Cricket v love

I was with a woman but she's moved on. I was heartbroken, dear reader, really down and out, so naturally this got me thinking about cricket and Cricinfo and Page 2. (Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.)

I arrived at some conclusions, which I will present below. This was only after my customary article-writing routine, which does not involve quills and smoking jackets and meditations with the muse, but rather imagining Viv Richards in one of his sadistic moods appearing in my bedroom in bondage gear thinking I'm a meek medium-pacer begging for punishment. Nothing like fear to get you to your desk.

Anyway, after some contemplation, this is what I ended up reasoning: cricket is superior to romantic love.

Now I concede that I might be preaching to the converted, if not the fundamentalists, but it's time we learnt to accept this fact, even celebrate it. More productively, you could forward this article to partners or laminate a printout and draw it out like a floppy shield every time your other half spits fury at you for choosing a match over that really important dinner at her aunty's.

Cricket beats guy-girl love, and we know it - both men and women. I will not speculate on guy-guy love or girl-girl love, not because I am backward and think there's only space for one bat in the kitbag, if you know what I mean. Rather, I've been saving up material for an uber-column titled "Homoeroticism in Cricket: A Taboo Un-stumped" for years. It is still not time, sorry.

Look, I am not bitter. Okay, I am - and that's my point. Look at the bitterness all Pakistanis felt against Aamer Sohail in the 1996 World Cup against India, after his brainless shot when we were well-placed led straight to our demise. If you don't know of the event, imagine this: a perfectly formed, big, beautiful soufflé is all set up and ready, and then some crazed buffoon comes along and pierces it with a cricket bat; the soufflé collapses in a heap, falls to mush, and everyone goes home crying - tears of joy for about 800 million Indians, the other kind for us across the border.

I held it against Sohail. But zip forward and one gets Imran Nazir and Yasir Hameed and Salman Butt and Imran Farhat. All these guys ready to play rash shots and give their wickets away in crucial situations when we were on top. You see, in cricket there's none of this mumbo-jumbo about individual souls and the uniqueness of "The One". They all come and go and no bad feeling lingers for long. In short, in cricket you get over it.

In fact, the memories are overwhelmingly of the good stuff. You even remember things you weren't alive to see. I speak lovingly of Hanif Mohammad's legendary 16-hour, 39-minute Bridgetown innings in 1958. I rhapsodise on it as if it was the greatest day and night of passion in my life, as if I myself was involved in an epic, sweaty, divine 16-hour, 39-minute session. But I have never once said a bad, bitter word against Hanif Mohammad. Why would I?

Cricket will never leave you for someone hotter, richer or more interesting. I will always have my Pakistan team, though since my break-up I've been more concerned about that conspiracy theory about the CIA's supposed plans to carve up Pakistan.

So, superpower geopolitical designs aside, we have our teams forever. Perhaps that is why some find the new IPL model of cricket teams so unsettling. Money, movement, choice. It's terrifying. The IPL's supporters celebrate a prizing of capital, city identity and meritocracy above nationalistic constraints. Well, frankly, we fans don't want that kind of cricket culture. We don't want excellence above all. We want loyalty - nice and unconditional and safe. It's a complicated world out there, so in cricket I only want my simple few moral quandaries, like that beautiful, eternal dilemma: to walk or not to walk? If only romantic love was so simple.

(Actually, I don't mean that. Long ago I entered a relationship where we did nothing but take long walks. Let's just say I walked, and with no regrets.)

Also, in cricket you are allowed to flirt around. I have always had a thing for Ricky Ponting's pulling power. Graeme Swann's rhythmic gyrations fill my heart with joy. MS Dhoni's calmness under pressure makes me swoon. But this matters not. Pakistan is always there. Pakistan never complains. Our love is undiminished as the team gets on with its job and its duty to me: underperforming with the best of them as constantly and lovingly as ever.

And perhaps I need not go on after the following point. Who are the poets of romantic love? Shakespeare, Neruda, Rumi, et cetera et cetera. Yeah, well, cricket has Andy Zaltzman. Shall I compare thee to a... no, I shall not, no comparison at all. Oh Andy, my love is like a red, red kookaburra.

Then there is the deathly quality of romance. The man in Lahore who shot his TV before unloading on himself (as someone who doesn't own a TV, I find this wanton waste an unpardonable sin) after that Pakistan-India match in 1996 is an exception. He's one of the one-offs. However, those who end it all for romantic love are as regular as an English cricketer touring India afflicted with Delhi belly.

I remember chatting to a psychologist in a hospital in Pakistan. He told me that depression, poverty, unemployment and the like - combined - did not even make up 50% of the suicide cases he encountered. The frontrunner was love. Lost love. Denied love. Soured love.

The only thing that even approaches that level of sourness in cricket must be the leathery-lacquery tang lodged at the back of Shahid Afridi's throat, which will spoil his palate for many years to come. Poor guy. No reprimand, ban or fine compares with his real punishment: a Peshwari naan will never taste the same again.

[Disclaimer: Cricinfo and the author do not necessarily share the views of the author. Ignore "necessarily". The above article is total twaddle. But cathartic twaddle. Like a pacer at the end of the day who's bowled his heart out but knows the game is up, striking the pad when it's clearly going down leg but letting out an anguished "Howzaaat?" which trails off in volume and belief towards the end, rather pathetically. His appeal is not really meant. He knows the umpire will be not be moved. But sometimes you just gotta get it out there, you know?]

Oh, cricket. How we love you so.

What's that? You love us too? You love us more?

Oh, how sweet, how very, very sweet.