You may call cricket the ‘game of gentlemen,’ a game whichinvolves much decency but it is equally the game of sadism almost, the set ofheartbreaks. From the booing of the crowd towards Steven Smith to Virat Kohli’sapproach to defending him when he asked the crowd to cheer for him, the WorldCup 2019 was full of sensational moments.
In the recently concluded ICC World Cup 2019, we witnessedboth the things. We observed how the Blackcaps reacted to the defeat, which wasa fault of the rulebook or shall I call it a human error when Kumar Dharmasenasignalled six runs that actually should have been only five. I don’t believehow cricket gods can be so cruel, especially when it comes to Kiwis with thelikes of skipper in the form of Kane Williamson or the smiling assassin.
When it comes to the moments of melancholy and peripeteia,New Zealand was the only victim. Unpredictable Pakistan got an equal share ofunfortunate ploy from the cricket gods. The Men in Green disastrously startedtheir journey against West Indies who looked off colors throughout thetournament. However, wait, there are so many things upon whom we couldn’t trustin this World Cup. Be it English weather which was disappointed in the firstpart or the umpiring errors, especially in the latter part; all these are partand parcel of untimely approaches. Talking further about Pakistan, everythingwent smoothly till first seven matches as happened in the World Cup 1992.Though Pakistani’s had ‘let’s redo’ tag in 2015 when it comes to similarities, expectationsfailed, and when expectations fail, you’re bound to have a heartbreak. It isinteresting to mention that mercurial Pakistan was the only team who defeatedboth the finalists but rules…
The cricket gods didn’t have different approaches with theteams only, but the individual players got an equal share as well. Be it ShoaibMalik of Pakistan who had this World Cup full of disappointing outings orHashim Amla’s journey which includes only two fifties from his bat throughoutthe tournament. The list gets bigger and bigger from Shikhar Dhawan’s thumbinjury that cost India instability in the opening slot to Dale Stey n’sshoulder injury that proved a setback for South Africa.
Not taking away any thrilling moments from it, we witnesseda significant bit of cricket as well. Be it unplayable yorker from MitchellStarc to Ben Stokes to single-handedly grab from Jimmy Neesham; there weredozen of such instances only in the grand finale.
However, sticking with the fortunate and unfortunate part ofthe game, there was overall dominance, which played a proper role. Whether thewashed-out games in which Sri Lanka suffered most to Guptill’s run-out, all onecan say is, ‘how can cricket gods be so cruel.’