A love lost, A life gained

When the Silver Linings Shine

Two special men, two special birthdays. First of all, Happiest Birthday to one of the most fascinating and inspiring people I have ever come across. You are one of the most blessed men on this planet Mahendra Singh Dhoni, I will never be able to fully capture or understand your magic. You do make everything sound simple, but there is complexity in simplicity, and you are exactly that. I will always be at the forefront to support you, to love you. Happy Birthday my skipper, my captain. In the words of your cheeku, you will always be my captain. I wish I could relive you in blue again.

Now the second man, our Ganguly Dada. Happy Birthday Dada. Indian cricket has never repaid you for the revolution you brought, the man who injected spine into the ICT. The architect, the tiger, so many words we can use to describe you. It still hurts sometimes how you were treated despite your service but you will always command respect and admiration from anyone who has loved this game. They call you a prince, but to me you will always remain a king who showed us how to conquer fear. I wish I was born earlier to truly witness you.

I have already talked about similarities in their captaincy, I know that. But it will never get old to me that Dada was perhaps the first one to start creating that security for youngsters in the dressing room. And that one decision led to Mahi perfecting the art of nurturing young players, so much that now there are uncountable number of players who have prospered under his wing. Cricket is the only sport which functions like a family unit. The seniors have to nurture promising youngsters, sure how their career goes is in their hands, but it is the senior's job to look out for them, help them, correct them. Without this, we have a number of cricketers in the past who showed incredible talent but just disappeared. You need a kind of temparement in international cricket, you need somebody to have your back and help you build that. These two captains redefined captaincy for India, they didn't just build a team, they made the cricketing fraternity into a giant network of support. Our board sucks, lets all agree, but the bonds and support that players enjoy now was not there like this before 2000. 

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He didn't know how long he slept or what exactly woke him up. Just one second there was complete darkness and the next second his eyes had opened to someone's face two inches above his. He startled and immediately ended up banging their heads together.

"Ow Mahi! What are you doing?" Yuvi's voice filtered through the ringing in his ears as bright spots of pain danced infront of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to swallow the nausea. After he was sure the soup he had had was not going to make a reappearance he hissed angrily back at the idiot.

"What am I doing? What were you doing? Scared the shit out of me," he breathed heavily, his head still throbbing.

"Well you know there is this theory that people wake up if you think hard about them. I was testing it," Yuvi sat down carefully at the edge of the bed and touched his head, "Are you okay?"

"What do you think?" he snarked, opening his eyes just a crack.

Yuvi grinned, Mahi had to be okay if he was being sarcastic, "I think you look like shit, and sound even worse,".

"Why thank you. Learned from you," Mahi mumbled rubbing his forehead. It was already overloaded with sinus, and thanks to Yuvi, nausea seemed to be his new friend too. He sat up slowly, careful to not move too quick. He had gone to sleep, with Dada holding him, Bhai on his other side; and he had woken up to the chaos master himself nearly killing his head. What a downgrade. "Where are they?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Dada and Bhai had some official work, Pajji got a call. They left me incharge,".

"They left you incharge?" he asked incredulously. Yuvraj nodded grinning wider.