Destiny's Child

It was one of those games…

The Indian cricket team has mastered the art of crumbling under pressure and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. So it was just another day when the team was tottering on the brink of a loss with most of the superstars back in the pavilion on the fifth day chasing a modest target. It was left to a young bowler, who in his crude and unsophisticated way managed to do what no other record holding batsmen could manage: DEFEND and safely see off the maximum number of balls. Ishant Sharma was an unlikely hero.

But this post is not about him (he is young, talented and good looking: surely there will be more opportunities to drool over him). This is about that veteran genius who never quite got the recognition he deserved: may be because he played in an era which belonged to the Little Master, may be because he had neither the princely arrogance of Ganguly, the quiet dignity of Dravid, the effortless elegance of Yuvraj, or even the daunting spirit of Dhoni. This is about the soft spoken, lanky guy from Hyderabad with a difficult name, who can weave magic with his wrists. This is about the unassuming guy who never quite lived up to his potential, who battled fitness throughout his somewhat uneven career graph, and who became my hero ever since Azharuddin broke my heart by ALLEGEDLY getting involved in match-fixing… (it’s already been proven that I have bad taste in men)

Notwithstanding his setbacks, his inconsistency, and his long patches of drought, the one thing he has done regularly is make the Aussies lose their sleep over him. A decade-long nemesis for the world’s most clinically professional team, he has crafted out some remarkable victories for India, and this time he did it again, denying Team India the royal collapse they are famous for!

This post is for the Destiny’s Child, this post is for the Underdog, this post is for VVS (Very Very Sexy) Laxman…