It’s more than just cricket
Cricket is more than just a sport. It is therapy. When it is about India winning the World Cup, cricket becomes a continental catharsis. An American visiting me in India was surprised that the T20 World Cup was co-hosted by his own country. To a true blue American, a five-day Test match was like baseball on sleeping pills—a slow dance of strategy and patience. Now, the frenetic energy of T20 cricket, where every ball is a potential game-changer, he discovered, is like Test cricket on high testosterone. T20 cricket is an organised amygdala hijack.
In T20, if you learn to bend your back or wield the willow, you could break the internet. With fame and money pouring in, it has become cricket’s best overseas ambassador beyond the traditional boundaries of Test cricket. Ironically, it was in New York in 1844 that the world first witnessed an international cricket match between the US and Canada, which the Americans won. This historic match is recognised as the first international sporting event in the world, predating even the modern Olympic Games.
Our American had little clue about what was going on in the field. But as the Indian captain mimicked the American WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair’s strut to grab the World Cup, his eyes widened for a moment. ‘How about that guy called Boomerang?’ the American pointed his finger at Jasprit Bumrah on TV screen. ‘Oh BoomBoom!’, I said, ‘He is the one who won the man of the tournament title with his toe-crushers. Like a boomerang he brought back the cup that mentally always belonged to us, Indians.’
For Indians, cricket isn’t merely a sport; it’s an emotional rollercoaster. There was a time when television had not arrived in Indian homes. We would be glued to transistor radios to hear if the deadly Dereck Underwood outfoxed the masterly Sunil Gavaskar. While television images of Kapil Dev at Lords holding up the cricket world cup pushed hockey out of the favour of telly-crazy Indians, it was cricket which eventually lost its way to baseball in the US. Now, two centuries later, cricket-wild NRIs are about to recycle the game back to the American imagination.
Cricket commentary in India comes with a culture shock for the conservative Brits. Our own Navjot Singh Sidhu, a vendor of verbal excess, has converted his wordplay into an Indian folk art. Commentator Harsha Bhogle, in his soothing voice, explains why cricket is so therapeutic. ‘If Sachin plays well, India sleeps well.’ Or ‘Is there a more calming sight in the world than Rahul Dravid taking guard?’
Bhogle says that the IPL earned $10.4 billion in 2023. The evolution of cricket in India is reminiscent of the evolution of the Indian extended family. In the joint family, the grandson is seen taking care of the grandfather. The profits from T-20, the grandchild of cricket, are paying for the survival of the aging grandfather, that is a Test match.
The visitor from the US had a parting question, ‘How would the Indian cricket team celebrate winning the World Cup?’
‘With champagne I suppose. They deserve it.’
‘How about the losing South Africans?’ he queried.
‘With champagne too.’ I added, ‘They both deserve and need it.’
Debashis Chatterjee
Author, Professor & Director, IIM Kozhikode
successsutras@gmail.com