“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain
“We'll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk
“The great cricketer Virat Kohli said in an interview that he does not try for excellence in cricket. Rather he believes in a concept called 'betterment' - to become better each day (each game) than your former self.”
Mark Twain, probably one of the top ten authors in entire literature history, while Chuck is new era’s fiction writer from USA & Virat Kohli, well if you don’t know his name then as I always say (Vaidhanik Ishara), you can stop reading right here, because the sharing is about cricket (Again!)! Very rarely it has happened that I write about same subject is succession (n span of a week) & the subject is not Tadoba (sarcasm) but cricket & on a very happy note, so thanks to team India for this & keeping the track record of creating or say rewriting history with your game! For quick recap of subject, Indian Cricket team is in England for five test match series & first test we made history already in both ways by our performance which we lost & starting from there this test match which is still on (fifth day going) when I started to write already some more pages has been added in the history of game named cricket & this time it was one man (subject of sharing) who did it literally single handedly & it’s our captain Subhuman Gill! You may be wondering (many with frown as this game’s haters) what so important to spare so much time to write (and make then you read) about a game which is played in mere fifteen countries & when event like Wimbledon is going on in the same country & tennis is played in nearly ten times more numbers of countries in comparison with cricket! Then two things, (no offence with tennis) one, cricket is a game of twenty-two people playing together, & any performance is needed to be a combo of individual efforts & team’s support & second, unlike tennis cricket can be played with minimum setup & anywhere which is a boon for our poor country! So, cricket is a game of the masses, something which even cricket haters hast to accept. And then we all needed to play our game of life, may it be at home or at office (work) in a team format, so whatever we learn from such games, it does help for us to perform better in our respective game, is my logic!
Ok, the philosophy part is over (for now) let's come to our sharing’s captain & go through these achievements or say historic facts which he has written in the last four days as a captain & as an individual, many of which you must have read in newspapers already but just to make you aware once again. In his two innings of batting, Gill has made 269 runs in first inning & 161 runs in second innings, thus making 430 runs in a single test, which is record on many fronts in entire history of not just Indian cricket but world cricket & this history is one hundred forty years plus old, do mind! He is the only batsman to score a double hundred in first innings & one fifty plus in second innings! He is the maximum scorer in a single test from the Indian side & second in the entire world! He already has become the maximum run maker in just four innings from the Indian side in England! Well, there are many such first & only one & in doing so Gill has surpassed names like Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Lakshman, Saurav Ganguli & Virat Kohali which are his seniors from India. At the same time, he has overtaken names like Steeve Smith, Grammy Smith, Brian Lara, Kumar Sangakkara, Graig Chappel & many such & all this at the age of twenty-five, is the reason my sharing! At the same time, he didn’t do it just as a batsman player but he was carrying the burden of captainship of a young team whom everybody has ruled out of the series even before it started! And captaining the Indian Cricket team is like a Game of Thrones as you are wearing a crown & sitting on a chair which is admired, loved more than that or prime ministership but comes with the greatest of price & burden! The price is, fulfilling expectations of one fifty crore citizens of always keep on winning whichever match you are playing & that burden is bigger than any burden you can ever even imagine as if you fail to pay that price then even the biggest names (read as God) of Indian cricket has been booed out of stadium for not standing to the expectations of fans, that’s punishment of failing to deliver in cricket in our country!
And then your team was entering in this match (second test) after losing first match from nearly stage of winning & do mind there are defeats & wins in any games but some defeats hurt a lot especially when three-fourth time of the game your team is winning & yet end up on losing, that breaks your morale, as a player, as a human & even as a captain! So, Gill was facing three responsibilities, first to put a bitter painful defeat behind, brace himself as an individual player, then as a human being needed to overcome depression & as a captain lift himself & his ten men to give their best once again & his batting average (barring last match's hundred) in the England was against him, i,e,below par it was!! Oh yes one more thing was there, Bumrah (plz google) who is supposedly your best weapon & world number one bowler is unavailable for this match & to win any match you have to bowl-out the opposite team twice, means twenty wickets! Any man would have given up or buckled down with such Everest of burden of adversities but then such men don’t write history, only those who don’t break, face the worst of adversities as an opportunity, they do it & which Gill did with only one known & proven way i.e. by performing himself! I am a keen (diehard fan) of test cricket, this I have already shared & reason is about the grind of this game as well the opportunities you get to listen to the inputs about the game (and about life) by the commentators some of them are also legends of the game in their time. And repeatedly one word was used during the game when Gill was playing & it was, “intent”! We all can get the meaning of any word in any language nowadays at our fingertips (thanks Internet) but to understand the meaning of some word like “Intent” in a true sense is, experience someone living by it, which Gill showed by example. Intent was to not to prove anything but intent was to be there as much time as he can & lift morale of the entire team (and nation) by not breaking down, emotionally & physically & keep going! This sharing was a tribute to Gill’s display of intent & in doing so whatever record (read as records) he broke in the process is a by-product of that intent! And do mind, in the first test also Gill has made a hundred but so did other four batsmen in the team but in this test, he was a sole centurion in both innings, which made most of other players to chip-in with valuable contribution. This reminded me story of Shrikrishna lifting Gowardhan Parbat (mountain) on his little finger & yet made it look like its every villager who also helped in generating that power as a true leader is one who makes every team-mate feel that he or she too is the key person in the victory or say performance of the team, which Gill did!
This is why these two innings of Gill are so vital & I started penning down (tributing) him even before the match got concluded, just like last time I did for entire team India. Though the difference is Gill with his herculean efforts has made it sure that India won’t lose this match even if a miracle happens but to make a draw also would be like a win for England now, this is sheer outcome of intent! As first you wen on a tour where nobody gives you a chance to win & even our recent history of game says so, yet your team puts a super show in the first game & still you lose the match & then nearly single handedly you take the second game to such level that even the best team in the game on their own turf doesn’t have any chance to win rather they are needed to fight to save the match, this is what intent of one person can do, is my subject of sharing. And in doing so you naturally evolve as a person as a leader also & you gain respect not by the sword given to you but by the way you use that sword. And this is applicable to each of us in our respective career, life whatever we call it! This sharing I am penning down for myself first because as Virat said with v=every game you must become a shade better than the earlier one & even by watching someone becoming better we can also become so, right? But more than that I am sharing this for my kids & younger genre who wants to become something or prove themselves as success needs practice, extreme discipline, dedication & patience & yes fitness (as to play for nearly three days out of four days on the ground you need to be extreme fit), and when you put all this together then you don’t need to demand success, you rule it, is what Gill’s innings made me realize, once again! I wish every youngster must watch, read about these innings of Gill as they are like an open (and free) classroom of life, teaching how one should develop himself on the path of success & what is needed to do when you are confronted with adversities in life! Indeed, even after doing all this & putting your heart out there can be no victory, but one thing is sure, there will be respect for your efforts, lots of it & a confidence that you won’t get in any market or online but you have earned it by yourself! Thanks, Shubhman Gill, for teaching me a lesson of facing the hardships of life by only way you know i.e. your game & making me richer with the history you have created; keep up & keep writing more such history, adios with this wish!
(Well, while Gill was making history another youngster, rather a kid, Vaibhav Surywanshi already joined the history game in England itself by becoming the youngest person to score fastest hundred in under ninteen cricket).
* By the time you will be reading this sharing, team India might have sealed victory, one more history & I am glad to witness it, so you all will be for sure!
-
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...
https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?
Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.
https://jivnachadrushtikon.
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Think Green, Think Life
Posts
