Why cricket??

Even as our first post told our passion for cricket, I just thought why it’s cricket and not any other game which has caught not only our imagination but also of million others in India? I will try to reason out why it was, is and will be the way it is!!

It definitely didn’t start in the recent past when every other television channel keeps airing programs on cricket. As a kid, this game became infectious to me as my family members used to wake up early in the morning to catch up with some live cricket action. They were more than passionate about it even when live action was just entering into households; of course, this game had a great following much before that. My father and uncles would talk about the Gavaskars and Vishwanaths in same breadth as we talk about Sachin and Dravid now.

At the first place, cricket has till this time been a game which cannot be termed as fast paced (20-20 is still in its nascent stages). Indians definitely cannot be compared to the Europeans or westerners in terms of physique and the fast pace at which they play a sport. Almost every other sport today needs you to be as fast as you can. But with cricket, it is not that mandatory, otherwise a Sourav Ganguly or an Anil Kumble would not have lasted even till this point. If this is the case now, historically, cricket has been much slower where a dive to stop a ball was as rare as seeing roads without traffic in India.

Cricket offers variety, and variety is in itself very “Indian”. Right from food to movies and wherever there is variety Indians get attracted. No other sport can offer so much variety in terms of its individual practitioners as cricket does. Football has different styles in different regions but still the game does not offer differences that a layman can point out easily. In tennis, the maximum one can see is the double handed forehand that Maria Sharapova plays at times. In cricket you can have a Chanderpaul, an Ajanta Mendis and a Paul Adams who provide variety just by their batting stance or bowling action. One can adore Dhoni as much as Sachin though their styles are so different. One cannot distinguish a Roger Federer or a Pete Sampras forehand as much as one can a Dravid or Laxman flick.

Moments of excitement are more in cricket. Football just has a moment of excitement near goal posts and in between those moments, one has to be content with just passes from one side to another. But in cricket, every four or six that is hit, every ball that beats the bat excites you. The beautiful part of it is that one cannot predict when that moment will come. A batsmen struggling for timing can suddenly unleash a huge six and also a bowler can dismiss a batsman in prime form with one delivery. The excitement is available in short bursts for a longer duration in cricket.

In a country like India, where the population is large, cricket has different forms which allows for more opportunities. One could have two different teams for the One Day and Test versions. Michael Bevan struggled and Yuvraj Singh is still struggling to get into the Test side while no one can deny they are two of the most prolific batsmen in the shorter version of the game. This cannot be thought of in any other team sport.

Well, these are some of my perspectives on why cricket was, is and will be the No. 1 sport in India. You can probably add so many other reasons to it and some may beg to differ from my view. You are entitled to do so in the comments!! Keep waiting for the next!!

-Raghavan