I say, let’s find another sport to be crazy about! For as far back as I can remember, everyone I know has been absolute bonkers about cricket. Yours truly included. In the days when ours was still a land of single TV sets, I remember sitting around the tiny black n white set to catch the Indian team in action…. Then came color TVs… and then Sachin Tendulkar became king… and it was around that same time that pigs started flying…
And tell me if you think so too, or maybe it’s just me… but somewhere in the last decade, cricket stopped being the sport it once was. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying the craze is any less. If anything it’s become more of an obsession than ever before. But the game isn’t the same anymore.
You see, around the time that the game was at the peak of its popularity something else happened. Something by the name of Tehelka. It was supposed to be a good thing. And it was, to be honest. But it killed the game for me. For good. Somehow, now no matter how hard they try, however honestly they may play… there’s always this nagging doubt at the back of my mind. A small voice is always telling me “Hmph! This match is fixed”.
What beats me is why whoever may be on the team, seems to perform consistently worse every next match. It’s like they have an inside dare of some sort… as to who can do worse than ever before. They’re breaking records, yes, but somehow they’re starting at the bottom. Worst score, worst partnership, worst bowling performance… and don’t even get me started on the batting line-up… (If I can even dare to call it that!)
The problem is that we’re a very forgiving nation when it comes to this one sport (if I may even dare call it that anymore!) We have short term memory loss of sorts where cricket is concerned. Every time we watch the “men in blue” lose, we curse away and swear never to pin our hopes on the non performance of these losers again. And precisely two days later, we’re all sitting riveted to our idiot boxes, watching yet another match without blinking as many times as it is necessary. Simply so we don’t miss even a nanosecond of the drama unfolding before us. Gawking at the television - a sport second only to cricket.
Come midday and you have hordes of house wives heading towards the idiot box so a certain miss kapoor can make complete idiots of them. Come cricket season and you have an entire nation, never mind otherwise crystallized notions of age/class/caste/creed/gender, making their way towards a TV set. It’s kind of like hibernating, except it’s done with eyes (and mouths) wide open.
Cricket schmiket… lets just give up on it. Once and for all!
And tell me if you think so too, or maybe it’s just me… but somewhere in the last decade, cricket stopped being the sport it once was. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying the craze is any less. If anything it’s become more of an obsession than ever before. But the game isn’t the same anymore.
You see, around the time that the game was at the peak of its popularity something else happened. Something by the name of Tehelka. It was supposed to be a good thing. And it was, to be honest. But it killed the game for me. For good. Somehow, now no matter how hard they try, however honestly they may play… there’s always this nagging doubt at the back of my mind. A small voice is always telling me “Hmph! This match is fixed”.
What beats me is why whoever may be on the team, seems to perform consistently worse every next match. It’s like they have an inside dare of some sort… as to who can do worse than ever before. They’re breaking records, yes, but somehow they’re starting at the bottom. Worst score, worst partnership, worst bowling performance… and don’t even get me started on the batting line-up… (If I can even dare to call it that!)
The problem is that we’re a very forgiving nation when it comes to this one sport (if I may even dare call it that anymore!) We have short term memory loss of sorts where cricket is concerned. Every time we watch the “men in blue” lose, we curse away and swear never to pin our hopes on the non performance of these losers again. And precisely two days later, we’re all sitting riveted to our idiot boxes, watching yet another match without blinking as many times as it is necessary. Simply so we don’t miss even a nanosecond of the drama unfolding before us. Gawking at the television - a sport second only to cricket.
Come midday and you have hordes of house wives heading towards the idiot box so a certain miss kapoor can make complete idiots of them. Come cricket season and you have an entire nation, never mind otherwise crystallized notions of age/class/caste/creed/gender, making their way towards a TV set. It’s kind of like hibernating, except it’s done with eyes (and mouths) wide open.
Cricket schmiket… lets just give up on it. Once and for all!
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