The Ways of cricket

The past couple of months and the coming up months have been and will be a blessing for sports lovers. With awesome action promised in a wide range of sports, people have another excuse for gluing to screens and downing gallons of beer.

By the way, the above statements aren't meant for the typical Indian sports lover. The typical Indian fan's love for sports ...err... sport is heliocentric. It revolves around that billion dollar baby called cricket.

I don't need to state what has been stated again and again. Cricket is religion; cricketers are revered, with a certain player amongst them achieving the status of the infallible. The craze is sometimes claustrophobic, so much so that it was actually refreshing to meet someone who neither looked once at the screen showing twenty two men in green battling it out to stay alive in a cup chase nor passed a single, mind you, a single cricket-related comment during the three hour battle. There was a bet though. It was quite interesting that with such cricket infested brains all around us, someone successfully resisted the escapist and usually less painful route of "Religion" conversion. But, I won the bet. :)

The morning papers had totally lost it. Apparently, the ominous clouds overcasting India's world cup hopes suddenly had a silver lining. That sliver of hope, I think, had made the cricketing world mental. From analysts to 'experts' to commentators to ex-captains, everyone was out there giving their valuable opinions to the one-time champions and proving how complex calculations, performance of other teams and application of laws of probability could make India scrape through. The stage suddenly looked so perfectly set for the betting fraternity to keep the cash registers ringing. Surprisingly, India's almost promised premature exit had felt relieving. Not so surprisingly, the sudden flutter almost inconsequential.

But the real show stealer turned out to be the newspaper editor! After dedicating pages and never-ending lines to the above-mentioned, he finally selected Page 4 of the sports edition to give the Indian hockey team some respect for defeating the world champions for the first time in seven years. The respect was succinctly contained within fifteen lines.

Such is the madness. But like I say, there is always a charm in madness.

:)