Agnijit Sen in Australia
I distinctly remember my childhood winter mornings. Being a true Bengali, I have grown up witnessing winter celebrated in Kolkata. Post the Durga Pujo, there’s a sudden nip in the air. You start taking out your sweaters and blankets from the cupboard. The fan regulator comes down gently, day by day. The days start getting shorter, nights longer. Ofcourse, there’s the festivities too. Theatre festivals, film festivals, picnics, circus, zoo – everything start rolling in one by one. The huge Park Street carnival on Christmas eve, New Year’s Eve, the smell of the Christmas cakes add to the tradition as the city braces itself for another long year. Oh, I forgot to mention the most important thing, getting up in the mornings! It used to be a tug of war between me and my favourite blanket.
Except on one occasion. India’s tour Down Under. I used to wake up at the crack of dawn, quietly step out into the living room, put the TV on and mute the volume. I can say with pride and honour that despite me yawning innumerable times, I haven’t fallen asleep once till date. The adrenaline and the excitement used to egg me on. The sight of the fast bowlers steaming in, the batters searching for runs, the usual chit chat from the slips, oh it used to be my childhood. Post the first two sessions, when the household was up, I used to turn the volume on. And there came the icons, Sir Richie Benaud, Tony Greig, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle and other voices of the game.
In the middle of all these, years passed. The starry eyed, over awed, yawning kid grew up, got enrolled in college, passed out and landed his first job. The Down Under tradition remained constant though. The MonkeyGate, the 4-0 loss, the resurrection under Virat Kohli, the sheer joy of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee getting replaced by Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma in terms of steamrolling the opposition, the covid hit 2020-21 series, unbelievable turn around under Ajinkya Rahane and Ravi Shastri – the kid survived it all.
22nd December, 2024, that kid arrived in Melbourne with the purpose of witnessing the Boxing Day Test and The New Year Test in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This time, the kid would sit in the press box and analyse the game purely from a journalist’s perspective.
For the Latest Sports News: Click Here
The feeling of seeing the colossal MCG for the first time, the crowd on The Boxing Day, the roar of 88000 people when the first ball was bowled, took my breath away. I was doing my shows, writing my column, sitting in the press box with a stern, professional face. Somewhere, deep in my heart, the little boy was fascinated, delighted, starstruck. The likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Bumrah coming for practice and passing by me with my trembling hands desperately trying to stay calm in order to capture the visuals, broadcasting giants Mark Nicholas and Adam Gilchrist having lunch in the press box, and above all the best view of the playing 22 yards. Phew! The childhood refused to give way to a struggling journalist.
I managed frantically, trying my best to keep up with my profession. I believed in my team, team India, knowing that there’s a thin chance in the final Test. Maybe Kohli will turn back the clock one final time, maybe other bowlers will step up too, maybe Gautam Gambhir will smile at the end of the Test, maybe…
Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. It’s harsh, ruthless and sometimes heart aching too. Australia brushed aside a struggling Indian side to regain the Border Gavaskar Trophy after 10 long years of wait. For a kid who has seen through the 4-0 loss, it should not have been a heartbreak anymore. But you know something? This heartbreak was personal and I have no clue why. After the completion of the Sydney Test, I came back to my apartment and quietly lied down for an hour. The sense of that personal loss, the feeling of the childhood winter melancholy was so overwhelming that it didn’t let me sleep.
I am a fan of Shah Rukh Khan. In one of his films, ‘Fan’, SRK had a dialogue in Hindi which said – ‘Wo sirf star nahi, duniya hai meri. Rehn de, tu nahi samjhega.’ This translated into English as, ‘He is not only a star, he is my entire world. Let it be, you won’t understand.’ I couldn’t have summed up my feelings any better. Being a Bengali, I know exactly how it feels when you see the lone pradeep (diya) burning after the idol immersion (bhashan) on Bijoya Dashami, the last day of the Durga Pujo. The fanboy felt the same as he left the Sydney Cricket Ground on 5th January, 2025.
Also Read: The SCG Pink Test: Where Cricket Meets Compassion and Courage