The last time I watched a live cricket match was in 2003. That was the final of the World Cup. I watched that game at a Bangladeshi restaurant in New York, along with about 30 others Indians and one Australian. I watched in hope for a few minutes as Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath appeared charged up. You know what happened next. Around 7.30 am, after the Australians had slaughtered the Indian bowling (or whatever it was), I decided to go home and get some sleep. I haven't watched a live match since then.
Since I am in New Delhi in November, I did think about watching the ODIs between India and South Africa. I was at home in time for the first, which never took place because of rain. I wasn't before a television for the second and am glad I didn't make the effort.
After spending thousands upon thousands of hours on cricket, I may have finally kicked the habit. I think a lot of that has to do with environment.
In New York, you don't have panwallahs with transistors blaring commentary or autorickshaw drivers who update you on the score. You don't get into office or meet friends and get into fevered analyses of games, parsing every play, every ball, every shot.
It's all about the atmosphere. When people around you think of cricket as an insect similar to a grasshopper, you somehow lose the thrill. When you explain that it's also a sport, their eyes tend to glaze over and they move on to more exciting topics such as matzo balls.
Cricket was once big in the United States. That is, in the 19th century. Now, even lacrosse is a far more competitive sport than cricket is there. Like the sports Americans salivate over - baseball, football (their grotesque version of rugby), hockey (the sort on ice played with a puck) - cricket is certainly not a global game.
Unlike, say football, the real thing. When the World Cup came around this year, you could watch every game live. Late night hosts like Jay Leno brought Zinedine Zidane's headbutt into their acts. The New York subway was filled with people wearing the jerseys of their teams - Brazil, England, Italy, France, Spain, any you can think of (I may even have spotted one adorned in the colours of Ghana). There were arguments in elevators between Germans and Russians.
The sports pages of newspapers such as The New York Times were dedicated to the World Cup. When it comes to cricket, I have seen perhaps less than six references in three years. Among them, an opinion piece by a Harvard professor (who is originally from the West Indies), an article on the ball-tampering episode in the last series between Pakistan and England, a photograph of a series between India and Pakistan in the context of peace-building measures in South Asia. Not much else.
So, I can claim to be cured of the cricket bug. Or can I? Why then am I excited about the exploits of Hyderabad wonderkids Mohammed Shaibaz and B Manoj? Why am I paying so much attention of the sports pages here? I hope I haven't been infected again otherwise I'll end up watching every matched of the next World Cup in the West Indies. Damn! first published:November 24, 2006, 16:16 ISTlast updated:November 24, 2006, 16:16 IST
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Let me admit: I was once a cricket junkie. I needed my regular 22-yard fix. No more.
The last time I watched a live cricket match was in 2003. That was the final of the World Cup. I watched that game at a Bangladeshi restaurant in New York, along with about 30 others Indians and one Australian. I watched in hope for a few minutes as Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath appeared charged up. You know what happened next. Around 7.30 am, after the Australians had slaughtered the Indian bowling (or whatever it was), I decided to go home and get some sleep. I haven't watched a live match since then.
Since I am in New Delhi in November, I did think about watching the ODIs between India and South Africa. I was at home in time for the first, which never took place because of rain. I wasn't before a television for the second and am glad I didn't make the effort.
After spending thousands upon thousands of hours on cricket, I may have finally kicked the habit. I think a lot of that has to do with environment.
In New York, you don't have panwallahs with transistors blaring commentary or autorickshaw drivers who update you on the score. You don't get into office or meet friends and get into fevered analyses of games, parsing every play, every ball, every shot.
It's all about the atmosphere. When people around you think of cricket as an insect similar to a grasshopper, you somehow lose the thrill. When you explain that it's also a sport, their eyes tend to glaze over and they move on to more exciting topics such as matzo balls.
Cricket was once big in the United States. That is, in the 19th century. Now, even lacrosse is a far more competitive sport than cricket is there. Like the sports Americans salivate over - baseball, football (their grotesque version of rugby), hockey (the sort on ice played with a puck) - cricket is certainly not a global game.
Unlike, say football, the real thing. When the World Cup came around this year, you could watch every game live. Late night hosts like Jay Leno brought Zinedine Zidane's headbutt into their acts. The New York subway was filled with people wearing the jerseys of their teams - Brazil, England, Italy, France, Spain, any you can think of (I may even have spotted one adorned in the colours of Ghana). There were arguments in elevators between Germans and Russians.
The sports pages of newspapers such as The New York Times were dedicated to the World Cup. When it comes to cricket, I have seen perhaps less than six references in three years. Among them, an opinion piece by a Harvard professor (who is originally from the West Indies), an article on the ball-tampering episode in the last series between Pakistan and England, a photograph of a series between India and Pakistan in the context of peace-building measures in South Asia. Not much else.
So, I can claim to be cured of the cricket bug. Or can I? Why then am I excited about the exploits of Hyderabad wonderkids Mohammed Shaibaz and B Manoj? Why am I paying so much attention of the sports pages here? I hope I haven't been infected again otherwise I'll end up watching every matched of the next World Cup in the West Indies. Damn!
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