Of Cricket

I remember a brief little discussion with one of my friends who happened to be a very good opener and before succumbing to Engineering was a league match player for Hazaribagh. I used to like watching his game. We had a great discussion about the ICL being introduced and how it was a novel concept wherein little known cricketers were to get there due. We had taken the example of Venu Gopal Rao and Ambati Raydu. Little we knew that India will have IPL and Pandeys, Pathans Tiwaris  Jadjejas and Ashwins will emerge. Players would earn crores even eithout getting selected to Indian Cricket Team.

And by the time Chennai Super Kings won the third IPL we thought 50-50 over was to die. Test cricket had and will have its followers. Most of urban Indians were switching loyalty to English Premier League and soccer followed by WWE was becoming the number one sports to be viewed. But again we were missing our fact. India is where bharat lies and bharat lies in mufassils. Cometh the crisis for ODIs and cometh the World Cup in Indian subcontinent. The trp has been soaring and would reach its acme on March 30, 2011 when India clashes with Pakistan on Semi Final.We thought so with films also. No doubt multi plex movies have their own share. Two weeks of release and house full 10 shows in multiplex makes a film hit. But then came dabbang which aimed at mufassils and showed us what makes it to be a movie with pan Indian appeal.

Coming back to cricket what makes it a sport followed so widely? In a discussion when World Cup Soccer was doing its round last year the same question was discussed why are other sports not so famous in India? Rahul Bose who visits each of the stadiums where our matches are held recently remarked is it  not amazing that Indians can actually learn the technique to spin the bowl or swing it late or reverse swing it wherein soccer no doubt would require skills but not to the extent cricket requires. He was emphasizing on poor marketing done for other sports in India as compared to cricket. The  argument goes that Cricketers have done good (won trophies ) and not other sports has got so much of laurels as  cricket has brought. I wont buy this argument. For what hockey team has achieved in past cricketers would not even dream of. So why other sports lagged behind and cricket gained from strengths to strengths.

We as an Indians love to worship idols. Cricket though a collective game gives us the opportunity to worship idols. Perhaps you can get three to four idols in same match. Why does not it happen for tennis in that case or why don’t we get idols from hockey? There is another argument that comes up every ball delivered and every shot played can be made as a story. We Indians love stories. Don’t we remember way Sohail pointed the bat towards Prasad and Prasad took his wicket the next ball. Can we forget the six scored by Miandad off Chetan Sharma. Or when Steve Waugh Cried; “ You have dropped the world cup mate “ to Gibbs. Can we imagine that to happen in Hockey ? Cricket teaches patience. It actually does. We Indians like our work to be accomplished in patience slowly step by step and learning through mistakes. These three arguments may not substantiate why cricket is so much loved sports or cricket vs other sports but that’s how I sum it up.

There has also been some changes in the way we are getting our cricketers from small town India. Since India began liberalizing, a burgeoning middle class has found itself with many other ways of spending time.As India has opened up to the world, thousands things have flooded in from outside, competing with cricket for our attention. There is much more on TV to watch, there is internet with all its riches, there are more nifty places to hang out at, who’s got time for bat and bowl. Indeed this is one reason India’s big cities in particular Mumbai does no longer churn out top cricketers like they used to {once a famous cricketer had said its easy to get into national team than Mumbai state team )At the same time, the smaller towns have developed fast enough for opportunities to play cricket to grow, perhaps marred by so many other time pass to compete with cricket. That is why we have Dhonis Rainas Pathans Munafs coming up.

Perhaps things like IPL and this world cup will change the dimensions of cricket once more. And may be its for good of cricket. After reading this perhaps you would say why so much on cricket and to sum it up what C.L.R James said “ what do they know of cricket what only cricket knows”.