New Delhi. Sunday night was a night of doom for sports fans. On one hand, while Messi had to save his crown in America, on the other hand, Rohit Sharma landed on the soil of England to save his reputation. Even though the careers of both the 39 year old superstars are at their last stage, both of them had to win their respective battles. Rohit Sharma won his battle but Messi had to return disappointed.
Every big player waits for such a stage, where eighty thousand people are ready to put you on their eyelashes. In both America and London, two champions were seen risking everything to save their reputation from being ruined. The only difference was that one had 90 minutes to prove himself and the other had 7 hours.
Sharma ji saved the reputation at the Mecca of cricket
On Sunday, at the Lord’s ground in London, bathed in open sky and sunlight, another 39-year-old man came out to bat and while fighting his own battle, he answered many questions. Rohit Sharma, India’s hitman knew it was now or never as Edgbaston went in India’s favor where Rohit could only score 11 runs, that too in 21 balls, although the team won the match comfortably. England won in Cardiff, where Rohit was out on 26, the same soft style, which brought the same word to the lips of fans and old friends. Now it was time for the decision to be taken on the ground which the game itself calls its Mecca, the home of cricket, where fame is measured not just by centuries but by whether a person still feels deserving there or not. And Rohit’s inning of 138 runs proved that he can give answers even at this age.
Super-star’s dream broken in America
At MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, a 39-year-old man from Rosario fought a different kind of battle and lost. Lionel Messi, the boy who once seemed too young for the game, now missed out on making Argentina, only the third team after Pelé’s Brazil and the Italy of the thirties, to win their second consecutive World Cup in sixty-four years. Eight goals in this tournament, twenty-one in six World Cups, and three assists in a semi-final where he didn’t even need to score. His silence on the field now also says that this man has nothing left to prove, but everything is still left to give.
sunday was desperate
Messi’s story ended at the end, and he returned from the field dejected. The story of a fan to whom the game had nothing left to give, but still gave it. Rohit’s story: There were 138 runs on the scoreboard at Lord’s on Sunday evening but still his performance was looked at with a strict eye, the same eye that every batsman has to look at after thirty-five. Not what you have done in the past, but what you can do now, on this ball, in this over.
Still, if we look beyond the drama, these two people appear to be much closer to each other than the headlines suggest. The foundation of greatness of both rests on timing, not strength. Messi’s specialty has always been in that half-second of silence that comes before the pounce, in that slow, graceful flick of Rohit which somehow reaches the boundary. At the end of their careers, both have dealt with a body that is no longer as forgiving as before; both have heard the same whispers on their reflexes.
