THE T20 MAGIC......

Sport is beautiful & cruel..
It was cruel months ago in a certain cricket ground in the West Indies... when India was humiliated and sent out of the World Cup.
Sri Lanka beat India in that crucial match.. And no one.. not even someone who never followed the sport would have been able to erase those images that played out on every channel, everyday hence on...
There was shock, tragedy, pain, utter disappointment.... and sadness... writ large over all those faces.. sitting in the pavillion. That was probably the better place to be at that moment..
And I am sure Dravid and his men would have prayed with all their hearts for the clocks to rewind...
No one likes to lose. That is what sport does to you. I am not saying this because I am part of a country that follows cricket with its every breath..
Any sport would have the ability.... to make you wish you never lost.. Because no one wants to be on the other side of the fence....
That moment was one I never wanted to witness again in a while to come.. Not becuase India lost.. but because a team had lost.. especially in the way it did..
A team stood desolate.. alone... stranded.. deserted in a world which looked up to the victorious..


Fast forward to the 24th of September... A final that a cricket lover would probably rarely get to see..
Pakistan taking on India in the finals of the Twenty 20 World Cup..
I will not take up much time to tell you what I felt about India's performance in the tournament..
It had showed great heart.. grit.. determination.. fire.. hunger... that got them a berth in the final..
No one could take away that from this team...
And the final played out only like it should have.. Till the very last ball of the match.. till Sreesanth took that catch..
And when India won... I had tears in my eyes... Why?
Because here was a team that had won... a team that had won the way it did... experienced how it was to 'win'....
It's great to win.. to succeed...
And here was a team.. that not many months ago.. had suffered their worst defeat in years!
I cried.. because this win, had in a sense... purged me of all the gloom that the Caribbean defeat had brought along with it..
I saw them celebrating.. I saw Dhoni.. pulling all his boys in a huddle.. I don't know what he said to them.. But the gestures and the emotions flowing in that unit.. was enough to make me realise how much they had wanted this.. How much they had yearned for it..
and seeing the happy faces.. I knew they deserved it...

Here was a team that had just tasted success..
And you felt for this bunch of boys.. who in that moment had transformed into men.. happy.. guts flowing.. powerful.. dream weavers...
Here was a squad.. that had realised its dreams.. and had done it with all the zest that they possessed.

It may not be fair for anyone to live in the past.. but memories are what we are made of.....