In sports, there is nothing as prestigious as winning the World Cup and is always a big dream for everyone to be a part it, starting from fans to the players themselves. We cricket fanatics in India had never lost hope on our boys in blue and nothing has changed this time either. In India, which is considered to be the Mecca of cricket, the height of craziness has no limits.
K Sudhakar, a creative car designer using sports apparel from Hyderabad, using his creativity has designed a car in cricket bat shape, is all set to present the Indian team if it wins the World Cup!! He has 150 such creations under his belt. But above all this there are two legends of the game who will be ready to give anything and everything in them to taste the cherry.
One of them is the senior most cricketer in terms of experience among the contemporary cricketers, the other nothing less worth it. Both have been a part of World Cup squad of their respective teams since 1992. One bats right, the other left. Their batting styles are different but their intentions on the field have been the same – devastating and dominating. They share a lot more in common – passion for the game, legends in their own right, big fan following, bowler’s nightmare and captaincy without much success.
They have batting records to their name – one is the highest century maker in test cricket and the other highest run scorer. Their batting averages ticks above 40 in both versions of the game. However, there is one thing that is missing in their kitty – World Cup.
For Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Brian Charles Lara so far this has just been a dream and this will be their last chance to make the most of it. Lara will be having his thumbs up leading the host team for one last time in the mega event. His form with the bat has been good and with players like Gayle, Chandrapaul, Sarwan, Bravo in his line up, also having the home advantage the stage can’t be a better than this one for him.
And for Sachin, a man born to play cricket has achieved all laurels in both forms of the game. He holds the record for most number of centuries in both forms of the game, holds the record for most runs in international cricket, fastest to reach 10,000 run mark in both forms and also have 100 plus wickets under his belt in One day format.
Apart from personal highs, he has always been a dedicated team man. He his efforts to get India to the final of the Coca Cola cup in Sharjha in the 1998 against Australia still remains the most defined moment of Indian cricket. He single handily took India to the final scoring a scintillating 143 almost won the match for India that day. His down the track sixes against Shane Warne still lingers in the memories of all. He didn’t stop there; he went on to score another towering knock against the same opposition on his 25th birthday sealed the match in India’s favour.
His knock of 136 against Pakistan in Chennai test match is another feather to his cap. He not only battled with Pakistani pacers but also with a severe back pain. He almost won the match for India, falling short by 12 runs in the end. He has always stored his best for the World Cups piling 523 runs in 1996 edition and 673 runs in the last edition in South Africa. His effort of 193 runs against England at Leeds in Headingley test match was a match winning one.
Sachin tops the fan following list among cricketers in the world and it will be like a king without a crown if team India fails to win the Big Prize. Hanging up his boots without a World Cup honour will be a huge disappointment not only for him but for the whole nation. Let’s hope that his glorious career comes to a memorable end.
Now the stage is all set for these two greats to realise their dream, to end their illustrious career in grand style. The two men with one dream, one vision will have one eye on the cup but there can only be one winner!! Will be interesting to see who among the two will end up smiling :-)
The last word – it’s Now or Never for Sachin and Lara.
2 comments:
Yes man, what you say is absolutely right, this is definitely going to be the last world cup for the batting geniuses of the post Viv Richards era and they would love to go out with a bang.And Australia do not walk into this edition definite of Ricky Ponting raising the cup in Barbados on 28'th April, this edition is a lot more open than any major tournament has been since Hansie Cronje's men chocked in that famous semi-final in 1999.
Australia have had a great summer of test cricket, winning the Ashes 5-0, and giving a dream finale for the likes of men like Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Glenn McGrath. But somehow the man that Australia might end up missing the most is likely to be the man who declined the offer to have a dream farewell at his home ground, by anouncing to the world that he'd had enough-Damien Martyn. Suddenly without Martyn and Symonds, the Australian middle order looks very mortal, and their title defence will almost single handedly be decided by the form of their run machine-Ricky Ponting. If all the other teams take a lead from Autralia by targetting the opposition captain, Australia might find themselves in a seriously deep hole. And as for the other teams, well the golden generation of Indian batsmen will be playing their last world cup-Sachin, Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. Sachin Tendulkar has always made the big stage his own and in the four editions of the world cup he has been a part of, has been the leading scorer in two editions-1996 and 2003. In the 1991-92 world cup in Australia, he was still a teenager and announced to the world on the big stage that he had truly arrived. As for Rahul Dravid, from being the guy who could'nt keep up the scoring rate to the perfect finisher in ODI's, he ahs come a long way and could be the key to India's chances in this world cup. Sourav Ganguly is playing like a man possesed, and with Yuvraj Singh striking gold at the right time, India will go into this edition as potential finalists. And now coming to the No 1 ranked team-SA, they are easliy playing the best cricket that the world has seen them play since the days of Hansie Cronje and Allan Donald.This proteas unit is a very good fielding side and probably has the most dangerous lower middle order in Shaun Pollock, Boucher and Kemp. Their bowling attack though, single dimension, is very efficient in the shorter version of the game. Again for South Africa, this is going to be last WC for men like Pollock, Kallis, Gibbs and Boucher.
All these four were a part of the team that tied that match against Australia in Headinlgy in 1999, and would pledge the rest of their silverware for WC glory. And coming to the hosts, West Indies definitely have the firepower to go all the way, but again like India, consistency is one thing you don't expect from them. As for the other two sub-continent teams-Srilanka and Pakistan.Well Srilanka might surprise everyone by getting into the finals, and as for Pakistan, with all the turmoil surrounding them, they'd surprise themselves if they managed to get into the final 4.And for Stephen Fleming's men, I just hope they entertain us the way they did in those 3 matches against Australia at home.This world cup will be the last for a few greats and let us just hope that atleast one of them is a part of the silverware winning group.Let us just hope that Sachin or Lara will put Glenn McGrath to the sword in a knockout stage match. Imagine 'pigeon' going out on a losing note.
I agree to a certain extent, but then you cant always live by the past, without properly being dedicated to the job in hand. Both Brain and Sachin have failed to deliver this WC and so have their teams.
I think addition of youth into the team can do wonders for both WI and India.
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