Vohra’s view: When sentiments spill over to the field

Bikram Vohra 12:13 02/04/2015
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  • Emotional: Clarke dedicated the win to Phil Hughes.

    Sport and soppiness do go together. There is something endearingly schmaltzy abou winners and flags and the thrill of triumph and the anthem playing for you and the confetti snowing down and the fans cheering.

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    Me, I love being a leaky faucet, it is so uplifting. But better than the giving of the laurel wreath is the distilled emotion and recognition for comrades no longer there, like fallen soldiers in battle, if you believe that sport is a war without bullets.

    There he is, the captain of the newly minted world champions in cricket wearing a black band with PH written on it as he holds the trophy. Michael Clarke acknowledged Phillip Hughes who would have been part of this incredible team if it wasn’t for that tragic and freak November accident on the field.

    Michael said: “I think for everybody in Australian cricket it’s been a really tough few months. Tonight is certainly dedicated to our little brother and our team-mate Phillip Hughes. And we will have one for him when we celebrate tonight.”

    I thought it was one of the most touching and sentimental gestures in modern sport.

    There couldn’t have been a dry eye in the team or in the stands or among TV viewers thousands of miles away.

    I was wondering if the Hughes family was in the stadium. They must have been and indeed so proud their son had such great friends.

    But there was somebody else at the venue whose courage and guts warmed the heart and made you stand up and salute him. Martin Crowe, former New Zealand
    captain, the most recent entrant to the Hall of Fame and dying of double-hit lymphoma, made the trip after a haunting ‘confession’ that it might be his last hurrah, cheering on the players he regards as the “sons I never had”.

    Last hurrah: Martin Crowe is losing the battle with cancer.

    “I will hold back tears all day long. I will gasp for air on occasions. I will feel like a nervous parent,” he wrote, adding it might be the last match he ever watches as the sands run out."

    The Black Caps could not give him the Cup but they gave it their all and then some and let Martin know that his cricketing legacy was in good hands.

    Moments like this count because they signpost the fact that if we never meet again this parting was well made.

    To fight the odds and be the victor, to strive and not to yield, that is what it is all about. You compete to win. That is why I do not understand the new system that is
    manifesting itself at school level these days.

    They have worked out some new formula in which everyone is a winner. This is a global phenomenon and is predicated to the belief that children must not feel like
    they have lost. 

    Ostensibly, it is supposed to bolster the confidence of the lesser endowed. So, everyone in the race or competition gets the same treatment. Happened to a kid in
    our family. 

    I can understand giving everyone a certificate for taking part. That is good. But you cannot give everybody the same trophy or deny the first three cups and medals because at a young age you are conning them… life is not equal, there are winners and losers at every stage.

    One of the bizarre stories I heard was of a child being removed from the race because he was just too good and would have won easily.

    The school authorities said it was not fair on the other kids.

    Just think about the kid’s family, grandparents and all, armed with cameras, totally bewildered by the absence of the child they had come to witness hopefully take the podium.

    The way I see it, there is no point in taking part if there are no winners.

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