Sport & the Allure of the Comeback

Sport & the Allure of the Comeback 

Make no mistake about it, the immediate motivation behind writing this piece was the recent masterpiece of an innings handcrafted by the king of his craft, Virat Kohli. It was an innings forged in the most intense of flames - those of pressure and scrutiny, under which many before him have crumbled. In a match against Pakistan, where emotions always ride high, this innings was nothing short of an experience. It is hard to do justice to it with mere words. 

And yet, as this experience unfolded and culminated in that sweet, sweet way, I wondered - why this innings? I cast my mind back to around six years ago. The same player, yet there he was, knocking off centuries every other match and whipping chases akin to this one over midwicket for fun. It was great to watch, sure. Yet, what was it that made me only stupefied back then, and yet emotional and moved today? 

It brings to the fore for me, one of the most alluring, and perhaps most powerful concepts in sport - the comeback. 

Comebacks: Feelgood Fairytales

The reader could well argue that there may not have been much for Kohli to come back from. After all, his numbers during his lean patch would probably have been great for any other average player. For good or bad though, the whammy in sport is that you’re always doomed to be compared to your past self. 

When one is peaking in sport, the talk is always about how much higher they can go, and how much more they can achieve. In the process, one ends up setting a benchmark for themselves to be compared to later in their career. It’s often the case that we see players peaking, and then spending the rest of their careers fizzling out and failing to live up to their own reputations.

A reason why people enjoy sport is that there are clear parallels between sport and real life. Like life, sport is unpredictable with its own set of ups and downs. Like life, there’s often luck involved and sometimes when you’re down, it can seem unfair. And yes, like life, you give yourself the best chance of being on the right side of things if you’re consistently putting in the hard yards. 

When thought about this way, it is natural for comebacks to be the feel-good fairy tales we associate them with being. Comebacks give us belief that even during the darkest of times in our lives, when the diya is about to go out, it is still possible to step up and relight it (felt appropriate for Diwali!). It is for this very reason that while moments of sporting brilliance may cause shock and awe, comebacks are the events that evoke the purest of human emotion within us.

As a case in point, I consider another recent event, that of Sri Lanka going on to win the Asia Cup. Although bittersweet for me as a supporter of the Indian team, I did secretly sport a smile when it all came to be. It is no secret that the mighty Lankan team of yore was a mere shadow of itself in recent years - the era of Sangakkara, Jayawardhane and Malinga seemed like a distant memory. Many, I included, wondered whether there was a way back from the depths they had fallen to. And yet, with all the political and economic mis-happenings in the country recently, the team played their hearts out and perhaps reminded the Lankan people of what it is to hope and smile.

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This is my first experience of writing an article on sport. And yet, writing this felt anything but that - the ways life and sport unfold are too closely interwoven for that. Comebacks are an integral part of all sports, and ultimately life. Roger Federer. Yuvraj Singh. Michael Jordan.  All of them are living, breathing examples and an inspiration to us, that it really is never over until we decide it is. Virat Kohli may be the most recent reminder of this alluring phenomenon, but I am willing to bet my (non-existent) hat he won’t be the last.