Seize The Day, Silence The Crowd: Sophie Ecclestone Had A Rave Night Out

“Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost

It's empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over”

Cut to Bengaluru, and you see Sophie Ecclestone at the other end, “WHAT HAVE I DONE?” All she can see in front of her is that stupid eagle swooping down low and flying high, and her first thought inside her mind would have been: I will kill you. 

You could see it in her eyes, you could perhaps see it on television as well; Ecclestone wasn’t one bit pleased by handing the game back to Royal Challengers Bengaluru on a platter after doing all the hard work. 

But the thing about this situation is that it doesn’t just ache; it is almost like a nightmare that turns up over (and over) and over and over again. 

It played out just like how Ecclestone had envisaged. 

Sombre.

Dark.

Bad dream. 

Nightmare. 

She didn’t even want to walk back to the dressing room if given a choice; she could have even knocked a few bats out cold. All those efforts, all those four sixes and one boundary could have just been a precursor to this one bad dream that everyone has: disappointing your loved ones.

Maybe she would have never been able to recover from those tumultuous days. Maybe because whatever happened next only happens in fairytales, it only happens in a world that is made of BELIEF! 

It is that one word which has made Ecclestone the world’s best. It is that one emotion that every damn cricketer around Ecclestone has: belief. The belief is that she will turn up like a rockstar and win the game in the toughest of situations. 

But what she did on February 24 (Monday) against RCB was something better: TURN WATER INTO WINE! 

Or the cricketing equivalent of it: defend nine runs against two of the most destructive batters in WPL history, Smriti Mandhana and Richa Ghosh. None of that overcomplicated chutzpah, just simple plans like a throwback to tennis-ball cricket on the street. Throw the ball as quickly as possible so that your opposition doesn’t have any reaction time. 

It wasn’t just any mantra, it was a winning mantra against a team that had close to 30,000 fans raving themselves up with whatever soda they could gobble up at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. 

It didn’t matter if it was Coke, Sprite or the desi-masala soda; all you wanted was to hype yourself up to the sugar rush. If you could smuggle stuff from outside, you would have injected yourself with whatever possible to send a rush to your brain. 

But as it turned out, the real head rush was out there in between the 21 yards. 

It was that clash between Ecclestone and the two batters. You know that saying ‘cat and mouse’, it was almost like that, but just say with almost 30,000 people watching it with their eyes glued. All those fans wanted was a good night’s sleep after such a long night. 

For that to become a reality, between Smriti and Richa, they needed nine runs, or like the crazy fans inside Chinnaswamy Stadium would go, ‘Beke Beku, Sixer Beku,’ but what happened out there was far away from that. 

Ecclestone seized the day. She proved how all of those talks of how her form was waning, how she was the most ‘unfit’ cricketer out there, and how everyone now knows what she’s up to was all just FAKE. 

She went out there and did the most ECCLESTONE THING POSSIBLE.

Clutched it from the jaws of defeat. Clutched it from the jaws of defeat in front of all those 30,000 fans who were gobbling the soda; they choked the soda just like how their batters had choked a run chase in the super over. 

Ecclestone stood like a 90s villain. 

The only things missing were a villainous smile and Synyster Gates absolutely solo-playing with his guitar. Okay, well, maybe Ecclestone’s 19-ball 33 that got us here in the first place was as Synyster as it gets? 

“Can't keep calm, that's the way we are going to play,” even someone as calm as Jon Lewis can’t anymore. 

None of the 30,000 humans were really enjoying it, but you know how much Ecclestone would have LOVED THAT SOLO PIECE OUT THERE!