I hated cricket. Right from the beginning I did not take too kindly to this game. Not only cricket, sports and games in general were considered to be time wasting and cash-consuming exercises. I had my own reasons for this fixation about cricket.
Look at the days when a match is played somewhere on the globe. No work will be done in offices and students will devise plans to be away from their classrooms and office goers go on casual leave so as to be in front of their TV sets. No serious work will be done in any office during the match and no serious teaching or learning takes place in any classroom across the country. Everyone will be watching, discussing or listening to cricket commentary. At times these matches coincide with the annual exams or Board exams, and what happens then is anybody’s guess.
But things had to change. It was while watching a match played among the children of the locality that I had a second thoughts about my intense dislike for the game. They were not serious players but only primary school kids who probably had big dreams about the game in the future. Everything they did was in right earnest though they had only a rubber ball and an improvised bat and wickets. Each player wanted to show off the knowledge he had about cricket.
One day I decided not to be left out and decided to know more about the game. I began reading sports magazines and going through the sports pages of dailies. But in spite of all my efforts, I could not understand the intricacies of the game. Instead to save face, I pretended to know the game like the back of my hand. I began watching cricket matches on TV, sometimes till late midnight. I even attempted to discuss the previous day’s match with my children, who were fully aware of the fact that I was ignorant of most of the terms they used. Thus I ‘became’ a great fan of cricket.
A few years passed. A match was being played in one of the Caribbean islands. My children were in the best of their behaviour so as to flatter me to allow them to watch the match late into the night. I also decided to burn the midnight oil. After all, I was also a cricket buff.
The children were too drowsy and I had to carry them to their beds. I was also preparing to go to bed, now that there was none to watch my cricket enthusiasm, when three strangers came claiming that they too were cricket-crazy and there was no power in their colony. They asked if it was okay for them to watch the match at my place. How could I refuse them when I myself wanted to be known as a cricket fan? I allowed them like a true sportsman.
I had to admit, nevertheless, that I could not afford to be awake the whole night and be late for work the next day. I excused myself and wished my new friends happy viewing and went to sleep.
I was blissfully asleep when my wife frantically shook me awake and I knew something was very wrong. She was so shocked that she could not speak and so she led me to the drawing room. I thought my midnight friends would be sleeping there and seeing them there my wife would have got frightened because she did not know that they were there the previous night. I was trying to console her when we entered the drawing room and I found that the night visitors had vanished and so had my TV and VCR.