There was unbridled joy in one camp, gloom in the other. But if South Africa need any inspiration, they need to look no further than India
Sidharth Monga30-Jun-20242:23
Manjrekar: Rohit’s World Cup win a great reward for a champion cricketer
I am supposed to explain this to you?No, I don’t think you want explanations. For a while, nobody does.As I sit in the dugout vacated by the players, some uneaten nuts and unfinished bottles of energy drinks around me, I am thinking of pieces of broken heart that I can’t see. Explanations are the last thing on my mind.I can see India are hoisting Rahul Dravid up and catching him on the way down. Behind the podium, where nobody can see them, Quinton de Kock is down on his knees, playing with a little girl in a South Africa top and a pink tutu. Heinrich Klaasen is with another little girl. Daughters, I think. The partners are milling around. There is an older gentleman in a Klaasen top around. Perhaps his father. One of the partners is running after another kid with a writing tablet that looks like an old-fashioned slate.Related
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I can’t tell you how thankful I am that the families and partners can travel with the players these days. This is not going to be an easy night for South Africa. It is best they are not alone with their thoughts tonight. They had played almost the perfect game, and needed just 30 off 30. And yet, they are left with the ghosts that have haunted their cricket teams for more than 30 years.Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and the others know this feeling all too well. They have led the ODI World Cup league table – a format where you play every team once – twice but have not laid their hands on the trophy. They have been to both the WTC finals but haven’t won despite being the best Test side over the last seven-eight years.They have had sleepless nights following the last ODI World Cup in which they were unbeaten until the final. Rohit has spoken openly about how he struggled coming out of that flux. If South Africa need any inspiration, they need to look no further than Rohit, who has dusted himself off to go through it all over again. Despite the year he has had at the IPL.Rahul Dravid gets a champion’s farewell•Getty ImagesRohit is celebrating with his family, he is fulfilling his commitments as the captain. In between he has found the time to kiss Hardik Pandya on the cheek. After the year they have had. Hardik said two years ago in Australia that he has risen above the results. Then life hit back. Injuries. Ruled out of the World Cup midway. Leading Rohit in the IPL that left a sour taste in the mouth everywhere. He has bowled the slower one to get Klaasen. He has bowled the final over to seal the win.Rohit’s accomplice, Dravid, has forever seemed cursed to not win a trophy. He led India to their first Test win in South Africa, took them to series wins in England and the West Indies after decades, brought about a philosophical shift in the way they approached the game, but he is remembered for his failures. Even as a coach, despite being the master team-builder that he is, Dravid has had no titles to show for. Even at the IPL. Now he is exulting.They didn’t have the perfect team. They have made it perfect. They have picked two left-arm-spin allrounders. Not perfect but they want depth in both batting and bowling. Crucially, they have managed to free Kohli of the in-born notion in champion competitors that they can’t leave the job for someone else. They have managed to convince him T20 is not a sport for the main characters.Kohli has bought into it. He has taken the walk-on part in a war ahead of the lead role in a cage. His innings in the final, we can discuss another day. It is almost identical to what he scored in the 2014 final, which India lost, but that batting depth of India has allowed him to repeat it. Rohit works a lot with analysts but he also believes in runs on the board in finals. So perhaps he has a higher tolerance for Kohli delaying the trigger in the final.Kohli is retiring from T20Is with a Player-of-the-Final trophy. Rohit too. Kohli slips out of the celebrations and pulls out his AirPods. They connect just in time for him to take the call. He is visibly talking to one of his children: he is making faces and gestures you make to babies. He has earned everything a man could wish for, he has carried Dravid’s work forward in Tests to an extent Dravid himself couldn’t, but for 13 years he has not been part of a team that has had a world title.Tabraiz Shamsi lets the emotions sink in•ICC/Getty Images”I believe in destiny,” Rohit says when asked if he had begun to start doubting that good things happen to good people. “This was written. Of course, we didn’t know before the match that this was written, otherwise it would be so easy. That [to keep doing your best not knowing what’s written] is the game.”Now tell me how I am supposed to explain this to you. Those who were there have been reduced to talking about destiny. The closest thing to an explanation is that the scrappy side with more multi-skilled players beat the one with specialists who, barring one or two, are perhaps more suited to the format. The much-ridiculed depth, for which India have tried to accommodate many an allrounder who was not ready, has trumped.South Africa, like the Mumbai Indians of 2013, are bossing the game with six gun batters and five full-time bowlers. Except they are against what looks like a scrappy Mumbai Indians of 2017 with plenty of multi-skilled options. Rohit has led both kinds of teams. His experience tells him to just hang in for longer than many would. In a 17-year career, he has seen T20 matches turn on much less than two Jasprit Bumrah overs.In the end, it has come about in a messy manner. They don’t take the braver option when at crossroads with the bat, which they have done almost all tournament. Kuldeep Yadav has had a tough day. Axar Patel, the unsung hero so far, is taken for 24 in his final over.The ball is reversing, even if slightly; hitting down the ground is easier; and they just move those fielders cutting singles straighter. It still shouldn’t work but it does. Sport is messy. Hardik is bowling only wide outside off, trying to stay away from Klaasen. Not looking for a wicket. On another day, he doesn’t get the edge to finish off the game. Here he does.Rohit ends up prone on the ground, slapping it in pure joy. Sport is a messy thing. It has played with Rohit’s spirit again and again before he can finally say: “This is what I wanted. I wanted to win the cup and say…” He doesn’t say anything. He just salutes a goodbye.It has played with South Africa here, but like Rohit and Kohli and Bumrah and Hardik, they must dust themselves off and give themselves the chance again. In the words of Rohit, that is the game.