📢 Namdu
RCB won the IPL last night and it was beautiful
For 38 overs of the final, I was broadly okay.
Yes, I had been ranting in my school group chat from the first over. About how I wouldn’t be able to sit with Punjab (Punjab!) winning the IPL before RCB did. Of the trauma flashbacks from finals in the Modi dome. About Virat’s strike-rate. Livingstone being sent ahead of Jitesh. About Romario’s dropped catch. About Romario’s wicket.
But, I was broadly okay.
Periodic outbursts like these are par for the course when your team is in a final. Especially when they’ve lost their previous three. And especially if they’ve never won before.
Around the 18th over of the Punjab innings, as the win began to appear in sight, the cameras cut to AB de Villiers. And then it all just hit.
It was only right that he was there by the boundary for this moment. The look Virat and he exchanged carried the weight of this 18 year wait.
A circle was closed last night. I didn’t cry when the trophy was sealed. I just felt older.
My family group got on a call moments after the win. It was a natural instinct. Watching RCB games at my grandparents’ place with my cousins is a defining childhood memory. Later, my grandmother sent me videos of the celebrations on the street from her balcony.
Right after, I hopped on a call with my school friends. The same ones who I had watched the traumatic loss in the 2016 final with. “I wish we were all in Bangalore for this,” my friend Adi messaged a couple of balls before the end.
I’d do anything to be back home right now. Especially because outside India, there exists a skepticism towards the IPL. ‘It isn’t even real cricket’ is the look I get from people when I talk about RCB. It’s a reaction I am always baffled by because I have wanted RCB to win the IPL as much as I’ve wanted India to win the World Cup.
RCB is also different to other franchises, purely for the reason that it isn’t one. Its roots in the city run deep in the way those of European football clubs do. Few things stoke the fire in this typically sedate city in the way RCB does. There are no supporters, only zealots.
The fandom is illustrative of the power of collective trauma. RCB have wildly oscillated up and down the table in these 18 years, but their place as the tournament’s Banter Team has been fixed.
The atmosphere at the Chinnaswamy is undoubtedly the best in the country and yet no team has lost as many games at a single venue as RCB have there. On the back of Virat’s historic 971 run-season, they reached the 2016 final that was at the Chinnaswamy. And then, lost.
The next year they put out a promotional video titled Ee Sala Cup Namde (this time the cup is ours) and promptly finished last.
Only one team has scored more 200+ totals than them. No team has been bowled out for below 100 more times than them. There’s a reason my family’s cricket group chat is called RCB Support Group.
It’s maddening to support RCB but it’s never dull. Last season, they lost seven of their first eight games but amazingly won the last six on a bounce to scamper into the playoffs. It was the type of run that made you believe the cup had their name on it.
In a fit of emotion, I ordered the jersey online in the hope that it would arrive before the Eliminator. A couple of my school friends live in London and we decided to watch it together. I left my office early, one of them worked during the game and one took leave! And of course, we completely rolled over.
I found the jersey I had ordered waiting for me when I got home that night.
Delusion is baked into the RCB experience so of course it only took a couple of wins for us fans to begin whispering about Ee Sala. And last night after 18 years, Namda finally became Namdu.
“I’m so happy we could experience this together,” my dad said, as my parents and I shared a group-hug. Sakshi later joined on call as we huddled around my laptop to watch the interview with AB, Kohli and Chris Gayle.
In the aftermath of the win, RCB Director of Cricket Mo Bobat said how the next title won’t take 18 years. Frankly, I don’t care if it comes in the next 80. We can finish last in each of the next few seasons and it won’t matter.
All that fans like myself have wanted is to win it at least once. To be a champion city. And to do it with Virat.
Consumption Corner:
Watch: One of the best Mr.Nags interviews in my opinion.
Read: This NYTimes piece on a group of British men who inhaled Xenon gas to scale the Everest, and the ethical storm their expedition set off.
Listen: This Instagram-discovery from Indian Indie duo Khosla-Raghu.