The tragic consequences of Mumbai Indians' paranoia

The Mumbai Indians have only themselves to blame for losing the game against RCB

When I woke up this morning, it was with a sense of deep dejection even though there were birds chirping and the sun was shining with its effulgent crimson flair. And I wanted to write. 12 hours prior to that point, I was hoping to create an ode, a joyful song about the way class still rules over crass. I was hoping to write about how the joy of pure, delightful and magical cricket exceeds everything else that one finds on offer at IPL – entertainment, sometimes bordering between loud and obnoxiously loud, glamour (read women, although I don’t want to incur anyone’s ire in particular) and glitz (read ‘a feel-good mood that is self-inflicted but short lived’). I was hoping to write about how it was the greatest achievement of IPL when a placard read, ‘I watched Sachin and Ponting bat together and Murali bowling to them. I was there.’

But, here I am, with a sense of dejection. At the end of the day, it was 20-20 and the score line says Mumbai lost to RCB. The poetry of it came from a different source, from how Mumbai spent everywhere they could spend and yet managed to lose and how it was a one-man army that triumphed in the end. I thank Gayle for ruining the match where the highest of run-getters in Tests and ODIs walked shoulder to shoulder. And he showed why Mumbai should lose. It is because they aren’t willing to learn from their mistakes. They lost the cup to Chennai in the finals after steamrolling every team in the leagues, and yet they wouldn’t learn. They are still keen to hoard their greatest asset, Keiran Pollard. The coaches have changed, captains have changed, mentors have come and gone and yet they manage to lose a match where they had to chase 156 on a smallish ground where the ball comes on nicely. Mind you, the final scoreline reads Mumbai lost by 2 runs, but it wasn’t as nail-biting as it suggests. Karthik’s antics brought Mumbai close in a match where no one apart from him seemed willing to win. Not even the bowlers, not even when RCB were 80/5 in the 13^th over (no disrespect meant to Gayle’s superb knock).

If Mumbai played with the same joy that their fans feel just watching them play, they would win a lot more. If they weren’t so afraid of losing, they would win a lot more too. They had Jacob Oram and Mitchell Johnson slotted to come in at No.9 and No.10. And yet, barring the slam bang innings that Karthik plays so often plays in spite of being ignored equally often, Mumbai were chugging along at run-a-ball. I mean no disrespect towards RCB’s bowlers, but they did this against Unadkat, Vinay Kumar, Christian, Murali Kartik and Muralitharan. That Muralitharan, the only world class bowler in that group, was the second most expensive bowler for RCB tells you that Mumbai didn’t lack class. That the dew factor was playing in Mumbai’s favour tells you it was getting easier to bat in the Chinnaswamy Stadium, which is known for mammoth chases. It’s a almost a tactical puzzle, one of those questions you could ask in those meaningless marketing contests where you should come up with witty answers to win prizes. I wonder what a witty person would come up with for this question – ‘Why does Mumbai lose matches it is supposed to win?’

So, like I said, I wish I could remember the match for the sheer joy it offered; I mean watching Sachin bat anywhere, leave alone inside a stadium, with even the opposition supporters chanting his name is something special even after so many years. Nevertheless, after years of watching cricket, I find that the joy of cricket gets jaded, gets veiled by the result, by who won it in the end. Gayle deserved to be on the winning side for the lone fight he put up. And to me, he represents ‘joy of cricket’ as emphatically as any cricketer ever did. And yet, I don’t feel the euphoria of watching a good match. And I lived in Bangalore for half a decade and have never been to Mumbai. I guess I just hate to see Sachin lose. Lose because somewhere between the commercialisation of cricket and the over-preparation, the eagerness and anxiety to win and the melodramatic coaches with leather-bound diaries, somewhere in the chaos, the delight of a brand of cricket which the uninhibited Pontings and Sachins bring is lost. Mumbai is a classic example of that.