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Two Runs Too Far?

Shakil Kasem
The tension was for many reasons, primary one being locating a venue which has a TV screen showing cricket, any cricket. Tough call in a city where Premier League football reigns supreme.
Chance meeting with Anis A Khan and Ramzul Seraj the previous evening at Bangkok's popular heritage site FOODLAND on soi 5 did throw up a possibility. Incredibly hospitable the two of them being as they are, I was invited for dinner and watch the cricket with them. Catch was they were on the look out for that elusive TV screen as well. Short story short, no dinner, and cricket certainly not as well.
Sukhumvit sois are notorious for being glitzy with neon and gurgling with mischief at the best of times in the evening. Yours truly therefore had to take refuge in trusty Arab owned internet cafe, loud and boisterous African clientele drowning out means of deciphering any informations Cricinfo may have been churning out in timelagged fashion. But, crouched over the screen, in the midst of cacophonic chaos of a multitude of expatriates from several corners of the globe, one actually felt a sense of empathy. Is this how one actually feels in reaching out for news from back where one has come from? For me the need was to know the score of a cricket match, for others it was probably more seriously prosaic and related more to do with aspects of life that had a bearing on friends and family. Any way, united as we were in our single minded quest for knowing all there was to know from back home, my faith and trust in Cricinfo acquired newer heights.
It was not just the outcome of the match, I realised, that was of concern. It was as a temporary Bangladeshi expatriate that I was viewing myself in a foreign land, wanting and willing my country to succeed, a thousand miles away, yet desperate for any existential crumb of comfort that the paid for computer would throw back at me. At a certain point in time, I was convinced we had achieved as a country and a team the status of a respected, and also a dangerous opponent. 236 runs for a final was achievement in itself; it meant therefore we had bowled and fielded well? We had done these and more in the league matches too. So, a thousand miles away, not knowing what the wicket was all about, not giving a damn whether this Pakistani line up had good batters or not, I simply took the easy option; I surmised, not incor-recdy I trust, that this young team of ours knew why they were in the final and were out to win it. In a country, where not much seems to be going to plan, here were a band of brothers who brought the country to a standstill, so all could watch in awe how easy it is sometimes to achieve the impossible.
TWo runs in the end was what separated the historic from the heroic. TWo runs in the end determined the difference between what was, what is and what might have been. But two runs described the countless miles this team has travelled so quickly in the past few months. Let us not delude ourselves into equating this team with our cricket however. This team is on its own, it has found a captain for itself, who carries his weight in the side, and for my money speaks more sense than most other people in the country in positions of consequence. In Shakib and Tamim, the team acquires an aura of combative competence that can take on all comers. Shakib of course is a proven master at such an early age.
Tamim, for the sake of this team needs to understand what is most likely to benefit the team even further. Coming from a good batting stock means getting four fifties on the trot, having the pedigree means being able to convert atleast one of them into a hundred. But the signs are there. Just a question of rounding the corner.
From being the fan to the fanatic is a double edged sword. The nation stood transfixed, men, women and children, those who perhaps would not know which end of the bat a Tamim or an Ashraful (unabashed confession, he is still my favourite) uses, view this team as both a medium and the message. This team stands for valour, dignity in the face of adversity and not just give unmitigated joy to all and sundry. In troubled times such as they may come, murders and
mayhem, hartals, stocks collapsing, loadsheddings and prices spiralling, life throwing more and more challenges at us, let us for a moment stop to think of this team as more than a bunch of young men playing a game. These young men, more than most others qualified for the same in our various capacities, have managed to give this country a sense of oneness and collective pride as a nation, here in Mirpur, and around the world. Wherever word of this has travelled. In Bangkok, a non cricketing destination if ever there was one, I now feel more strongly what it feels, to not being there when history was almost in the making.
Let us but not miss the point. These 2 runs are the most important runs that Bangladesh did not score. But never before in our cricket history have losing a match counted more than a victory.