From Chepauk to Gwalior

May 1997, i was enjoying my summer vacation in sultry, sweating summer of North Indian plains in my ancestral village. In those days, TV was a luxurious commodity and electricity was a rarity. My father had a tractor and we used to use its battery to fuel our texla black & white television with shutters. My parents and grand parents had a knack of buying shuttered TVs. My oldest 1983 model 21' Beltek TV was one of the oldest in the entire officers colony of Atherton Mills, Kanpur and was responsible for fueling Ramayana revolution. The more moderate 15' Texla TV fueled the Mahabharatha revolution in my village. Sorry for digressing from the main point (although i want to give my respects to these artifacts as these are responsible for the making of what i am today).

So back to the summers of 1997, India was hosting first of the series of Independence Cups (later Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangaldesh hosted in 1997 and 1998). India started her campaign brilliantly and outwitted the fierce Astle fuelled NZL by Sachin-Sourav openers but Jayasurya single handled punctured the campaign. The last match with Pakistan was a do and die match for the Indians. This match was played at Chepauk on 21 May 1997. Pakistan started his inning and Saeed Anwar did the bulk of scoring, Kumble was taken for a fiercy ride with Anwar hitting three consecutive sixes and Indian bowlers gave the match to Pakistanis in last 5 overs.
India required 328 runs to win in the stipulated 50 overs and like in many more matches Sachin got out in the first overs, Ganguly did his bit of hitting but the load was shared by the fledgling shoulders of Rahul Dravid and mercurial Kambli. India was in the match till 45th overs and ultimately lost it because of so frequent lower middle order collapse. I broke myself into tears. This was the first time, India would not be playing semis/finals, in India. This thought was like a cancer and it continuosly pained me till India defeated Pakistan in the famous final of Dhaka.

Sachin finally erased those tearful memories by scoring world record breaking 200. Now i can remember Saeed Anwar for giving a chance to remember Sachin with more heart. ;)