Had some flashbacks today while indulging that great summer past-time of watching cricket, passed out on the lounge with the fan on full tilt. I remembered some cricket I played on my first trip to India 9 years ago and how it changed my view of the Indian people and the way I interacted with them, as a cricket playing Aussie, and it introduced me to the profound colonising affect of the game in the former British Empire. Mind you there was plenty of fun and laughs and some quite surreal moments where the game raised itself to the status of a universal language where words became obsolete.
Varanasi
"Got a good game of cricket today, mini-test between me and 11 Indians out for blood after being thrashed by the Aussies back home, I have christened it “World Series Cricket Ghats”. I even got the honour of bowling to a local hero who bats in the middle for Varanasi, he carted me but I have been cordially invited to attend a match at main ghat tomorrow where I’m sure my bowling will take some stick and every ball I face will be a throat ball, bring it on, who needs a head anyway."
McCleod Ganj
"Went up the mountain for a walk and ended up hooking up with a bunch of Tibetan kids playing cricket. My most enjoyable cricketing experience so far, they really could play some, another example of the colonising effect of cricket. Possibly the highest game of cricket in the world and then it started to snow, potentially the first time this has happened. Too bizarre and thoroughly invigorating."
Calcutta
"The co-existence of Indian people and cricket is incredible, if the people speak a second language it is not English, it is cricket.
Most asked question, 'Where are you from, sir' … “Australia”
Most common reply, 'Oh, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne' blah blah blah”
Ramon - up on the border with Nepal
St Patricks Day high in the Himalaya drinking the local brew of fermented barley, " we settle back to watch the cricket on telly , it is an enthralling game with lots of action, a tight finish, which, as the cliché goes is “a good advertisement for the game”, but as if to make a mockery of this outcome the following program is a typical Indian attempt at encouraging serious life preserving, intellectual, thought-provoking analysis of the game of cricket. Kris Shrikanth and Jimmy Armanath, former greats of the game, front a program called “Straight Drive”, the show should be called “Hooked over the fence and caught out”, for its pitiful attempt to encourage public participation in analysis of the game, a bunch of disinterested and uninteresting , all-male, cricket fans who hardly get a word in edge-wise for the incessant rantings of Srikkanth and Armanath, who constantly switches between English and Hindi, as if this gives credibility to certain comments over others. The comical aspect of this program, apart from all the other farcical elements, is the ruminations and pseudo-incisive of a band of mid-range aficionados of the game, all live via satellite from the major Indian cities , a coach in Mumbai who misses the point of the questions and seems like he is talking in an echo chamber, two figures of anonymity in Madras who take an eternity to answer questions (as if imposing their own time delay) and are loath to look at the lens of the camera and finally an ex-state player in Calcutta who is afflicted by both a bad audio link and his preponderance toward waffling on with his own views which seems to incite contempt from the hosts. This show is not only unnecessary, it is pure and typical Indian nonsense, a show for a shows sake, but strangely it is entertaining for all its ridiculousness, but give it the flick anyway for showing wanton disregard for the civility of cricket."
What do I add to that analysis, I guess I'd still agree that cricket is a good waste of time presided over by ex-players trying to talk up the games importance in the scheme of things.
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