Cricket: If you cannot respect it, do not curse it

Children play cricket at India Gate Park

The argument about superiority of any given sport will go on till eternity. The fact that people have preferences and biases makes everybody’s opinion unique and in a way, special.

India has more than a billion people and as effortlessly as we learnt inhaling and exhaling, a kid learnt the tenets of cricket. Easily, cricket is the game by which India is known to the world. Fanatically followed by this population of a billion, discussed at every crossroad, played by every teen and celebrated by every citizen.

Cricket has undoubtedly subjugated all else in India. After all, we’ve given it all the love, importance and more significantly, the airtime, it deserves (or not). And thus, has become number one in our hearts and reached number one on the TV charts.

The beginning

25th June 1983: The transistors and radios were as prized as gold bricks in households, some still fresh from the smell of plastic they were in until a day ago. Having the means to connect to the match turned even a sworn enemy into a beloved friend. Some upper class fanatics had bought TVs to add visual sense as well. After all, a lowly ranked team like India had made it to the finals of the ICC Prudential World Cup.

It did not matter if we were facing the mighty West Indies. It did not matter that we were given the odds of 500/1 to win the World Cup (to give a better idea, Ireland for example, was quoted at 236/1 in 2011 edition). In apt words, it is all history. But what began since that fateful day is a love affair. A love affair that has stood the test of time. An affair that has blossomed into a commitment; a commitment to stay true to the sport till the end of time.

Would this love affair have begun had Kapil Dev not taken that brilliant catch running backwards to get rid of Viv Richards and eventually lift the World Cup? Again, the answer to this question is irrelevant.

The blossoming

Sachin Tendulkar held the nation together like nothing else has for close to two and a half decades, a period when our affection went only upwards. TVs were switched on when he was batting and promptly turned off once he walked back towards the pavilion. Then there were Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Anil Kumble and now, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, to name very, very few who captured our imagination like an oasis in a desert storm.

Honestly, I was scared. Scared that once the great Tendulkar bid adieu to an illustrious career and broke a billion hearts, it will dent the bond this country shared with cricket. But no, though some of us wanted to let go, we held on for this beautiful game was not just about a player– It is about class, elegance panache and chutzpah.

That being said, there is a lot of abetment in derision of cricket, come today. Cricket is being treated equivalent to some third world sport only buffoons follow. In simple words, cricket is not so “cool” anymore. Demeaning comments start to flow from football fan-boys and indigenous sport lovers and the attack on cricket has grown manifold in the recent times.

One must wonder what catapulted the belief that we know nothing more than cricket and that cricket is inferior to any other sport. Firstly, just because we love cricket doesn’t mean we are unaware of our surrounding sports. And even if we do not, so what?

It hurts me because one is not only insulting me and countless fans, we don’t care about ourselves, but in the process you are insulting our deepest love. And when it comes to that, and let me put it as firmly as I can – no one has a quarter of a right to do this.

Debunking this theory requires stating no more than a few instances.

Things cricket fans bear the brunt of

1) You know only about cricket

Whether cricket haters like it or not, Indians are cricket crazy people. But why make such a hullabaloo out of it? Brazil is a football-crazy nation too, but no one mocks the passion for football back there. Then why is it that our popular bond is questioned time and again and ridiculed?

In a lot of “spoof” videos being made these days, Indians are portrayed as knowing everything about cricket and nothing about any other sport. I have a simple counter to this – so what? We also don’t know much about Teichmuller theory or the Copenhagen interpretation theory either. Hey, you should make a video on that too, I’m sure you’re well versed in it.

Sports today, unfortunately is taken as an obligation. It is not, it is recreational and everyone will watch only what they love. Then why question our love? We are not writing a sports exam the next week to know about all sports over the world. This is our love, and we choose to spend valuable time with it rather than with other sports.

Yes, we do. We know only about cricket. But why is that supposed to be a problem? Just remember, EPL first started airing in India on a full-time basis around the turn of the millennium, and by that time, cricket was hard wired inside the brain of countless fans and passed on like heirloom from generation to generation

2) Every match is fixed, why do you watch?

Nothing is more blasphemous than this horrid statement. It is so insulting and it highly derogates great players and administrators, people who have put in their lives to make cricket the way it is today.

Let me provide some simple facts. Among 3725 players that have played international cricket, only 19 have been implicated of fixing, a number almost ignorable. Even if you give or take 50-100 players, who have not been caught (an exorbitant number indeed); the figure is still reasonably low.

If you go into first class cricket, 11 more than those mentioned above out of more than 20,00,000 players have been suspended on account of fixing, it’s no use even to go into percentages. Based on these facts, there is no way that people can possibly fulminate that every match is fixed. Thus, people raising the fixing issue and bashing the players are doing so on baseless grounds.

There is no question that matches are fixed in cricket; I would be lying if I say they are not. But at the international level, these are few and far in between. And is match fixing really that easy? Things can go horribly wrong from the script. What if a player who is supposed to underperform by playing slowly gets out early? What if a bowler who is supposed to give away runs gets injured like Henry Williams? What if he doesn’t get his quota of overs by the captain? Fixing matches is not a cakewalk as people assume it to be.

The legend that Ganguly and Tendulkar won a match India had fixed to lose is a testament to this fact.

Players like them give their lives in the quest for greatness and recognition. To devalue them saying every match is fixed is an insult to their hard work and dedication. And out of 11 players suspended in first-class cricket, 8 are IPL players, showing how tight a ship the BCCI runs on match-fixing. It is highly inappropriate to put forth such claim, especially after the contribution they’ve made to the sport.

Grateful to what cricket has given us

That’s what its more about. Not what we have given the sport, but what the sport has bestowed upon us in return. The unbridled joy our elders spoke about so warmly since 1983 was felt by many of us for the first time in 2011, apart from numerous other victories, which made our sleep peaceful and life content. The losses meant countless tears coupled with heartbreaks, but cheers of conquest and comeback stories inevitably followed these.

The honest, ugly truth is – we are not half as good in anything else as we are in cricket. In defending our love for the sport, why should we not give it our total support? No other sport in recent times has brought us more accolades and recognition than cricket. Our childhood has been about saving pocket money, penny by penny, to buy balls in an attempt to relive the same glory in the gullies and mohallas, with the occasional cherished trips to crippled playgrounds.

It is hence unfortunate when people who do not even follow the game closely take illogical potshots and jibes at players who've spent countless hours toiling under the scorching sun, players who have made innumerable sacrifices to be where they are today. Why can't they party? Why can't they let their hair down? Who does not deserve to party after working long and hard? Why is a cricketer's life followed closely? Why is it not limited to his on-field duty? Does playing for India mean you do not deserve a normal life? Among countless sacrifices, surely this must not be one of them.

It’s about time we give our boys the credit they deserve, rather than sitting in the comforts of our homes and abysmally discrediting what they’ve done for the nation.

Conclusion

The world moves in cycles. Everything that was once at the top dwindles to the bottom. Cricket had a prolonged period at the throne, and continues to lead the roast by quite a margin, in India. It may have competitors and critics but withstanding all jabs, it has continued to entertain, thrill and entice audiences all over.

IPL, breathing a new life, has played a significant role in doing so, but the fixing scandals have somewhat corroded the lustre of the sport of gentlemen. Voices were raised, fingers were pointed and players were tainted. Cricket has managed to stand the test of time, but is it downward in the cycle today? Not yet.

We, as cricket fans have stood the test of time and we will take everything head on today, tomorrow and for days to come. Nothing, absolutely nothing will wane our love for the sport, and if one cannot respect it, simply do not demean it.

This article has been co authored by Aman Bordia.