The dream win

So, finally we have a World Cup (after 1983). Yohoooooooo :grin: I do like Twenty20 , much against my initial apprehension about it. It’s entertaining no doubt. It’s almost as if cricket’s reborn. It definitely has a huge fan following already (like anything about cricket in India needed an incentive!). The dream final: India vs arch rivals Pakistan. I think India won purely due to luck in the final ‘coz both teams were terrific. Pakistan was one shot away from the elusive win against India (they’ve never won against us in a World Cup match), one bad shot from Misbah and he handed us the victory. That’s what counts, you say. Victory, we won. That’s what matters. Who cares how it came about? Of course we played some great games to reach the final (including the final). Let me not take anything away from the team. We did deserve to win, surely.

  With a super bunch of youngsters in the team, all fired up, and hopefully this is just what they need to keep the momentum going. Except that it might not remain that way too long due to the crazy hype being created by the Board of Cricket and the Indian media. Why do the media and the government have to overplay the win? What’s with this overgenerous display of giving monetary benefits (in crores!!) to these guys? Don’t get me wrong, some amount of it is truly justified. You have to encourage talented people. But looking at the way they’re throwing unheard amounts of money at them makes me sick. Where are they getting so much from? If they (the government) can give each cricketer so much, why can’t they give some to rehabilitate a slum? Or repair a horribly pot-holed road? Or open a school? The ad companies are flocking the cricketers like flies buzzing towards food! (On a related note, the amount of money ESPN has made in just the ads in between overs has been record breaking, they made about Rs 200 crores!!).

See, I’m ecstatic that India won. After a long time, I have renewed interest in the game. I have yelled until my throat got hoarse. All my previous habits have come back, so much so that I frequently run inside when I can’t take the tension of seeing if the batsman hit a six or he got out!! (I admit, my behaviour is rather funny and peculiar when it comes to nail biting matches!). I do understand sport needs to be encouraged. But they don’t do this for all the other sport in India. There has always been a legenderay step-motherly treatment towards the other games. Of course none of the other sport boards are as rich (or influential) as the Indian Cricket board, and lets face it, we are a self-confessed cricket (and Bollywood) crazy nation. Heck, I’m a cricket (and Bollywood) fan myself. I can’t imagine life without Hindi movies or cricket matches. That’s what most of us grew up on! But is that reason enough to hype this to such a gross extent? 

You know, what I fear, they’ll hype all this to such an extent, they’ll make the team think no end of themselves, make them think of not the game, but the money that the game brings them and the sad end result will be that the game will suffer. It’s a pity. And it can happen ‘coz it’s happened before. <Sigh> Well, anyway, this is not a time to spoil the celebrations, so here’s to the Cup and hoping we can repeat this more times, especially in the ODIs. Long live cricket!

p.s. On the other hand, honestly speaking, I do prefer the ODI.