The covers are out, the tickets are sold and the players warmed up. Yes, its here – the most awaited moment for a cricketer and for the thousands of reckless fans with colored faces marking their support for their nations. A soldier was once reported to say “The common Indian man feels patriotic only at two occasions during war and during the cricket world cup”. Well, if you ask me, both of them are pretty much the same.
The ad for the ‘Cup of Glory’ features men of different countries walking a tightrope to reach the prestigious trophy and proclaiming that cricket begins 19th of February. It is sure going to be a tightrope walk to the finish with nations battling it out for ‘the ultimate honor that they can garner in their cricketing lives’ and me being patriotic for once feel that India have got a chance of making it big since 1983.
1983 – That’s when it all began; a breezy Saturday afternoon at Lord’s that changed Indian from ‘cricketing country’ to ‘cricket fanatic country’, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath and the like became nation-wide idols, the gods of the innumerable children who started playing cricket in the streets. They must feel happy now as the cricketing frenzy created many players such as Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni who could very well put the crown on India’s head.
The present Indian team seems well-balanced and geared up, the loss of paceman Praveen Kumar was a hitch but Sreesanth should be able to hold the act as long as his tempers don’t sway. The explosiveness of Yusuf Pathan in recent games and contributions of spinner in warm-up matches have showed that India hold the edge at home turf.
No matter whom the eventual winner is television and broadcasting companies are in for a great season at the market, even my household has added a new LED to view the matches in HD quality. This trend is rather very common and has been boosted by attractive offers by both manufacturers and operators.
Like all things this too has a down-side, the total productivity of India in February-March is expected to drop significantly as employees would spend evenings viewing matches rather than tire it out at office, this is also expected to distract students whose marks are expected to take a hit, especially those of the board exams. But ‘cricket is our religion and Sachin is our god’ cricket is something that unites us all makes us feel Indian as a billion hearts beats cheering for the nation (I know that India has a 100 million more, but I’ll leave that as those who first read the title as ‘Cup of Life’ and continued reading, thinking that it was something connected to Ricky Martin’s song)
PS - I was highly jobless when writing this :p
