22 Yards in India

The ball goes high up in the air. The fielder’s running in as quickly as possible. The ball’s still in the air, but the altitude’s falling, and falling rapidly. The fielder’s still not positioned himself at the right place. Still quite a bit of ground to cover. The ball is only a dozen feet or so away from the ground, almost as far away as the fielder is from the ball. And the moment arrives. The man in the green jersey throws himself at it. A giant leap forward. The ball falls perfectly into the comfortable palms of the player. Out. The finger’s been pointed upwards, and a billion hearts broken at the sight of the batsman walking.

Cricket. It has been defined as everything from being a funny game to being a gentlemanly profession, but here in India, we take that religion for granted. A country which is often accused of communal violence and discrimination based on faith is no different when it comes to a 22 yard long temple. People still fight across borders when it’s an Indo-Pak match is on the cards, and vehement squabbles still arise in times of the Indian Premier League.

And in this very religion, legendary Gods are born. They aren’t born Gods, funnily enough. In fact, being an Indian cricketer would feature on the list of the most risky professions in the world. A young man once braved all the politics, all the competition in the system, and based on his talent, made way into the team. This man from Punjab, more or less cemented his position and in fact led the team to some rather unforgettable achievements. Later on, he braved cancer, was out of the team and quite a bit of time later, made his way back. By now, you’d think Yuvraj Singh was more than human, and worshipped in India. A year or two later, stones were pelted at his house, and effigies burnt around it, all because he was supposedly responsible for one defeat. Funny game indeed.

In a country where a disease kills a child once in every four seconds, an epidemic takes over once in every four years. World Cup. If you come by to this country during the cricket world cup and go around the town, you’d know where the word “frenzy” was coined. To put it simply, the World Cup is like a war, where losing isn’t an option. One loss, and that’s what brought down stalwarts like Rahul Dravid in 2007 or Vinod Kambli in ’96. One loss.

But the question is, (and this being serious blasphemy), is cricket really that important in our scheme of things? And the answer, not so surprisingly, is yes. It is. And it’s happening in a sort of hereditary manner. Our fathers grew up playing and watching cricket and we inherited it from them. And then we grew up playing cricket. It is an integral part of our childhood and once something becomes etched in memories, it becomes inseparable and hence in the current state of the country, being called a maniac with respect to the sport is taken as a compliment.

So when the World Cups come chugging along, people are sure to go all out sporting blue. And once in a while, red. Yes, red. People kill over a silly game of 20-odd players and these incidents are always on the rise. World Cup 2007, seventeen deaths reported. The Twenty20 World Cup, 2007, 4 deaths reported in the finals alone. World Cup 2011, 12 deaths reported. And the reasons are as trivial as “not being allowed to watch the match”. This prompts me to ask, are sports (read cricket) a medium of relaxation and entertainment, the way they are meant to be, after all? Are they being taken a bit too seriously (Obviously a yes to that question. Especially when human lives are at stake.)? And who is to blame?

You cannot possibly blame the players, after all they are paid to play their hearts out on the field and that’s exactly what they do. You can’t blame the television broadcasters either. If not for them, we wouldn’t have watched cricket at all.

One way to start is to hold the media and the system responsible for overshadowing such news with other things, but the most important factor of it all: The people. Yes. You and I are to blame. Not for being cricket maniacs, but for taking it all so personally. There’s a specific word for the kind, a word I am unable to recollect.

In a country where rapes are as frequent as award ceremonies, and banning is the Government’s way of going “Mauka mauka”, associating a fiendish seriousness to cricket seems as pointless as Chetan Bhagat’s existence. And on top of that, to force the involvement of others into all this, makes us what we are otherwise. Butthurt. That’s the word I was looking for.