When a Cricket World cup match is going on and India is one of the teams playing "NOTHING ELSE MATTERS". And adding to the expectations and excitement of the nearly 1 billion Indians, M S Dhoni's team did the honors of bringing a much awaited glory to our country. When Mahi hit the mighty six to the last ball of the match and watched it zoom past the yelling, shouting, exhilarating crowd in the stadium, all of the people at homes, pubs and streets jumped from our seats and were already celebrating. The best part was that my mom (who was sleeping) woke up exactly at the time Dhoni and Yuvraj gave each other the "victory hug". A procession, headed by all the people and the kids from the nearby slum, who were painted in the tri-colours passed by my home and I so wanted to join them. However, it was late in the night and I decided it would be awkward to even ask mom to let me join them.
Now, there is no need to describe the felicitations that our players received and how the people all over India celebrated in the coming days. When India normally wins a series abroad and come back, they get a terrific welcome and one can only imagine the scenario when it comes to winning the WC, that too after such a long, long wait. Cricket in India, like everyone else says is "Religion". But, I think it is much more than that. It is an obsession. It is uniting of all the different kinds of people from different classes, different places and sometimes of people who may never have seen each other before, to judge the players, like they themselves have been playing international cricket for the past two decades, to discuss how the bowler could have otherwise dismissed the opposition, to criticize how "our" players are always so horrible at fielding and chasing a target and at the end of the day,watch how these 11 players keep up the pride of their nation. It is not surprising to watch a group of people on roads outside the stores of 'electronic goods' or any other shop where a television is telecasting the cricket match India is playing. No one actually looks at it as a sport. It is funny how we expect our team to win a series or match every other time. In a game, one has to win and the other has to lose. Yet, like sentimental Indians, we are concerned with how we want the team to win every single match and make us happy.
Take any random situation in which the team has lost the match. The entire country is in an uproar. The news channels, whose sole hunger is "news", telecast 10 times a day how they lost the match and how in different places, our players are being referred to as. The artistics make fancy dolls of the cricket players and start to beat those with their shoes. I still remember the time when India had disqualified in the first round itself in the 2007 World Cup. In some North Indian city, the people put in a line photos of all the team members, put kumkum and flowers to each of the photos and started to bang slippers in front of those photos. On the top was a placard which read "Haar ke sardaar" and somewhere else, they referred to those 11 people as eunuchs!! Do they really deserved to be so humiliated? I understand our hearts broke much more than that of a 'just-dumped-by-his-girlfriend' lover, but we should understand, how those 11 people may have felt about the loss. It is a major loss for them, in their career. Many of them may even be ousted from the national team and some others may not even get to play another world cup. It is THEIR profession and if we as spectators feel so bad about them losing, could we just step into their shoes for two minutes and understand what they are going through? Think about it!
Considering the avid feelings of Indians towards cricket, the BCCI came up with a master plan to make money-the Indian Premier League, famously known as IPL. Basically, IPL is a platform where-in players from different countries participate in a series of matches (something similar to EPL) and the points, each term earns are tabulated. Finally, the top teams compete against each other and the ultimate winner claims the title. The start of the whole IPL thingy revolves around "buying" players for enormous amounts, that is invested by a couple of rich mortals, for whom money is overflowing. This class of people mainly includes actors and businessmen. So, at the end of the day, everyone's happy. The new guys from the Ranji/India-A Team get a chance to showcase their talent and make a little extra sum, the international cricket stars can add more wealth to their already loaded carts and all they need to do is bang some 6s and 4s and the investors and BCCI make more than needed profits through sponsors and stadium tickets. But, the international cricket is not happy. It tires the players, who are shuffling between the IPL matches and their regular series(My immense respect to Michael Clarke). However, in this entire story, the ones whom I most sympathise with are the spectators! I don't understand what's the feel behind supporting a team, that consists of foreigners(apart from Indians) and shouting slogans for them. We used to wait for them to get dismissed and scold them when they used to bowl our players out, in a series against their country a few months back, remember? You can think I am a spoilsport for saying this, but honestly, that's how I feel.
Apart from everything else, IPL has ruined the beauty and value of cricket. In a 20 over match, all that matters is how well a player hits 4s and 6s; the players' mettle or talent is not tested. It has also wrecked the enthusiasm of people in test matches and ODIs (which is why someone like Sachin doesn't play well in IPL). For that matter, I don't see cricket in IPL-there is no heartbeat, there is no feel, there is no desperation..the only thing that's there is-money and too much of cricket and hungry Indians never get enough of watching more and more cricket. The only reason I would acknowledge IPL for is the players from the local teams getting a golden opportunity to enhance their skills and may have a shot at getting selected into the national team, without having to suffer dirty politics.
As for me, I have deeply loved the Indian Cricket team from the past 10 years and shall always love them, no matter where I go. Yes, they may be pathetic at times, for ex. in their on-going tour to Australia, where they lost the test series 0-4 and are failing miserably in the tri-series matches. But, I think of the times when two players at nearby spots clashed and hurt each other terribly, on the field to take a catch, just to dismiss the ferocious batsman who has settled on the crease for the past two hours, I think of the times when they have hurt themselves terribly in leaping to the crease to take a run and avoid getting out because they want to add their share of effort to the score and because their team needs them. I think of the times when they frisk while fielding to stop the opposition from scoring a damn SINGLE! I think of the times when they had made us all so proud and given us so much happiness by winning. I wish for the commercial cricket to disappear altogether, so we can go back to the times when we would wait to watch the test match or are willing to spend 3/4th of our day watching the 50 over matches. For me, nothing beats the feeling of watching a player of the 'Indian Cricket team', hit a shot and watch the ball go high above the field, past all the players on the field and... is it a six or is he out?...wheee, amidst the crowds. Yes! Woohoo, its a SIX!
