The Surfer

On the big stage of the World Cup final, the team rose to the occasion. Again it was the biggest India-Pakistan match ever simply because it was the World Cup final and we finished winners. Late in the night, I spoke to my parents and some friends and I was told that, at one of the famous squares in Ranchi, there were over 50,000 people celebrating. So, in a way, I had an idea of what it meant to the entire country.

"He has already achieved what few would have dared to even dream, if put in his place," said Joginder's friend, alluding to Sharma's modest financial background. "To begin with, he didn't even have the support of his parents, leave alone anything else. But he kept going, believing in himself and his abilities," he said. "So someone who has been through a phase where he had little support and facilities to fall back on, being away from the limelight is something that would not bother him," he said.

It appears that the game is better run now than it was when Jagmohan Dalmiya called the shots. There are certainly more people working in the cricket board than in 2004. The executive secretary role has made way for a Chief Administrative Officer. There's a Media Relations Officer, Games Development Officer and a person in charge of logistics at the Wankhede Stadium's Cricket Centre, a heavenly structure as compared to the office at Brabourne Stadium's North Stand. So, in terms of personnel, the Board has stepped it up. There's no Indian on the list of elite umpires and the fact that Australian Simon Taufel just grabbed his fifth Best Umpire award from the ICC in as many years proves that cricket umpiring is in trouble. The BCCI, meanwhile, have tied up with Cricket Australia who send their experts to train Indian umpires...

One day at drama school Pinter skipped classes to go to Lord's, running through the gate at the Nursery End to see Cyril Washbrook late-cutting for four. His abiding memory of that truant day, expressed in six simple words towards the end of that 1969 essay, is of an Eden familiar to all cricket-lovers: "that beautiful evening Compton made 70".

Impressionable 10-year-olds in 1993 who saw the bleached blond leg-spinner bamboozle and bowl Mike Gatting with his first ball in a Test on English soil would now be 25. But there has been no procession of 25-year-olds charging to fill the breach. The rookie leg-spinner who landed in India today as part of Australia's 15-man touring squad, Bryce McGain, is just three years younger than Warne at 36.

"I heard Ricky Ponting say that they'll probably use tactics similar to 2004, and I think that's the right way to go," Gillespie said. "I remember one of the big things we did was working on the fitness of the Indian batsmen. They're not regarded as the fittest blokes in the world, and generally score their runs either walking singles or hitting fours. So we would have three or four sweepers out at different times, and the tactic worked really well. To VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag it was particularly effective.

The cultural diversity — the Chinese, Japanese, Polynesians and Maoris — and the ease of doing business in a First World country. There’s no red tape there — things happen. That stood out. And then there’s the natural beauty of the country — it’s magnificent. But the African blood remains. I really wanted to come back. With all these people emigrating to New Zealand it amazes me how they become All Black supporters overnight — I got into a couple of animated conversations over that topic!

Arendse was, and will probably remain, an abrasive character, one whose heart was in the right place, but someone not shy of using people and manipulating situations. That left many people - even those who supported him as he ascended to the presidency of Cricket South Africa (CSA) - angry ... Besides his calling into question the integrity of Majola, what really galled many administrative officials was Arendse's proclamation that those who were opposing him did so because they were against trans-formation.

In the process, they [Sri Lanka Cricket] have also stood up for logic and common sense, neither of which has anything to do with BCCI’s campaign against ICL. The Indian board’s Indian Premier League and ICL are played on exactly the same format. ICL was the first to offer dozens of cricketers, who had reconciled to the humdrum and wilderness of domestic cricket, the opportunity to earn a decent livelihood and be part of a properly televised event. The fact that many of them took the opportunity is no reason to ban them. After all, BCCI had not offered them any better alternative.

BCCI’s lack of opposition to the Stanford 20/20 jamboree, which promises to make individual players richer by up to a million dollars, betrays the deep-seated lack of clarity in the Indian board. Stanford is an oil billionaire who has spotted opportunity in 20/20 cricket; Subhash Chandra, who is behind ICL, made his money in media and packaging. What are the criteria on the basis of which ICL is anathema and Stanford is not? Both ICL and Stanford’s tournament, just as BCCI’s own IPL, are about the game of cricket.

Television created conditions for cricket to become a central component of new notions of national identity and consumer spectacle. The advent of satellite television pushed this linkage further and the advent of ESPN in 1993 contributed much to making cricket into India’s secular national pastime. When television capitalists searched for ‘national’ public in their quest to create a ‘national’ market, they ended up with cricket as the lowest denominator of Indian-ness. Satellite television is a cultural arena where the idea of India is debated and fought for every day and its focus on cricket since the 1990s has reinforced the centrality of cricket as a pan-Indian marker of ‘Indian-ness’. This is a two-way process and world cricket itself has been transformed by the massive infusion of capital from Indian television. The enormous money that television has generated for cricket has also transformed India into the spiritual and financial heart of the global cricket industry a process that needs to be applauded by every Indian sports fan.