It always feels good to win a game. It feels even better to win a game against Pakistan or India. I’m not quite sure yet whether it feels better to win against Pakistan or India. Both feel very good, and unless we make a habit of winning against both teams regularly, I guess I will not know whether winning against Pakistan feels better than winning against India. We won four straight games (three ODIs) against Pakistan recently, and one against India last Thursday. This last win against India is the best so far I think.
It was the best against India for a number of reasons. The victory didn’t seem like a fluke; it wasn’t a fluke. And I do not know of any Indian commentator who dares to pass off Bangladesh’s comprehensive victory as a fluke. All the Indian batsmen out in under 50 overs, scoring 228 runs, 79 runs short of Bangladesh’s total of 307, a total that at least one Indian commentator with characteristic arrogance said should not be very difficult for Indian batsmen to score.
For the first 12 overs, it did seem that the target was reachable, but as the game progressed and wickets began to fall at regular intervals, Indian shoulders drooped and the Tigers roared like never before. The victory was absolutely comprehensive, resounding.
This victory against India was the best because of what happened in the World Cup four months back. Bangladesh might well have won against India in the World Cup quarter-finals had it not been for a number of unforgivable umpiring decisions and the ICC’s unrelenting stance. This victory against India almost seems like poetic justice. It is even better than poetic justice, because it was real: Eleven Bangladeshi players playing better cricket on the field -- and off the field.
Cricket in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka is never just a game. It’s not quite a religion, but many swear by it. Hundreds of thousands of cricket lovers go wild when their nations win, they weep openly when they lose, they idolise their heroes, they go berserk when their players let them down. The stakes are high, and the passions even higher.
When Bangladesh beat Pakistan in the three ODIs and one T-20 two months back, for many it was like beating the Pakistanis in four different battles. And yet, funnily, millions of Bangladeshis support Pakistan when they play against India. And almost an equal number of Bangladeshis support India when they play against Pakistan. Cricket certainly resonates beyond the crackling sound of a bat hitting a ball over the boundary.
For every single Bangladeshi who watched the game from home or abroad, the last victory was very sweet indeed. It was just as sweet for every Bangladeshi fan as it was bitter for every single Indian cricket fan who watched the game and saw their heroes cowering before the Bangladeshi Tigers. Perhaps it was even more exquisitely sweet because it was so excruciatingly hurtful to the Indians.
There is a beautiful German word for it which I have never actually used in writing: Schadenfreude, which means to derive pleasure from someone else’s misery. In this case, it is an entire nation’s pleasure at the cost of another entire nation’s hurt. But in this holy month, we should not gloat. And there are two more games to go. The next one is about to start in a few hours as I write, and will be over by the time you read this.
But one more thing has to be said. I have always admired Dhoni, his skills, his captaincy, and his legendary cool. I have loved and admired many Indian cricketers for more than half a century (Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Dravid, Sourav, to name just a few), and I have loved and admired many Pakistani cricketers as well (Fazal Mahmood, Saeed Ahmed, Hanif, Imtiaz, Saeed Anwar, Imran, Wasim, and Waqar, to name a few more).
I have lived more than two decades of my life as a Pakistani citizen and a supporter of Pakistani cricket up to 1971. While most of my cricketing idols from Pakistan and India remain in their high pedestals, some have fallen, and the most recent one to fall is, of course, MS Dhoni.
I have seen the video numerous times and I’m convinced that Dhoni’s action in the 25th over against Mustafiz, swerving left and then jabbing his elbow viciously against the latter was intentional, unsportsmanlike, and mala fide. And he did not even apologise for his action. I do understand though why Mr Cool lost his cool.
When he entered the game, five of India’s star batsmen were already in the pavilion, the required run rate seemed too high, and he found it easy to vent his anger and frustration at the hapless Mustafiz who had strayed to the wrong side of the field. Dhoni was fined 75% of his match fees, and Mustafiz 50%, and that does not seem fair. But it was not fair to beat India either, was it?
There is breaking news now that Bangladesh’s victory is part of a conspiracy. Pakistanis are now shouting that the Indians deliberately lost the game to Bangladesh so that Pakistan could be kept out of the Champions Trophy.
Now that seems like a very credible accusation. Perhaps it was part of one of the secret instruments that Modi signed in Dhaka promising to throw away the first game in favour of Bangladesh just to spite the Pakistanis. Cricket is not just cricket, is it?
