EACH TIME YOU LIFT THE CRICKET WORLD CUP-WERE

PROUD TO BE A TRUE INDIAN

Each time you enter the field in your royal robes of blue it
makes the hair of a billion of us stand up in uncanny excitement,
high and handsome towards the sky,
Each time you wave to us from the dressing roomit makes a
billion of us feel that were the most united family ever on
surface of planet divine,
Each time you send the ball whistling past the boundary ropes
it makes the heart of a billion of us leap out of our chests- to
magically blend with you, beat for beat,
Each time you perform your beautifully invincible huddleit
makes us a billion of us feel that India is the strongest nation of
them all, wondrously breathing and alive,
Each time you take those daring catches under the blinding Sun
it makes a billion of us feel that Impossible is really a word
non-existent and in the dictionary of dead fools,
Each time you rattle the opposition stumps with mere disdainit
makes a billion of us instantly gobble the deadliest venom in our
lapslike it was life-yielding honey,
Each time you smile even under the mightiest onslaught around
youit makes a billion of us grit our teeth in determinationto
forever conquer every devil in and around us,
Each time you ease out for lunch and refreshing drinksit
makes a billion of us fervently pray for the most sweetest of your
victory- as you restarted a fresh innings,
Each time you tensely glance towards the miserably overcast
skiesit makes a billion of us exude into inexhaustible pools of
cold sweatlosing our mood for everything else,
Each time you rekindle the atmosphere with your heroic fielding
it makes a billion of us take fresh birth once again and lay all
our inexplicable sorrows to perennial rest,

Each time you collectively charge forward in a blood-curling

appealit makes a billion of us want to enter the soul of the
third umpire and rule every decision in
your favor,
Each time you break records of even the slightest of
denominationit makes a billion of us salute our revered flag, in
honor and glory of your majestically gallant prowess,
Each time you lay injured on the austere turfit makes a billion
of us inconsolably bleed in the innermost of our veinswanting
to be shoulder to each of your cries,
Each time you sportingly shake hands with the opposition even
in face of defeatit makes a billion of us feel that were not at
warbut relishing cricket at its imperious best,
Each time you run down the pitch to perseveringly earn every
invaluable runit makes a billion of us feel the scent of our
sacred motherland drift from youeven though a countless
kilometers apart,
Each time you go for the kill even as the target loomed
impossibly beyond your reachit makes a billion of us feel that
the air around us is our ultimate resuscitating paradise,
And each time you lift the Cricket World Cup for us or even
thought of doing that in your dreamsit makes a billion of us
rediscover our forgotten identities, makes us feel that were
proud to be an offspring of this great Indian soilthat were
proud to be a true Indian.