Time to dust jackets and move on

With power cuts looming large on the city, MERC (Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission) might be the only team, apart from Sri Lanka of course, to be satisfied with the outcome of this match. At least Mumbai saved on the floodlights.

It’s a different matter that spectators are fretting over the chicken-feed returns of their tickets that range anything from Rs 700 to Rs 3000. After a wormwood first week in the Champions Trophy, the last preliminary game between West Indies and Sri Lanka promised a contest. But we were fed lemons yet again.

Brian Lara might want to forget this match as an aberration. But it’s happening way too often for any forced solace. As he rightly puts it: “We won’t last long in the tournament if this is how we are going to play.”

In the DLF Cup, his batters were sucked thrice in Hades. And the dark circles continue to skulk again in India.

We know Lara will dust his jacket and move on. He has done that in the past. When Kenya humbled West Indies in the 1996 World Cup, he issued an apology to the nation. As if buoyed by a cathartic renewal, his side made it to the semis hooting South Africa out in the quarters. If not for Courtney Walsh’s disregard for the school of batting, West Indies might have made it to the finals.

If Lara wises up to cricket archives, he should find that sides have bounced back into reckoning after posting two-digit scores. Pakistan, bundled out for 74 against England in the 1992 World Cup, beat the same team in the finals.

Sourav Ganguly’s soul and pride stood high hell as Australia pummelled his men in their second league match of the last World Cup. The piteous showing during India's limp to 125 was equivalent to a single-digit humiliation. But we will always cherish the memory of what happened in the subsequent matches.

At 38, Lara has nothing left to prove. The top is lonely and Lara has been there all his life waging solitary battles. Another Test knock of 300 or a 165 in an ODI would not gild the lily of his peerless career.

But he knows West Indies will have to learn to yacht towards the finish line without his helping hand. They aren't ready for that day as of now. Deep within Lara understands that he has to continue a little longer even if it means suffering the ignominy of a few personal failures. But how much can he take?

Yet, at the end of the evening, it is Lara who has to prick the bubble of his team’s self-esteem. It is he who needs to make the right statements, bat one drop and maybe induct Wavell Hinds at the top of the order. Only he can tell Chris Gayle that a blazing knock one day is no licence to admit vitamin-deficient footwork in the next game.

If these reflections sink in and West Indies realise what their captain stands for, the sun will rise again on Caribbean cricket. Or long after Lara is gone, they may regret not having accorded him the respect he deserved. The call ‘skipper we owe you an effort’ has to be sworn now on Indian grass. Not at his shrine ages later.