Oval Dreams

GH rhapsodises

All that was missing was Bella the elephant.

You’ll remember that on the morning of their team’s fateful pursuit of its breakthrough victory on English soil, fifty-four years ago at the Oval, that Indian supporters paraded an elephant borrowed from Chessington Zoo - it was spied by Ajit Wadekar’s team, who took it as an auspice, as it proved.

This time, the omens were more prosaic: the cast of the clouds, the imminence of the new ball, the incapacity of one English batter, and the inspirational Ronaldo tile on Mohammed Siraj’s phone. But it was, again, the fans who filled the occasion with outsize hopes and dreams. Such expressions! Such agonies!