One week ago, it was the morning after – and the cold stale smell of defeat mixed with a trace of something unstomachable still lingered. Across the island, a heavy torpor had settled like a wet towel thrown carelessly over the players’ bench in a long-abandoned dressing-room. Thousands if not millions lamented the result, neurotically [...]

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This is the way that our game always ends in a whimper…

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One week ago, it was the morning after – and the cold stale smell of defeat mixed with a trace of something unstomachable still lingered. Across the island, a heavy torpor had settled like a wet towel thrown carelessly over the players’ bench in a long-abandoned dressing-room.

Thousands if not millions lamented the result, neurotically revisiting critical moments of the match in a post-mortem reminiscent of a tongue returning time and again to probe a serrated tooth. Some shied away from dragging their weary carcasses to office, school, or other workday commitments; preferring instead to slog away at posting comments on social media networks which brooded indolently over possibilities, alternative endings, and opportunities lost…

Some comments (retrieved with a measure of reluctance from the darkest, most self-indulgent recesses of the internet) bear reproduction:
- How are the mighty fallen.
- Win or lose, we’re proud to be Sri Lankan!
- In a game of glorious uncertainty, there is one certainty: we will lose…
- Go Lions, we love youJ
- We believe in our boys… We believe in rain…
- Lankan cricketing fan-base needs to stop feeling sorry for itself and think about what those eleven cricketers must be going through – especially Malinga
- Captain and team let us down badly, and not for the first time either
- Suicides, fights, violence, murders, firecrackers, firecrackers gone wrong, suicides. Real smooth! Is this any way to handle match defeat?
- Eye-opener for some people who believe only in winning!
- It’s great to be all gracious in defeat and magnanimous with our sentiment to the team, but that in my opinion is a bunch of croc. We are so blasé with the attitude that we not only turn the other cheek, but bend over and politely ask for more…
- Any realist would’ve had last night’s tragic script written up well before the tournament even kicked off!
- What annoys me most is that we, probably as a nation, are so starved for something good and wholesome, that we’ve become the proverbial drowning man clutching at a straw in eternal optimism of sustenance. We have such a fragile bunch of cricketers that preys on our pathetic hopes of better things, only to walk us up the garden path…
- We screwed up so many things last night that we are now the World Champion chokers!!
There are two types of people in Sri Lanka, today. Those to whom cricket is a game, and those to whom it is not. The latter agonise endlessly over what might have been, apportioning blame and dishing out recriminations at a banquet of misery. The former can’t understand what the angst is all about; and, even if they do, are apparently made of sterner stuff – the death of immortals in the arena and the glory of a could-have-been, should-have been, but-clearly-wasn’t victory leaving them stoically unmoved.
In my own abode, the great divide was evident in breakfast banter, daytime telephone exchanges, and dinner-table confabs.

Me: “Sigh… so near, yet so far.”
She: “Don’t worry, there will be another chance.”
Me: “This WAS our chance! The last big chance for this generation of greats!”
She: “Don’t shout, dear, there is no need to get upset.”
Me: “There is EVERY need to get upset! Because to win convincingly in quarters and semis, and then mess it up in style in the finals, is ABSURD!”
She: “We can win some other day, no?”
Me: “No, we can only lose EVERY other day!”
She: “Don’t exaggerate, we came second.”
Me: “Yes, we have been coming second EVERY time: 2007, 2009, 2011…”
She: “But we come second consistently, no? That’s something.”
Me: “Yeah… that’s something ELSE, all right!”
She: “Why are you getting worked up so much? It’s only a game…”
Me: “It is not ONLY a game… It is NOT a game! It is a war, it is a duel to the death, it is a clash of the titans!”
She: “Sigh… as long as I live, I will never understand why you get so – OBSESSED – by cricket!”
One half of the marriage can’t understand the other half of the honeymoon. And I’m not talking about weddings, but the workings of a nation. Be that as it may, there is more to life than cricket and more to karma than our animus towards India coming back to bite us in the gluteus maximus. Should anyone feel the promptings of their peers to resign on principle, so be it – as long as we don’t take it back as Malini did or Mahela may be tempted to do when the people beg them to come back? However, one may feel one is justified in doing the right thing for the wrong reason (the poet called it the highest treason). If it is scandals, fiascos, and imbroglios one feels prompted to resign over, there are many! We are no longer talking about CRICKET, are we, dears?

There are two types of people in Sri Lanka, today. Those to whom governance is a game, and those to whom it is not. The latter agonise endlessly over what could easily be: envisioning great things for our country if we can only root out corruption, stamp out crime in high places and low, usher in a clean new political culture. The former can’t understand what the aggro is all about; but, even if they do well on ignorance and find out, they are apparently strong on the apathy suit… theirs not to do, others’ burden to bear, our lot to share (and shame be on the traitors who cry otherwise).

World Cup 2014? Forget asking what price our chances there! The wise are keeping their eyes on a more dangerous game closer home…




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