Our National sport...

Our National sport…

Forget Hockey, our national sport is ‘Armchair Cricket’. It is clearly the most popular sport by a huge margin. Everyone thinks that they are experts.

There are many categories in the followers of this sport…

Nostradamus: He specializes in making bold predictions of which team is going to win or lose or which player will do well or fail. Anyone with a basic knowledge of probability knows that this person is likely to be right half the time. On such occasions he leans back triumphantly and says “Mei na kehta tha…”

The Accountant: He knows exactly how much each player is worth. He also has this theory that the effort will be inversely proportion to the wealth. Example: “Arrey, he is worth over 200 crores, why would he want to score?”

The Mind reader: He has special powers in reading the player’s mind. Example:”He is thinking of Anushka. That’s why he isn’t concentrating”.

The Bhakt: He only follows Indian Cricket and its players. I once asked a Bhakt “Do you know how good Amla is?” He replied confidently “Of course, it is full of Vitamin C.  My grandmother makes pickles from it every summer.” He even shoved my face into his hair and screamed “I even use the oil, can you smell it?”

The online joker: He is the first to share all the latest memes and jokes on what’s app.

The cynic: For him every match is fixed. His reaction to every wicket or dropped catch is “I am telling you, solid money he has eaten”. He won’t think for a second that this sentence is neither factually nor grammatically correct. The irony is that he is the same chap who was disappointed that his favorite contestant in the latest reality show lost in the final and now can’t fulfill his dream of finding a cure for cancer while building a school for the poor.

The politician: He knows about all the rifts in the Indian dressing room and  the conspiracies that are being plotted in the corridors of power.

The jingoistic patriot: For him, every game is a war. (And war is probably a game)It is all about winning for Kargil, or seeking revenge for the Jalianwala Bagh massacre.

The Earth day supporter: “I switch the TV off when Sachin gets out”. While humanity will thank them for being so environment friendly, I tell them “Hmm, maybe you should watch the Calcutta Test or the World Cup final of 2011. Pity you missed those games…’

The scapegoat finder: His task is to find one player to blame the loss on within seconds of the game ending.

The list goes on…

We are all guilty of donning these hats sometime or the other.

I feel that this behavior is more a manifestation of our own insecurities, frustrations, jealousies and mindset, than a reflection of the team’s performance.

In all this, take a moment to ponder that there is this totally different game called Cricket. It isn’t played in living rooms but on a ground. The ball is hard and fast. It seams and swings. It hurts and stings.

The batsman has less than a second to react. 5.5 ounces of leather and cork is whizzing towards you and you have to decide whether to go forward or back, drive, defend, cut, leave or duck. All while keeping a mental map of where the fielders are placed. One mistake and you are back in the pavilion or worse still, in the hospital. There is no other sport that is so unforgiving.

The same goes for a bowler who is trying hard to outwit the batsman or a fielder trying to catch a ball which is swirling down from the sky. It is a physical, mental and psychological battle with pitch conditions and pressure of expectations adding to the intrigue. It is a team game where all eleven have a role to play.

It is known as a game of glorious uncertainties and like all sports, it is all about a contest. Teams win and lose. There are no guarantees. To not gloat over wins and be gracious in defeat is what sport teaches you.

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same…Yours is the world and everything that is in it, And- which is more- you will be a Man, my son!”