Today we lost to New Zealand in the cricket World Cup and a billion hearts are disheartened. It is natural to feel that way. Even I am a cricket buff and felt disappointed at India’s defeat.

However, it is important to remember that our team played very well and topped the league table before the semi final. They lost only one game to England and then the semi final. We had a bad day today and our batsmen failed and so we lost.

I see a lot of negativity in the air. A lot of criticism of our team, especially our batsmen and I think it is unfair. After all the highest run getter was Rohit Sharma so far and he may remain so at the end of the World Cup too. Nobody has hit five centuries in a World Cup so far and it is a world record.

Our fielding has been excellent and consistent right through the World Cup. Our bowlers have done a magnificent job and Jasprit Bumrah is the number one bowler in the world in this format of the game. One defeat should not make us demoralised. After all it is a game and someone has to win and someone has to lose.

Many people have criticised Dhoni during this World Cup. They forget that 47 out of 52 innings in such situations where India was about to lose, he single handedly won the game for us. Today he could not and we end up blaming him. After all he is human too like all of us.

Life is no different. We tend lose our heart by just one failure. It could be poor marks in an academic course or even not getting an offer after a good interview in a job. It is important to remember that life is not over with just one disappointment. We need to get up and bounce back.

Let us applaud our cricketers for reaching the semi finals of the cricket World Cup for the third successive time and let us celebrate their efforts today. I think we have a great team. They have been consistent and have focussed on batting, bowling and fielding. Let us not beat ourselves too much.

Today the better team won the match. Let us give the credit to New Zealand and congratulate them. However, let us not beat ourselves too much. We need to accept defeat with grace and move on to the next big tournament.

It is like learning from kids ( as in the photo above). They don’t give up after one failure. They persevere till they succeed and reach the peak of a mountain.

Similarly in life, we need to accept a failure and move on. Learn from our mistakes but focus on our efforts so that at the next opportunity we will be a winner again.

Congrats team India and our best wishes to New Zealand to win the finals.

S Ramesh Shankar