Nostalgia Cam: The Wall shields from the grief

You win some, you lose some. But the advice you get after you have lost goes a long way in determining how you recover from the loss and how often you win.

Sport is a cruel business on days. It’s easy to digest the losses where the opponent outplays you. It’s those where the margin is narrow that hurt the most and linger on for a while. Of course, the stage, the rivalry with the opposition matter too but how close you were to the finish line before destiny dragged you to deny the win is what stays for long.

It’s during one such cruel loss against Mumbai Indians in CL T20, 2010, Virat Kohli found himself devastated, desperately looking for answers as to why losses pinched so much after you’d done all you could. MI had got the better of RCB by only 2 runs. The youngster took the team so close from a seemingly hopeless position with 65 needed from 6 overs. With world-class bowlers like Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Lasith Malinga working in tandem, Kohli almost helped RCB cross the line before faltering at the final frontier.

But to his respite, there was Rahul Dravid around – a living embodiment of calmness. Having seen it all – the joys and the sorrows that the game brings with it, Dravid was the best senior to have around. It’s perhaps one of the most memorable and defining pictures of the RCB 2008-2010 batch. The picture of Dravid consoling Kohli can be looked at as a father figure to Kohli in his moment of grief. RCB went on to win the next game against Lions and qualified for the semifinals with Kohli masterminding the run-chase which earned him the Man of the Match. After all, the advice that you get after a heart-wrenching loss goes a long way in determining how you recover from the loss and how often you win.