The rank smell of defeat

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933

The Indian batsmen were gripped by fear; they bathed in it and ended with the malodorous smell of defeat. The exception was Sehwag who doesn’t recognize it and Dravid, the only one with the strength of mind to absorb FDR’s words. The rest of them couldn’t handle it.

Ganguly started out in a reverie and never got out of it, Uthappa tried to awaken him but perished quickly and even Sehwag’s clean hitting couldn’t nudge Sourav out his slow death mode. He finally succumbed to Chaminda-left-arm on the spot-Vaas. Sachin came and departed crushed under the pressure that even Atlas couldn’t bear. There was hope while Sehwag was clattering boundaries at will, but Murali produced some magic to snuff him out and India’s hopes. Yuvraj promptly ran himself out of the cauldron, and even the die-hard India fan would have given up after Murali quickly disposed off a clueless Dhoni. Watching his colleagues crumble seemed to light a fire under Dravid who chose to go down fighting the flames and flailed four boundaries before holing out to long off. It was over.

It wasn’t that desperate on a sunny morning when the bowlers made a good fist of it to restrict Sri Lanka to 254. In fact they did a fantastic job in reigning in the top order and it would have been a much lower total if not for a brave innings by the fearless Chamara Silva, in the Aravinda de Silva mould, and some enterprising hitting by Vaas and Arnold at the end. Yes, India didn’t field too well, but nobody expects them to be great in the field and the plan was that the experienced batters will make up for it. An unsound strategy if there ever was one. The Indian batting has crumbled so many times under pressure that counting on it to offset any deficit was just a terrible blunder. Heads will roll and more effigies will be burnt but life goes on, after all it is only a game.

But, the stench remains.