Stage: The Aussie tour of India (2004) is finally over. The improbable has happened. The Final Frontier has fallen to a bunch of the very best warriors. India lost the series but took the edge from the Aussie bite by winning the last test match (Mumbai) on a ?controversial? pitch. Although the Aussies won the series, the team and a certain Mark Waugh could not leave without cribbing about the pitch. Come, let us listen to the legend of the fallen defenders of the Final Frontier.
Jacob:
Friends, Cricketers, Countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Indian Cricket, not to praise it;
The final frontier has been breached
The defeats that these men suffer live after them,
The victories are oft interréd with their memories,
So let it be with Team India?.
The First Test in Bangalore
Hath shown you that Indian batsmen played poorly:
That it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath India paid for it?.
Kumble got his 400th victim
And young Clarke became a debut centurion.
But India was swept away by the Aussie pacers. (Ind - 246 & 239)
Here, under leave of Waugh and the rest,
(For Waugh is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
The Second Test in Chennai
Hath re-ignited Sehwag’s ire:
That it were so, it was raining runs,
And raining it was that drew the edge from it?.
Shane Warne broke the world record,
Kaif and Parthiv scored freely.
But Damien Martyn came out to the Aussie rescue
Here, under leave of Waugh and the rest,
(For Waugh is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
The Third Test in Nagpur
Hath shown you the Brutus in our pitch:
That it were so, it was a treacherous display,
And treacherously hath India paid for it?.
Without the services of Ganguly, Pathan and Bhajji
Team India faced the Aussie chin music on a Melbourne-like track;
Then stumbled and fell like a house of cards.
The Aussies had just conquered the Final Frontier.
Here, under leave of Waugh and the rest,
(For Waugh is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
The Fourth Test in Mumbai
Inspired a cry against a ’doctored’ pitch:
If it were so, it was a reeling fault,
And reelingly hath Australia paid for it?.
Laxman and Sachin put the attack to the sword
While Karthik and Bhajji churned the turners.
Here, under leave of Waugh and the rest,
(For Waugh is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Team India’s funeral?.
They were my heroes, noble and inspiring to me:
But Waugh says we were weak;
And Waugh is an honourable man?.
This Team hath brought many laurels home to India,
In whose glory did the general public bathe:
Did this in Team India seem weakness?
Whenever the opposition has tried, Team India hath responded bravely:
Weakness should be made of flimsier stuff:
Waugh says we were not sporting;
And Waugh is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Down Under Tour of 2004
They tested us four times on perilously bouncy terrain,
Which we did judiciously pass and not once complain: was this not sporting?
Yet Waugh says we were not sporting;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Waugh spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love them once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to pray for them?
O judgement! Thou art fled due defeat to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason?. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Team India,
And I must pause till it come back to me.