Satire Saturday | Sachin Tendulkar’s evil wish means Virat Kohli will never break his record

Satire Saturday | Sachin Tendulkar’s evil wish means Virat Kohli will never break his record

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If you’re an avid cricket fan, like me, of late, you might have been wondering what’s happened to Virat Kohli and why he’s not scoring centuries anymore. Well, I lost my sleep over the same, too, but luckily, on Wednesday, I managed to learn the truth behind his ‘fall from grace’.

It was around 8 PM on Wednesday and I was on a well-deserved break from work, back home, eating my go-to Onion Dosa with ‘podi’. Just when I finished the third dosa and was headed towards the kitchen for the fourth, I get this call from a weird number. “6666666666” the number read. I’m not a devil worshipper by any means, but hey, it did get me excited and curious.

Before I could ask who was on the other side of the call, there’s this deep, grumpy voice which went, “Listen here, kid. I went through your old Facebook posts and figured that you were (are) not quite the biggest fan of Sachin Tendulkar. So I figured you would be the best person for me to confess what I’m about to confess.”  I was baffled and confused and in a panicky voice, I asked “WWWWHAT? WHHHO IS THIS?” for which that person replied, “I AM NO MAN. I’m a force of nature and today I’m going to expose the truth about Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.”

By now, I was convinced that this was a dream but just when I was waiting for it to end, my mom taps me on the shoulder and asks me why I haven’t yet eaten the fourth dosa. By now I was like, “Okay, this s*** is now getting creepy.” But before I could answer my mom, the voice on the phone goes “WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME? I’M BEGGING TO GET THIS STORY OUT.  NO ONE BELIEVES ME.”  Not going to lie, I was fascinated and so I asked the person to introduce themself, to which they replied, “What I’m about to tell you is top secret. I’m Genie. Yes, I go around granting wishes to people and NO, I’m NOT this big blue figure that you see in Disney movies. You can only, and I can’t stress this enough, ONLY communicate with me through your mind. I DO NOT physically exist in this universe.” 

Genie had hit the right notes, for I’ve always been a fan of supernatural and paranormal stuff ever since my childhood. Don’t believe me? I’ve a bunch of “Urban Legends” videos on YouTube. You can check them out. Anyway, less on that and more on the incident. I immediately bought the story, but I was just paranoid about one thing, so I clarified, “Could I refer to you as a ‘he?’.  Given you’re not a human and in today’s world where there are close to 85 gender pronouns, I’m always scared that I might get sued you know.”  My question invoked a smile from Genie, who went, “You can call me whatever the f*** you want, please just listen to my story.”  Fascinated and overwhelmed, I turned the recorder in my phone on and asked the genie to narrate the story. And so he began.

“Do you remember watching Sachin’s Desert Storm live, kid?,” he asked me, to which I replied, “Obviously not. I was barely 3 years old back then. I have obviously watched the highlights and heard stories about it, though.” I then went on, “But what does the Desert Storm have to do with anything?” to which the Genie started narrating his long and sad story. I won’t be getting into the details, but long story short - the stars aligned and Sachin, somehow, managed to spiritually connect with Genie, who, that day, was present in Sharjah. And so he took me through his conversation he had with Sachin.

“I made it clear to Sachin that he would get three wishes and three wishes only - for the rest of his life. I also warned him that should he not be serious in any wish and try to make a joke out of it, I will punish him.” So I asked him, “Did you ever punish him?,” for which Genie replied, “Who do you think was responsible for Sachin being accused of tampering the ball?,” I was stunned. He went on, “It was in Port Elizabeth in 2001 and that cheeky bugger, despite my clear warning, had to audacity to ‘wish’ for Sourav Ganguly to get some reverse swing on Day 1. I was insulted and I had to do the needful. Hence, I dealt with it my own way.”  He was not done yet. He added, “He was s*** scared with the punishment that it wasn’t until 2011 that he decided to use his first wish. He did not even wish for an injury-free career, you know. That’s how scared he became.”

A part of me thought this was someone playing a prank and it was a load of b****s***,  but a part of me wanted to sit through and listen to the story. So I ditched the fourth dosa, washed the plate and my hands and asked Mr.G to elaborate on the story further. “So, when did Sachin use his first wish then?,” I asked. “It was the 2011 World Cup,” he said, to which I replied, “Did he wish to win the World Cup?”.  Mr.G giggled and said, “Didn’t I tell you he was scared? He was anxious that I might outrightly reject that wish, so he basically used it in the most desperate of times.” 

“Remember the semi-final against Pakistan, when Saeed Ajmal trapped him in front with the score 75-1?,” he asked, to which I responded, “The DRS decision, yeah? What a masterstroke it was. What a move it was to review it.” By now, the Genie was in stitches and almost in a mocking voice, said, “Oh come on, kiddo. You seriously think that would have gone to miss leg-stump. YOU SERIOUSLY THINK SO? There was only one way it was ever going to be given not out.”

Things started making sense now. He further elaborated, “With seconds left on the clock, he turned to me. He pleaded, ‘Genie, I wish for my wicket to be overturned. I have reviewed the decision. PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. PLEASE’ he pleaded. I had two options - to either tamper with the bowling crease, making it look like Ajmal had bowled a no-ball, or to tamper with the DRS. I chose the latter, because a no-ball would mean a bowler has erred, but a successful review would mean Sachin was a genius. Even you called it a masterstroke now, didn’t you?.”

I connected the dots and everything made sense. Even I’d wondered for long how that ball could go on to miss leg-stump; It looked dead to the naked eye. Anyway, Mr.G then spoke to me about a lot of stuff about Sachin, all of which were irrelevant to the story and which I won’t be revealing. And then he finally touched upon the topic of Sachin’s second wish, which came on the eve of India’s Asia Cup match against Bangladesh in 2012.

“Genie, I’m tired. I’m tired of failing over and over again and I’m tired of chasing that goddamn 100th hundred. We are playing Bangladesh tomorrow and I honestly, won’t get a better opportunity. Could you please, please ensure that I somehow get to my 100th ton tomorrow? I DON’T EVEN CARE IF THE TEAM LOSES.” Sachin apparently told Genie. And Mr.G obliged. Perhaps, Sachin could have chosen his words better, for India did actually end up losing that match. He wish got fulfilled, nevertheless.

Days, months, years passed by and there was no sign of Sachin turning to Mr. G. The Little Master even hung up his boots in 2013. But just when Genie thought that Sachin was a generous man who was in fact never going to use up his final wish, he got a call on March 9, 2019. 

“So I was taking a nap and I get a call from Sachin, who goes, ‘Hey there, Mr. G. It’s been a long time since I caught up with you and to be honest, I was wishing and hoping to never get in touch with you again. But it seems like I’m destined to exhaust my third wish’ and I thought to myself, ‘Ah, what can he wish for? He is, after all, a man who has retired. Some financial help, maybe?’. But little did I know that he had completely something else on his mind.

“So Sachin goes ‘I really, really, REALLY did not want to make this call or wish, but if there’s one thing that I value the dearest, it’s my legacy. And my legacy is defined by my records. I have stayed patient and waited anxiously for this long but I think time is running out now. The trigger needs to be pulled.’  I instantly sensed something was wrong. There was way too much guilt in his voice and I could just feel that he had an extremely despicable, immoral wish up his sleeve.

So, after a long pause, after several stutters, he goes ‘I want you to stop Virat Kohli from scoring more ODI centuries than me. I don’t care about the Tests. He’ll never cut it there. But the ODIs? I’m scared, my friend. This madman has scored 14 hundreds in his last 37 innings and although I pretend to be happy for him on the outside, I’m literally dying inside. You need to do something about it.’  My heart stopped for a second. I never thought Sachin was capable of doing what he did, but that’s human beings, for you.”

It felt like my world had turned upside down. I did not know how to react. I went ahead and quickly checked the numbers and post March 8, 2019, Kohli had scored just two tons in 22 innings. “But why those two hundreds?,” I asked Genie. “I might not be human, but I do have some compassion. I did not want to break Virat all at once, so I gave him those two tons against the Windies. In fact, Sachin even called me up after Kohli’s century in Port of Spain and asked me what was going on. He panicked, the little master. He wanted some reassurance and yep, that is the very reason why Super V does not have any tons in his last 9 innings - all his ODI innings post the Port of Spain ton, to be precise.”

He did not stop. He gave another interesting revelation. “Sachin called me a couple of days ago and was really happy with how things were panning out. He, in fact, even went on to reveal how he was extremely paranoid when Alastair Cook was scoring those tons and said that he almost used his third wish on Cook back in 2012. ‘Thank god I saved up the wish for Virat, eh?’ he even joked about it.”

By now, I could barely speak. My mind was fed with so much information that I struggled to keep up with reality. Anyway, I had the energy for one final question, “So are you telling me that Virat will never get to 50 ODI tons?”.  “Of course, kiddo. I’m sorry to break your heart. India might win every match there is from now. Hell, Virat might even pocket every accolade there is in the sport, but he will never, ever get to 50 ODI tons. Let us just call this ‘The Sachin Curse’.”

And those were his last words. “The Sachin Curse”.  Mr. G hung up the call abruptly, but in the 30-minute conversation he had with me, he turned my perception of life - and cricket - around completely. This would also, perhaps, be the first and the last time I would ever be happy to ditch eating a fourth dosa to get on a phone call.  

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