Bhakti

The very first draft of this poem was written the morning after the quarter-final by Krishna Khandelwal, a deeply poetic and dangerously devoted cricket fanatic, and one of the main people here at BlueFever.

It started as a conversation about a crazy match. Which turned intense. The conversation became a reckoning — we understood that the poem could not be contained as a social media post. It was a commandment. And that is where it all began: the idea of God’s Own Plan.

Some stories do not begin on the field. They begin in silence, in selection announcements that never carried your name. Sanju Samson had lived that silence longer than most — good enough to be called, never certain enough to stay.

This World Cup was no different, at first. Named in the squad, left on the fringes. A dismal T20I series against New Zealand, 46 runs in five matches, had already planted doubt everywhere. Then a brutal Super 8 encounter laid bare the fragility of India’s batting order. The gaps had emerged. The window had opened. Sanju got the call.

The air was thick, as if the pitch itself knew something the scorecards did not. Sanju was pulling on his gloves — not with desperation, but with the calm of someone who had long ago made his peace with the waiting.

A late cut so elegant it seemed almost accidental. A pull shot so clean it replayed in the mind. He batted the way gifted men do when they finally stop fighting themselves. Loose. Free. Inevitable.

He finished at ninety-seven. Three short of a century — and here is where smaller writing would insert a tragedy. But those who saw the innings knew: this was never about a hundred. He had carried his nation home. The arithmetic was incidental.

As the highlights ended in our studio, there he was — kneeling at the crease, arms open, praying. Someone said: “God sent him.” Another: “The saviour from God’s Own Country.” Something crystallised. The threads began to pull together.

Four threads, one sovereign hand. We spent three days — sometimes fractious, always purposeful — making certain we had earned the right to tell this story. Akash Pande, the artist on our team, had already opened his sketchbook before the conversation was over. God’s Own Plan had found its shape.