Page 88 - DENG101_Communication Skills-I

Unit 8: News and Magazine Articles

Yet important as the game was, some felt that there was a sense of anticlimax after the Pakistan Notes
game. “The excitement among people is lacking,” Manoj Kumar, a hotel manager, told the Times
of India.

Not so among the Sri Lankans, who had sidled into the final without the fireworks of the Indian
progress. Captain Kumar Sangakkara pulled no punches when he explained what it meant to a
country even more desperate for international approval after the end of three decades of bloody
civil war: “It means everything. We have come through a very tough period. A lot of people have
laid down lives for our country. In this new future, hopefully we can take home the World Cup,
and that will be even more occasion for celebration.”
Gautam Gambhir, the Indian batsman who stabilised the nation’s innings after the loss of
influential opener Sehwag, was no less compelling when he told a news channel that India had

to win to honour the dead of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai: “For me it will be dedicated to
the people who lost their lives in the 26/11 massacre.”
For India, the desire to be taken seriously by other nations in sport is perhaps more important
than diplomatic point-scoring. Like its neighbour China, it has been unable to translate a mass of
bodies into international sporting success. In terms of international trade, it has come on in leaps
and bounds, yet still it is unable to project that power into other fi elds.
Such desperation for success was reflected in the way many in the country fell back on superstition

in their desire to ensure success. One fan, Ritangshu Bhattacharya, from Delhi, assured journalists
that he would be attempting to tip the odds in India’s favour by defying nature: “I won’t pee in
the entire match… I feel whenever I go to the loo, a wicket falls or India drops a catch.”
Even his stoicism was outdone by one politician from the state of Madhya Pradesh, who stood
from 10am to 10pm during the India-Pakistan match.
In Corrins’, there is no doubt about who should have won: “You have to support the team, don’t
you?,” she said. “We live here, we have to support the local team, however it goes.”
It is 10.45pm, and MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, is hammering the ball to the boundary again. Six

to win, two overs. There are fireworks going off everywhere, drowning out the commentary. India
knows it has won. It is the Pakistan game all over again: victory from defeat, India defi ant.

Six runs, and he smacks it over the boundary. The fireworks explode. In the cities, there is

madness; in the villages, too, people are hugging and screaming. The firecrackers are exploding,
the night a blur of colour. India wins.
(Source: www.guardian.co.uk)
Keywords

Blaring: Screaming
Daubing: To cover or smear with a soft adhesive substance such as plaster, grease, or mud.
Eponymous: Someone who gives his or her name to something
Ignominiously: In a disgraceful manner
Notoriously: Infamously
Rarefi ed: Perplexing, puzzling

Stoicism: The endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without
complaint.

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