Catch your breath. Settle your heart. Calm your nerves. And soak in it. Let it wash over you. Luxuriate in the feeling. Bask in your good fortune, whoever you are and wherever you are: you have just had the ride of a lifetime. Sport doesn't do much better than this: this is beyond special, beyond the imagination, beyond dreams. As sports fans we live for days such as these, when hopeless odds are beaten, when the unimaginable is achieved, when new heroes emerge and when history is scripted.
And India, what do we say to you? All through this magnificent series you have tugged at our hearts. Now you own them.
Faith, courage, belief, grit, character, spirit - in the context of the cricket at least, you have raised the bar for these words, which are often worn from overuse. Not only have you - and I do not use these words lightly - created the greatest moment in India's Test history, you have provided a glorious hurrah to the most epic, the most layered, form of sport known to us.
Test cricket is life itself: not only is it a game of the highest skill, it is also a test of endurance and adaptability, patience and courage. There is the toil, ball after ball, session after session, day after day. You can glide on the waves only if you have the heart to weather the storms. There is heartbreak and there is redemption: Test cricket always gives you a second chance. How well India forged steel from the debris of Adelaide, numerically the lowest point of their Test history, with their captain and best batsman, and one of their strike bowlers gone.Catch your breath. Settle your heart. Calm your nerves. And soak in it. Let it wash over you. Luxuriate in the feeling. Bask in your good fortune, whoever you are and wherever you are: you have just had the ride of a lifetime. Sport doesn't do much better than this: this is beyond special, beyond the imagination, beyond dreams. As sports fans we live for days such as these, when hopeless odds are beaten, when the unimaginable is achieved, when new heroes emerge and when history is scripted.
And India, what do we say to you? All through this magnificent series you have tugged at our hearts. Now you own them.
Faith, courage, belief, grit, character, spirit - in the context of the cricket at least, you have raised the bar for these words, which are often worn from overuse. Not only have you - and I do not use these words lightly - created the greatest moment in India's Test history, you have provided a glorious hurrah to the most epic, the most layered, form of sport known to us.
Test cricket is life itself: not only is it a game of the highest skill, it is also a test of endurance and adaptability, patience and courage. There is the toil, ball after ball, session after session, day after day. You can glide on the waves only if you have the heart to weather the storms. There is heartbreak and there is redemption: Test cricket always gives you a second chance. How well India forged steel from the debris of Adelaide, numerically the lowest point of their Test history, with their captain and best batsman, and one of their strike bowlers gone.