Energy, not excuses, will help Mumbai More

‘’Losers always have excuses, winners always have energy.’’
Who said these immortal words very recently!
If one recalls, it was great Sachin Tendulkar, a winner all his life, in one of the advertisements aired during the IPL tourney.

Sachin is a prove match winner with loads of energy. And he did play a great knock yesterday worthy of highest accoladess. It was remarkable the way he matched traditional strokeplay with slam-bang format. Pity that Mumbai had to lose despite such tremendous fightback. It was indeed a beautiful game of cricket where the team which held its nerves best in the final stages, won. Yuvraj ‘Jhonty’ Singh kept his cool, and propelled his team into the semis.

That is why one can not understand this sudden rush to blame Suresh Shastri for Mumbai’s defeat. Even before Shastri had delivered each of his judgments as third umpire, the knowledgeable commentators on telly had ‘’agreed in advance’’ with him. They were never shocked by any of his decisions, and if some one gets a shock now (be it Mumbai team management, or just Tendulkar), it can only be termed a case of sour grapes.

Surely, the beauty of that one hell of a contest should not be marred by some unnecessary controversy. With reports of criticism coming from the great man, it can only put the umpires under some tremendous pressure. Something surely not good for the rest of the tourney.

All the three matches yesterday (including the Champions League final between Red Devils and Chelsea) went to the wire. It was a veritable treat from 4 PM on Wednesday to three AM on Thursday. Chennai were Bangalored, Mumbai ran themselves out, and Chelsea were done in by destiny. In all the cases, matches could have gone either way.

In jest, Losers too had energy, and lots of it. Just that they lacked the most important thing needed to win. A little dose of good luck.