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The Never Ending Story

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Here, I write the beginning of a story. My idea for the thread is that somebody else take it from here. Extend this story further, as and how you please. Then somebody else from there, and so on. Let's write this story together. It's a bit old, I know, but I hope people get into this. So, here goes nothing :)


P.S. I changed it a bit after I realized that the protagonist should be a character which can belong to anyone, and not an Indian.

____________________________________________________


The February of '96 was a pivotal moment of my life. In a manner of speaking, it gave me a high from which I have scarcely come down since. I was spending a few weeks in Darjeeling, staying at the Gymkhana Club, learning the advanced skills of ascending slopes from the experts at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. The mornings was spent playing badminton and squash with the owner of the place, who was a friend of mine from school. After the day was over, I would sit on my desk in my room, which overlooked the beautiful Kangchenjunga, and write. And what days they were for writing. I wrote more freely, more honestly than I had ever done before. It was elating.

Then came February the 16th, and the most exciting World Cup I have seen in my life began with the mighty Windies taking on newbies Zimbabwe. The excitement among the guests staying at the hotel, and the staff, had been growing in crescendo for more than a week, and all of us came together in the den to watch the match together. The first innings was ridiculously dull with two run-outs, of Alistair Campbell and Guy Whittall, sucking the life out of the innings. However, watching Curtly Ambrose bowl was one of the unbridled joys of life, and that was there to be savoured, along with the talents of Bishop and Walsh. They were miserly, and the inexperienced Africans lost on the day easily. But not before Brian Charles Lara, the hunched maestro with the golden touch, crafted the only worthwhile batting effort of the match.

The World Cup had begun, and the den was abuzz with novice, excitable punditry. There was an ageing couple from England who readily capitulated to the notion that perhaps this was the not the year for the Poms, but then again, look what happened in '87, they said. A young man from Bangladesh said that he was pretty sure it was the South Africans who would knick it and make history. The rest of the guests, being Indians, were of course resoundingly sure of the eventual victors being the men in blue. A man from Punjab said, "Is baar Sachin uda dega, dekhna!" (Sachin's going to blow them away this time, just you watch!) And we all agreed, and we were right. And we all thought of who would beat who. The India-Pakistan game, though undecided yet, was the one everyone salivated over.

None of us thought of Sanath Jayasuriya, of course. Just like everybody else.
 
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