Passion for cricket: a liberator or dictator?

The cricket season in the Northern half of the Eastern sea board is wrapping up for the decade. The weekend transformers will eschew their alter egos for the next several months even as a select(ed) few prepare for the National tournament in what will continue to be a sunny Florida. This also marks the time of the year when my umpiring skills only have my internet connection to fall back on for any sort of improvement, what with the international cricket season beckoning from the Southern hemisphere.

In other words, I spent the first full weekend with my wife since the sprouts that now lay on the ground as fallen leaves first appeared. Did anyone say “withdrawal symptoms”?

Cricket can’t be completely shunted into oblivion in a matter of one or two weekends. It has merely been relegated to a lower priority.

‘Tis the time of the year when cricket leagues and clubs in these parts of the USA hold their annual awards nights where their futures are painted so lavishly that they could move a dead Douglas Adams to consider a sixth book of his ‘trilogy’. “We shall get into Division One and win the whole damn thing next year”, a Division Two team at the bottom of the table might say to themselves, while a cricket administrator could go, “We will work on grassroots cricket and bring it into the mainstream”. I would laugh at these as much as I do while reading Adams’ books, if only I could see my own future as being detached from such imaginations.

Speaking … no … typing of laughing, I recently had a serious conversation with a friend about why certain things men find hilarious don’t do the same for women, and why things that women take seriously are laughing matter for men. After a long, protracted and heated debate, we agreed that “cricket is the winner” and that men’s deeper involvement with sport probably makes them keep other things in life in a lighter perspective. If that has even an iota of truth in it, it makes playing sports with men a b****. Umpiring such men – b**** in labor! Like one of a very few (think number of digits on your two hands) caucasian “cricket moms” in the USA once told me “Men can be such whiny b****** on the cricket field”.

There are some cricketers who seem to keep the sport itself in perspective but others who seem to have to pour their innards onto the cricket field, probably so that it allows them to keep the rest of their life sane.

Bergen Cricket Club is made up mostly of 40-plus men of North Indian origin and American wealth. In one of their matches, they were 5 wickets down and had to chase down another 100 runs in less than 20 overs – a task that is not as easy in these leagues as recent ODIs may suggest. During the last drinks break of the match, one of their padded-up batsmen quipped “Umpireji, humko lbw tho nahi doge naa!” [“You won’t adjudge me out lbw now, would you, Mr. Umpire!”] To this, their captain, primarily a swing bowler who was one of the batsmen at the crease, goes “Arre! Sher kabhi lbw nahi hota.” [A lion can never get out lbw.] Just as I was about to pass this off as a captain pepping up his troops, he added, “Sher tho seedha bowled hota hai. Aur apne tho sirf sher hi bache hain!” [Lions go out bowled and guess what, all we’ve got left is lions!] Same guys, similar situation, different match; this time, it was another senior member (aren’t they all!) of the side who, when prodded by one of his top-order batsmen to increase the scoring rate, retorted “Yaar, hum tho peeche ke dibbe hain, saare khaali!” [We are the last few coaches of the train buddy, mostly empty!]

If you step onto a cricket field in New Jersey, you are as likely to come across someone like these gentlemen as you are this next guy. Fielding at long-off, he had just haplessly witnessed the ball sail over his head in a tense chase. The batsman decided on a repeat performance and even as I heard the sound off the bat from my position behind the wicket at the bowler’s end, I knew he hadn’t timed it well enough. Our lad at long off stepped back a couple of paces, positioned himself nicely under the ball and took a clean catch and raised his hands in delight; except, the entire batting team gathered behind him and started screaming in that lovely language that is collective human screaming. As is my wont in such situations, I called ‘Dead Ball’ and ran towards long-off to find out if the catch was taken within the boundary line. I locked my vision on the fielder with the ball who hadn’t moved an inch since he took the catch. As I got closer I thought to myself, “The guy hasn’t flinched. The catch must be legit.” But to my bewilderment, his feet were, indeed, grounded outside the invisible straight line joining the two cones on either side that marked the boundary – another staple in US cricket. A few choice words bounced off my thick skin. In what can only be described as one of Virender Sehwag’s unintended consequences, the batsman decided he would make it three in a row. His ever-decreasing prowess at timing the ball would have insulted Viru, though. Enter: the familiar character at long-off. Running in 10 yards from the boundary, he took a well-judged catch and a misjudged admission to me that he knew his previous take was just outside the boundary line. He condescended with, “I was just foolin’ wid u, maan!”

Passion in sport can either liberate one to enjoy a sport for what it is, or turn it into a never-ending fight with oneself that manifests itself as hostility towards others. Does it make you naughty or nice?