Moriarty

Since today marks 15 years since that April night in Mumbai, here is something Yuvraj Singh once told Hemant Brar. The kind of story that slips out years later, when the noise has died down. Yuvraj numbers were ordinary before that World Cup: 24 ODIs, 490 runs, 24 Average, strike rate scraping 68. His body was not cooperating. The mind was worse. He was trying his best but Nothing clicked. Then Tendulkar found him. Not to talk cover drives or weight transfer. To talk about why he should won the World Cup. Play for someone who is special for you. Pick someone you owe, he said. Someone you watched as a boy. Play the whole thing for them. Yuvraj went to his room. Dug out a photograph from Nairobi, October 2000. His first game. Tendulkar, playing the on-drive. He took another phoro of himself, playing the same shot. He taped them to his kit bag. In cricket, bags travel. They carry your living. Players call them coffins. Every time he unzipped his kit bag, he saw his childhood staring back. The man he watched through a window. The debt. You know what followed. That roar in Motera, 362 runs, 15 wickets in the middle overs. The man of the tournament. The final, won at last after 28 years. But that is the scorecard. This is the story. Tendulkar had played in five World Cups. He had seen two semifinals & one final that ended in tears. He was 37 at that time. This was his last ride. Everyone in the dressing room understood what hung in the air. Yuvraj played for the man who had given him the game. When Yuvraj hugged Tendulkar after the victory. Both of them wept. The coffin had done its job & debt was settled. The boy had finally carried his hero home.