Must agree with my friend and fellow blogger Ameya, whose words of wisdom are still ringing in my ears, "Colleging makes blogging difficult". How true... and you can see by the reduced frequency of my blog posts from the last month (Did I hear a sigh of relief from my worst critics?) Anyways the point is I am done with 75% of the hard work required to the get the B.Tech degree and it seems that the last 25% is the hardest, for reasons that will be disclosed at some later date. Because right now, I am going to tell you about something that has been the first love of my life and will always have a special place in my heart for the rest of my life. So before I get busy in the first sessional exam from the next week let me begin.As you must have guessed from the title, yes, its Cricket ! By the way, one will say, whats new in that? This country having a population of more than 1 billion is anyway cricket crazy than any other in the world. So whats new if I am just a speck of dust in this huge ocean. I hope I vindicate myself as the most ardent lover of the game by expressing my feelings for this sport which drives the whole nation under a frenzy unparalleled by nothing except an Indo-Pak war. In fact, I believe that some fanatics even want to decide the controversial problem between the two countries by a cricket match. Take that for a starter! And let me know if you could swallow that without a lump in your throat.
Well, one must be wondering about the title : eat,drink and sleep cricket? Yup, that practically happens with cricket lovers like me as we actually "live" the game ..... I have been an admirer of the sport from an age which even I cant remember. The last photographic proof is of a 4 yr me holding a bat of about my height and facing a team consisting of boys about 4-5 times my age back in Chandrapur. That was 1990 I guess. Not Abnormal, one may say. Just wait. Unlike some of the lucky people I have known, I didn't pursue a serious coaching so as to nurture the talent in me (Yeah, I am a bit pompous !) But whenever I got a chance, I used to grab that wooden handle or the red cherry (those days the cricket ball came in various colours and materials by the way) and was always ready to smash the ball out of the park or rattle the wickets that lay in front of me.
And today I can say proudly, that CRICKET is my religion and as you can see, Sachin Tendulkar is my GOD ! You see, one really requires an idol if one needs to push oneself to achieve something in a given way of life. And for me, like most of the other kids, it was the 16 year old Sachin Tendulkar who debuted against the mighty Pakistanis and faced the music of the "Toe Crusher" Waqar Younis and the "Sultan of Swing" Wasim Akram defiantly. He has been an enigma to the bowlers all over the planet as his bat keeps tumbling records after records. This man surely knows how to keep the statisticians busy. Till the date of writing this, this GOD has scored more than 35000 runs with an astonishing no of tons that just keeps on piling. No one has a chance of overtaking him, at least in the recent future.
There have been some of the greatest Cricket matches over the years which have kept the fire burning for the love of the game and let me list a few of them in no particular order which have made quite a mark on my mind:
- The recent 5-0 Ashes rout by the Aussies to avenge the 2005 Ashes fallout in England.
- The upset chase of 434 runs by the Proteas (South Africans) against the Aussies.
- England, powered by Freddie Flintoff, humiliating the Australians by snatching a test match win by a whisker of 1 run !
- India's superb run to the finals of the World Cup 2003.
- The Natwest Trophy final - Kaif and Yuvraj simply kicked England from a win-win situation.
- That crushing ouster of the South African Team from World Cup 1999 in the semi finals.
- Remember a depleted West Indies chasing 420 on the last day of Test match against the kangaroos?
- Sachin Tendulkar taking 5-32 in Hero Cup final vs South Africa
- And who can forget how close the New Zealand- Australia matches have always been?
The fact is, the number of such "amazing" moments just cant be penned down on a piece of paper, since what stares at you is the term - infinity. From the year 1877 - when the First ever test match was played, literally hundreds of individuals have collectively shown that the word impossible isn't present in their dictionaries. After all it takes courage to be a certain Herschelle Gibbs to blast out 175 off 105 balls when you are facing the mother of all run chases. Cricket runs in my blood. I played it during school, with my friends. I played it in the locality with people of all age groups. (even the elders too were forced to play when we were short of fielders!) In this place called as the engineering college, this passion none the less flowered even more as more and more cricket lovers were discovered. Whether its the field or a classroom, seldom has been a day when Cricket hasn't been discussed. Over the years the number of the matches played over the globe has increased tenfold and so has the coverage with a new sports channel coming round the corner every 6 months.
And to the great delight of myself, STAR Cricket - The brilliant initiative by ESPN-STAR has culiminated into what I may call the single largest Cricket Media where the game is highlighted for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Now thats what I call a treat. Finally, the television is no longer an idiot box in the truest of sense. Now whenever I switch on the TV, I do check out this amazing channel to look out for live cricket, matches highlights, greatest cricketing moments, past legends and what not - all presented in a flurry of superb programmes like HitZ, Close Shaves, Super Centuries, India Glorious etc... the list is too long.
As the promos put it correctly,
"ye desh hai deewano ka, jinhe junoon hai is Cricket khel ka,
hume hak hai aise ek channel ka, jo 24 ghante sirf yeh junoon dikhaye !!"
This sums it all. The craze for other popular sports like soccer etc is really temporary, in sporadic phases like the world cup. Even today I am amazed when people talk about English Football clubs with the sheer knowledge of just a couple of teams and a handful of players ! Of course... thats not the way it is with Cricket. Its here to stay - to create newer imprints on our souls with modern changes that will lead to an even huge upheaval for this mind blowing sport.
And by the way... the 20-20 World Cup is just round the Corner. Come September 2007 and the mania begins again. Be a part of it. Live the game !
Posts
2 comments:
Post a Comment