Chak Diyaaa India!!!

4:45 PM. Hosur Road was just recuperating from a stressful morning rush hour and there was a semblance of sanity about the Baap Of All Roads!

Sanity is an attribute you can seldom associate with Hosur Road and it ceased to exist this monday evening. At around 5 PM, it seemed the whole of Bangalore was on an exodus to Hyderabad. Space-time froze again and all the drivers became extremely "Horn"y :-)

I should have expected all this; after all, India is the land of a billion cricket fanatics!! And missing India in action in a world cup final is tantamount to disservice to the nation!! And what a match it promised to be; India beat England,South Africa and Australia in the previous three matches and were on the threshold of lifting the world cup after a 24 year hiatus.

India Vs Pakistan - The World Cup Final!!!! It just cannot get better than this!!

May be I was dreaming; May be the whole of India was dreaming!! Dreams are a luxury you ill afford on Hosur Road; Reality bit us very quickly and it was a nightmare near BommanHalli :-)

Sports they say is that theater of human emotions where only unscripted drama rules; It surely did in the last 2 weeks in South Africa.

We were old, slow, meek, ugly, predictable and boring a few months back when we were knocked out of the biggest tournament of the game in the very first stage!! It was definitely not a shock - we had professional actors in the team who considered cricket a side business and we had Munaf Patel who believed that diving on the field amounts to blasphemy :-)

The show dragged on and the tournament lasted for a few more months in remote grounds where the players out numbered the ground staff and the audience combined :-)

A fortnight ago, to give India a chance in the 20-20 world cup would have been like expecting to see Rajesh Khanna driving a 1000 CC bike in Dhoom 3 :-)

I think Dhoni and his boys hardly cared if anybody gave them a chance; India rose like a phoenix from its own ashes in the last few weeks to script a spectacular ascent to the finals.

Back to Monday. In the race against time, I lost by 15 minutes and Yousuf Pathan was out minutes after I reached home.

For an hour, it seemed the Indian batsmen had it under control; It was like the calm before the Yuvraj Storm. Yuvraj, in sublime touch took batting to heights unattainable in international cricket; He batted as if he had been waiting for a decade to play in the 20-20 world cup.

Umar Gul, with the look of a breed of dog I cannot name, almost spoiled the party for India before young Rohit Sharma played as if he was batting on a Mumbai street after school hours to take India to 157.

I felt it was enough and for a moment, Imran Nazir made me believe that it was just a figment of my imagination. He continued from where he left off in the previous match until Robin Uthappa showed why India, beating all expectations was in the world cup final. With fire in their bellies, Dhoni's boys played like possessed fighters, there to prove a point. Noo..they were doing much more than that; it seemed they were having the best times of their life there - youthful exuberance unseen previously in Indian cricket.

Franklin D Roosevelt, the legendary US president said that Fear is the Only thing we need to fear about; And fear was conspicuous with its absence in the Indian contingent as it put reputations to rest.

Shahid Afridi, a 23 year old for the past 7 years was out the first ball and everyone thought it was the end of the road for Pakistan. Misbah Ul Haq at the other end was busy calculating moves, runs and balls with unmatched precision to take the match to the wire; Dream Finish to a Dream Final! :-)

Joginder Sharma prevailed and phewwww...we WON THE WORLD CUP!!

9 PM - I havent seen scenes like that in Bangalore before and dont expect to see in the near future.

Cricket truly galvanised India once more!!.

Dhoni And Team....YOU ROCK!!

CHAK DIYAAA INDIA!! :-)