India's passion for cricket, the national sport, is played out every day on the streets. Wherever there is a spare patch of ground, there seems to be a game of cricket in progress.
For Indians, cricket is a game that offers diversion from the drudgery of everyday life, a channel for national pride and, most importantly, a potential ticket to superstardom.
"When the game first started in India, it was played by the maharajahs, the royalty. Ordinary people came to watch and eventually picked it up. It caught on like wildfire," says Kapil Dev, India's former cricket captain and cricketer of the 20th century, according to Wisden, the cricketers' bible.
Today, when the common man plays, he knows if he becomes the best he will be treated like royalty. In India, cricket stars are bigger than pop stars or film stars," adds the man affectionately known as the "Haryana Hurricane", who took India to victory against the mighty West Indies in the 1983 World Cup." Those that feel they have nothing to lose are often more fearless in their play," he says.
Today's cricketers are modern-day maharajahs who have captured the public imagination.
But from where did this passion spring?
One particular explanation, says that the Indian seventh century epic, the Mahabharata, tells the story of how Lord Krishna played a game called "Gulli danda" on the banks of the river Yamuna. The game was played with a stick and had some similarities to cricket.
"A game like cricket is mentioned in our Mahabharata. Indian folklore says that Lord Krishna, as a child, played with a ball on the banks of the Yamuna,".
"One day, the ball fell into the river. No one would go in as they feared there were serpents in the water. But Krishna went in and emerged with the ball, of course. He was the ultimate catcher and India has never let go of the ball since,".
Interest in the game has grown in recent years, not just because of the money involved, but also because of greater coverage on television and electronic media.
Indians like cricket because it is complex. Complex people like complex games,". "Where is the excitement in a straight road?”
“A game like cricket can unite people of different backgrounds - whether that is caste, socio-economic or religion. When they come together on the pitch they are one team.”
Cricket does strange things to you
It is a team game that is almost entirely dependent on individual performance. Its combination of time, opportunity and the constant threat of disaster can drive its participants to despair. To survive a single delivery propelled at almost one hundred miles an hour takes the body and brain to the edges of their capabilities
The Miracle
The cricket coach Bob Woolmer once wrote: 'to review the raw, split-second data of what actually happens when a player executes a shot is to wonder how anyone survives more than one delivery.' Let's say it's the start of a game. You have taken guard in front of three stumps at one end of a cut strip that measures 22 yards in length. But that measure is from the set of stumps behind you to the set at the other end of the wicket. You are standing on the popping crease, 3ft in front of the stumps, and when the bowler delivers the ball his front foot will bisect the popping crease at his end, so in reality, there are less than 20 yards between him and you.
In your hands is a bat made of English willow and with a rubber-spring cane handle spliced into it, the blade no more than 38in in length and 4¼in wide. It will weigh anywhere between 2lb 6oz and 3lb, heavier or lighter if you want it the only limit here is the limit of the willow you can comfortably lift and manipulate.
THE MEANING OF CRICKET
The ball in the hands of your opponent has a wound cork core with four quarters of leather stitched around it, held in place by a raised seam. It weighs no less than 5½oz and no more than 5¾ and if it's new is still lacquered to a high shine. It is hard enough to break bones, to cause fatal injury when bowled or struck at speed onto a vulnerable area of the chest or head.
You are protected from the worst of the damage that the ball can inflict: pads, gloves, inner and outer thigh pads, box, perhaps a forearm guard and a chest pad, and always a helmet with a titanium grill. Although this kit is cumbersome, you will have worn it so often and for so long it will feel natural to make the moves you have to make, and after you've been hit on various parts of it a few times you will want the best available, because the ball has a habit of seeking out soft spots and weak points. The helmet is light and snug, but because the gap between the peak and the top of the grill needs to be narrow enough to prevent the ball from getting through should you be struck there, both remain within your peripheral vision. Nonetheless, there are large areas of your body which remain unprotected, and even those that are might not be safe.
None of this can enter your head as you wait for the bowler to begin his run. Instead, you must attempt to clear the mind of everything except for one conscious thought that will blot out the rest and switch the body on: 'watch the ball' being by far the most common. If you are a professional, or at least a serious amateur, you may have faced this bowler before and you will have some idea of what's coming, but on many occasions you will not. At any rate every match is different for any number of reasons and so you look for clues in the bowler's size, the length of his run, the position of the fielders.
As he comes in, it begins. You may want to watch the ball. You will probably be exhorting yourself to do so, either silently or in a whisper, but you will not do so, at least not in the way that you think you will.
For the first century or so of the game, no one understood what happened next. Science has only recently unpicked, in increments of milliseconds, what processes the body.
Comments