As a 10-year-old kid, 1996 Cricket World Cup was my first introduction to a really big tournament.
Although I had faint recollections of the 92 World Cup, the 96 World Cup was a different beast altogether. The tournament had a real buzz around it and by early February, you could sense it coming.
The advertisements on TV were different. New players, new themes, new brands and new punchlines. “Nothing official about it” was being thrown about everywhere by kids who had absolutely no idea what it meant.
Your favourite cricketers were selling your favourite candy in your language.
The newspapers were no longer just 12 pages, but they were thicker, glossier, glitzier and yeah, they all talked about cricket.
There were contests, hundreds of them. The dream team contest, the World Cup quizzes, identify the player, scratch cards – and you were sure that you took part in all of these, you are bound to win at least one and fly to see India win the World Cup in Lahore.
There was this growing impatience to finally watch these players you had heard so much about. There was Jonty Rhodes, who apparently could dive and save every single shot, no matter where the ball was.
There was Shane Warne who, they say, has the ability to spin the ball a mile. There were the tall fast bowlers from West Indies, with eye-popping best bowling figures. There were Wasim and Waqar, and you hoped that India never had to play them.
And then of course, there was Sachin.
You couldn’t wait anymore. If this is the circus they say is coming to town, it couldn’t come soon enough.
And then it started. There was an opening ceremony where a beauty queen handed out flags in a laser show. Probably, they should have just started the tournament a day sooner. Before you knew it, India was playing and Sachin had a century against Kenya.
The wicketkeeper dropped a skier and Sachin survived to help India win against the West Indies. He played that innings against Australia, which can still give you goosebumps. He did all he could against Sri Lanka and we didn’t really miss him against Zimbabwe.
In between, Kirsten scored 188 and in another match, SL scored 398 from 50 overs. Surely, these records will never be broken. Kenya toppled the West Indies. And the small city where I was growing up, the dot on the map, even we got a match!
Who cares if its Zimbabwe versus Kenya, it was a game of international cricket in your city. Life’s never been better.
While your parents and your school conspired against you to schedule your final examinations in the exact same two-week period as the World Cup knock-out stage, you couldn’t care less. It was time for cricket.
You prayed to all the gods your grandma talked about when Anwar and Sohail were batting during the India versus Pakistan quarter-final, and stopped only when the last ball was bowled.
It was hard to live up to the hype of the India Pakistan quarter-finals, but the euphoria of two first over wickets sure matched it.
But where did it all go wrong? How could they score so much! How could the entire team collapse like that? And how could they award the match by default?
Surely, this was a bad dream! It wasn’t meant to finish like this.
And why were you crying? Not eating your dinner could not possibly help the Indian team. Maybe they’ll reconsider the rioting and replay the game the next day.
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There have been World Cups after that but they weren’t the same. I grew up. They clashed with my schedule.
I wasn’t a 10-year-old crying and praying for an Indian win. I had my engineering exams and then my MBA exams and more recently, my client presentation to worry about. I didn’t count days on my calendar.
I wasn’t predicting winners based on the schedule. I wasn’t betting with my friends on how many centuries Sachin would score.
There is a World Cup coming now and I know that I would not watch every game.
But I hope that this World Cup, at least one kid in the Australian or Kiwi countryside falls in love with the game like I did years ago.
I hope that at least some kids go to bed in their country’s cricket jersey and dream of their country winning the final. I hope that some innocent kids laugh, cry and pray for their teams like did.
I hope that kids can enjoy the thrill and exhilaration of watching broken stumps and a sweetly timed cover drive hit by their favourite cricketers. I hope that these kids get more role models to adore and grow up watching.
And above all, I hope that this World Cup, these kids get stories which they will be able to cherish, write, think and talk about for the rest of their lives.
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