pakistan in the semis at Mohali. A pacy wicket, with traditional bounce.
Sachin scored 85, though it might have been one of the ugliest innings he ever played. Pakistan dropped him again and again. Saeed Ajmal still insists he had him lbw.
India put up a competitive total, 265 odd. Pakistan’s chase followed a familiar pattern - moments of spark, followed by usual Pakistani collapse. Afridi skied one, Misbah tried to take the game deep - and India won.
Which meant the final would be played at Wankhede, Mumbai.
Many people remember the 2011 final for Dhoni’s six. I remember it first for Mahela Jayawardene’s century. It was a beautiful innings. Late cuts, glides, perfect timing. Jayawardene finished with 103 not out and Sri Lanka reached 274. At the midway, it didn’t look easy at all for India.
India began badly. Sehwag was trapped plumb lbw by Lasith Malinga in the first over. What followed was a brainfade, there was no bat involved, nothing to review - yet he burned a review. Soon after, Sachin edged one behind.
For Indian fans who had grown up watching cricket in the 90s and early 2000s, that moment brought us to tears. When Sachin got out early in a big chase, matches usually followed a script.
But this time the script changed.
Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli rebuilt. Kohli eventually fell but the game had steadied by then. Oddly Dhoni walked in ahead of Yuvraj. He played Murali carefully and slowly brought the game under control. Gambhir made 97 before getting bowled playing inside out.
Dhoni stayed till the end with Yuvraj at the other end. Towards the end, Kulasekara ran in. And Dhoni swung.
The ball sailed over long-on and disappeared into the Mumbai night.
And it was relief. For a moment, India and Indians exploded.
Players ran onto the field. Commentators lost their voices.
And in living rooms across the country, people like me who had once watched Johannesburg in 2003 felt relieved.