For a change as the new cricket anthropologist Ishrat Mahmud was wont to remind anybody and everybody within earshot, this was a different scene in the region. For those so long used to the staple diet of India vs Pakistan showdowns in any and every final in the subcontinent, yesterday's final had more to it than met the Bengali eye.
West Indies had only just put paid to subcontinental pretensions in conclusive fashion. For a team that was seen to be struggling in recent days, the Wills Cup final was the perfect setting for Brian Lara to initiate a rehab programme for the future. South Africa was in the final for different reasons. This team is the robocop of international cricket. It is bristling with firepower and throughout this tournament packed too many punches for the other sides. SA really did not have much to prove.
Cricket of contrasting styles, and from the most diverse ends of the globe was meant to be on display. For the average Dhakaite, it was an unprecedented feast. Except that the cricket on show never quite lived up to its hyped up billing. Once again the South Africans were brusque and businesslike, as always. To say that every member of this side is a borderline workaholic would be oversimplifying. And the result was so blatantly obvious on the field.
West Indies have not been in a final in the recent past. The pressure cooker situation was perhaps a trifle unbearable. The team relied on Philo Wallace to give them a good start. Wallace gave them more, he gave them a great start. Clayton Lambert departed early, but he was meant to be dispensable. Wallace then took centrestage in the most emphatic fashion. He is a big powerful man who packs a mean punch. South Africa bore the brunt of his ferocity in quite the manner popularised by the stoics. Hansie Cronjie let Wallace have the reins of the match at one end, while grinding attrition was pursued at the other. Chanderpaul was not allowed to flourish, while Lara was decimated quickly. That was the body blow that knocked the middle order out of commission.
Lara is not quite the batsman that he was a few years ago. He is struggling for form and consequently trying perhaps just a little too hard to establish his earlier credentials. The Indian bowlers were perhaps impressed with his calling card, not so the South Africans. Crookes it was in the end, who put Lara out of misery. For the Dhaka crowd, the chance to watch one of the most gifted batsman in history in his element had come and gone, all too rapidly. As Shawkat Zaman put it succinctly, Lara kya mara, was not to be.
West Indies fell to the guiles of Jacques Kallis, the man who only the other day destryed the Sri Lankans with his bat. With ball in hand, he snuffed out any semblance of resistance with a career best haul of wickets. To say that he was surprised himself would be an understatement. But he will take that nevertheless, they all go down in the book. Shoddy batting at the other end or not. Wallace's explosive and gutsy hundred, was palpably wasted by his team. 245 to win on a wicket that was user friendly for batting from day one was the sort of gift a batting side like South Africa usually receive for Christmas. One really does not look a gift horse in the mouth.
Under the lights the last rites of the tournament then took a twist, that is so typical of this game. So typical also is the resilience of the West Indians, who are adept at changing the course of a match through sheer unpredictability, that a match that was destined to head for a tame end, swung back to life. It was not going to be over till be fat lady sang. Dhaka was once against waiting with bated breath for one more twist of the knife. The week of the year was about to die, but not the match. Typical West Indian resilience and the highly combustible uncertainties of this great game of cricket combined to rewrite the otherwise bland script. It was a heady concoction, one that brought the game back from the dead.
From what was meant to be a cakewalk, the South Africa batting was suddenly trekking on rocky terrain. The middle order made a couple of fatal errors and suddenly Brian Lara had a sniff of the tail, something that looked quite improbable at one stage. Let no one quibble about the outcome of the match. What was important was the fact that a cricket match with its inherent life sustaining powers went through the many ups and the more downs of a mundane sporting activity. Even more importantly it brought the curtain down on a competition in quite the manner that the rabid and fanatic crowd wanted.
Time for some old fashioned retrospection. Now that the music's over, its time to turn out the lights. Thoughts on returning home from the party play gratingly on the turntable of the Bangladeshi mind. What if we were a part of the act also? The heavens would still have been in their constellations and all would still have been well in the ICC subsidised cricket world. The world which was at our doors has passed us by perhaps never to return. The average Bangladeshi cricketer and cricket lover had to draw lots to pick a team to support and cheer. They will now realise that they also had a team of their own. Perhaps we need to bring them back out from among the shadows and hope that time will some how heal the wounds inflicted on our national psyche. The Mini World Cup may be a part of the dim past soon, such is the hurly burly hectic world of international cricket. But it would continue to rankle the mind. Who knows for how long?