Knight Riders, a bloodbath and the horrors of a fateful night

It’s still sinking in, isn’t it?

The rage, the anger, it’s still afresh, isn’t it? The heart must still be pounding at the rate of knots. The shivers of defeat; the tears flushing down your cheeks as you are blankly witnessing hara-kiri on your TV. If you were in Kolkata, the sound of thunderstorms and the rains must have smashed your earbuds as you tried to gather yourself in gloom and doom.

You are a Kolkata Knight Riders’ fan. Aren’t you? You are the one who waited SEVEN LONG years to see your team play the IPL final. Didn’t you? Chennai Super Kings were ripping KKR into shreds in Dubai 2,000 miles away from Kolkata. Could you stop the carnage? Could you stop the BLOODBATH? On the nights of Bijoya Dashami, could you convince Maa Durga to bless the Knights with superpower?

It’s over, once and for all

As the drums on the last day of Durga Puja made their noises at pandals in Kolkata, Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill were lighting up Dubai. You could see KKR parading with authority. At some corner of your mind, you must be thinking, we can still be counted as the joint second-most successful team with three IPL titles. But then, your heart skipped a beat when the required rate went above ten.

The fateful seventh over, Dwayne Bravo didn’t allow the KKR openers to get away. The horrors were back. Will the Knights be able to make up for the over later? Is this the over that changes the course of the game? It didn’t, but somehow it created a rupture in the batting that later crumbled.

It’s around 10:15, dinner’s hot and yummylicious- tough to single out a word between yummy and delicious when your mom shows her expertise in cooking. Hardly did you know that a special item was ready to be served, COLD. You just put the first piece of chapati inside your throat, and Iyer hits one straight down the throat of Ravindra Jadeja.

Could you feel yourself choking for a while on the small piece of chapati? Take a pause. Nine wickets left in the shed, a World Cup-winning captain to come, albeit out of form. Maybe, maybe, you wished had Andre Russell been there, KKR would have breathed a bit steadily. But then, you were clinging on.

You probably won’t want to remember what happened afterwards. Did you feel loneliness engulfing you when CSK were cock-a-hoop on the fall of every wicket? You probably must be thinking, Chester Bennington was right, ‘I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter’. Did it matter in the end for KKR? Do the world remember who came second?

Gautam Gambhir returning for KKR in a parallel universe

You probably must be trying to draw solace through philosophy and logic. Naaah it’s a just sport, it’s franchise cricket and Shakib Al Hasan was the only one from Bengali community. But how do we shelve the pride and emotions Gautam Gambhir etched in us. He was a Delhiite by birth, but a Kolkatan by soul. How many of you screamed your lungs out for him when he returned to the Eden Gardens after leaving KKR?

For the Knights, he was bigger than Brendon McCullum, even Sourav Ganguly, a hardcore Bengali. Maybe, in a parallel universe, Gambhir was still playing for KKR. Maybe, Robin Uthappa was finding the boundary while donning the Gold and Purple.

Maybe, in a fantasy world, Vayu Raghavan– Tanuj Virwani- of Inside Edge series came and saved the day for KKR like he did for the Mumbai Mavericks. Maybe Arvind Vashisht- Angad Bedi- from the same web-series gave Morgan some words of wisdom.

Maybe, the Knight Riders celebrated with the trophy in hand with Shah Rukh Khan getting a reason to smile amidst the dark phase in his personal life. For the time being, reality is a bitter pill to swallow. The wounds may heal with time, but the scars are here to stay, ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Before the second leg, KKR’s journey in IPL 2021 seemed done and dusted with formalities left. Falling flat on their face, Eoin Morgan and his men screamed haplessly for a helping hand, just like a drowning person with outstretched arms in the middle of the sea. The Knights kept swimming until their last breath with guts and bravery before the death-dealing bullets from CSK gunned them down on the cursed night.

You must still be fuming. Isn’t it? You could do nothing, but see your very own Knights, lying lifelessly in a pool of blood.

It’s still sinking in, isn’t it?