BENGALURU: There is no greater leveller than sport. The ongoing FIFA World Cup is the greatest proof of this fact. The World Cup this year started without some of the most reputed names in the soccer world. Stalwarts like Italy and Netherlands did not make the cut. In what seems like a script written by Anurag Kashyap, Germany hasn’t qualified for the second round, Colombia is struggling to go through, and Argentina just about scraped through to the next round.
Amidst such results, it is impossible not to fantasise about India playing the FIFA World Cup too. And to also wonder - how and why did we - a nation of a billion plus people - become obsessed with a quaint sport like cricket? Logic dictates that we should have taken to soccer instead. Soccer requires no infrastructure and can be played by a large number of people at once. Unlike the Olympics, in which developed nations take home most medals, soccer is more democratic. Among the nations that qualified for his year’s world cup, are Senegal, Tunisia and Nigeria.
And yet, we are obsessed with cricket. How did this sport – that originated in 16th century England – become our obsession? I can think of a few reasons for this. As a people, we are hardly what you’d call energetic. We like to sip on tea four times a day and take a nap in the afternoon. Cricket is arguably the slowest sport in the world and perfectly suited for us Indians. Cricket is the only sport where you could spend the entire match standing in a corner of the field without touching the ball even once!
Cricket matches go on for the entire evening or the entire day, and in some circumstances - the whole of a working week. It is called ‘Test cricket’ because it is a test of your patience. Another obsession we share as Indians is analysis. We love to discuss and argue, and you’ll find nuanced political discussions at every street in the country. And no sport lends itself to analysis than cricket! There are 37 fielding positions, in spite of there being only nine fields on the ground! The names of the positions range from the secure ‘Extra Cover’, to the absurd ‘Silly Point’. Cricket is an analyst’s dream!
But perhaps the most important reason is the role that luck and chance have to play cricket. As the nation that gave the world the concept of ‘karma’, it is natural that we took to cricket. A sport where you play for five days without worrying about the result, as prescribed in the Bhagwad Gita. A sport where the rain gods could abruptly halt a match, where the wind gods could swing a match in your favour.
Where the flow of a match is determined by the flip of a coin as if to signal to the heavens that God is the ultimate decider of our fate. Cricket is a sport tailor-made for Indians. A sport that we were destined to take up, the only sport that suits our weather, our physicalities and our way of life. Is it any surprise that we bleed blue when we win, and see red when we lose?