ENG vs IND
3rd ODI, Headingley, Leeds
The series decider kick started at 5pm IST as India and England leveled the series 1-1.
They locked horns in Leeds on this final match to take the trophy home. Having won the previous game against India, England were at the advantage and to add more, they won the toss and put India to bat first.
Meanwhile in Chennai, me and two of my friends were gymming with a busy crowd with literally not enough space to even stretch our full legs for a minute. I kept checking on the scorecard with every interval I could get from the TV placed by the wall.
The Indian batting line-up was no doubt one of the finest in the world, but that day was chaos. Rohit Sharma lost his cool and gifted his wicket after putting a hard one-sided fight. Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli were putting up a nice fight until Dhawan was run out, and then wickets followed. The pitch behaved and Adil Rashid got hold onto it. With dumbbells in my hand, I heard a loud cheer from the TV and so I turned to look what'd happened when I felt a knock on my back.
“Bro, you need those dumbbells?!”
Alright have it.
And, oh! Virat Kohli was clueless to a blinder from Rashid. The off-stump was gone and thus the celebration.
Soon Raina fell an easy prey to the English side.
I only wished I hadn't given off those dumbbells. Now I had to wait.
With all chances of the team literally dying, there was this one man- MS Dhoni who held his head high to give some sunshine. Remember- a busy day at gym, all hopes of winning were dying and then this.
I turned to my friend who seemed to have struggling.
“Not working?”
“Left hand doesn't come along, why?!”
Adil Rashid was torturing the Indian line-up with his sheer brilliance but then his partner at the other end was the one who played the lead role in the act. Moeen Ali turned one towards Dhoni and the ball went on to hit the pads straightaway. There was a loud appeal and all the eyes in the gym turned towards that one TV -yes! The umpire raised his finger and Dhoni was out.
It was, no doubt, a beautiful delivery from Moeen Ali and even Dhoni wasn't surprised by the decision from the umpire. The world knows Dhoni doesn't review without a reason, but that day he had to take the review not because he believed but he knew he was the last hope to the Indian side. There went the half-hearted appeal.
The gym which was earlier so busy happened to halt for some time like there was some kind of a flash mob. The event took everyone by surprise and not a single, I repeat, not a single person was lifting weights. All eyes on the TV!
The Decision Review System came live and our pulses went almost dead.
The ball pitched outside the off-stump (red)
The impact was in-line (red)
There was an eerie tension inside the gym walls before the final card came up- the card that would decide the fate of Dhoni, the card that carried the hope of millions of Indian cricket fans, the card that would send the people back to their routine, and then it came.
Wickets missing (green).
Dhoni survives.
A surge of silent applause erupted and suddenly there was energy in the air. People started giving awkward gestures to each other whilst smiling and then there was my friend whose awkward smile told me he'd had enough of gym that day.
