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Follow UsCan time freeze? Can the entire universe come to a standstill?
We’ll revisit this question later. But for now, I’d like you to put yourself in the shoes of Suryakumar Yadav, when David Miller, at around 11:30 PM IST on June 29 (Saturday), lofted a low full toss from Hardik Pandya towards long-off.
You’re stationed at long-off, the most important position in the field in the death overs, because your captain wholeheartedly believes you’re the best possible guy who the team could have in that spot. You’re placed there because your captain believes your fielding is capable of winning the team the World Cup.
It’s an honour; it’s a privilege. But, equally, it’s a curse. It’s a curse because your chances of becoming a villain are pretty much the same as your chances of becoming a hero.
And, let’s be honest, deep down, every person would rather play it safe in order to not be the villain, than risk it all to be a hero. There is comfort in hiding — in sport, but in life, too.
This full toss, struck by Miller, is coming towards you on the 235th ball of the match. But you’ve already spent 207 of those deliveries — roughly three hours — thinking about how you’ve already fluffed your chance to become a hero, and how you’ve already possibly become a villain.
You entered this match as the second-ranked batter in the world, but, unquestionably, as the best T20 batter in world cricket in the past three years. You entered this match thinking you had finally beaten the ‘big match flop’ allegations on the back of your match-winning 47 against England in the semi-final.
But then, BOOM, you’re back to square one in the blink of an eye. Four balls are all you last in the most important game of your career. And it stings, because you’ve gotten out to a delivery that you’ve been putting away blindfolded for the past three years. A leg-stump half-volley.
Just like that, you’ve once again done the one thing people have been accusing you of for the past two years, which is allegedly ‘fail to show up’ in big games.
This was supposed to be your chance for redemption after the horror show in the 2023 ODI World Cup final. But alas……..
So, anyway, you’ve just spent three hours and 207 deliveries overthinking, dreading what could happen to your legacy in case India end up losing the World Cup.
And then this full toss comes your way.
Now answer this question: can time freeze? can the entire universe come to a standstill?
At this point, it probably did for Suryakumar Yadav.
At this point, he likely just wanted the universe to be on pause forever, never to resume again.
Because who in their right mind would want the next second to play out?
The stakes were, after all, unimaginable. Sure, he had a chance to immortalize himself and become a hero, but that would require him to take arguably the clutchest catch in this sport’s history.
Not impossible by any means, but what’s more likely to happen? Suryakumar taking the greatest and clutchest catch in the sport’s history, or him getting his hand to it, dropping it, or, worse, pushing it for six and becoming a villain for the rest of his life because he’s just cost India the chance to break their 11-year trophy drought?
Even if it’s a 50-50 situation — which it’s clearly not, practically speaking — would you want to be in that situation? When you know that there’s a 50/50 chance of you being haunted and hounded for the rest of your life?
Unlike you, for whom this is a hypothetical situation, Suryakumar had no choice.
He found himself in this very situation. He didn’t have to unpause anything, because the universe unpaused itself after briefly freezing and letting him collect his thoughts.
And so the moment approached Surya.
One scuffed-up, brownish white kookaburra ball, coming towards him from the backdrop of grey skies in Barbados, all set to decide his fate.
No time to react, meaning what he was going to do in the next few milliseconds was going to define his legacy and shape his future.
An hour later, here we are.
India have won a World Cup after 13 years, and Suryakumar Yadav will forever be remembered as the man who made the triumph a reality by taking arguably the greatest catch in cricket history.
