Cricket Power, Go Get It

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle May 2007)

The war in Windies has started. (For Team India, though, it has even ended.) More than rum, reggae and Rastafarianism, it is cricket that is now the flavour of the Caribbean islands. And we Indians are, or at least consider ourselves to be, the connoisseurs of this flavour. The cricket sensex may be at an ebb after India’s humiliation, but it will recover sooner than later.

In India if you don’t follow the game, chances are you are not getting a proper education. Initially it was the gentleman’s game and restricted to the few who had English education. But now education has spread to the masses. And so has the game of cricket. So much so that literacy can be measured in terms of one’s interest in cricket, it appears. Besides, in the upper echelons we have scholars like Ramchandra Guha who stand testimony to how cricket and academics can converge.

On a close scrutiny, cricket is full of seeds of education — mathematics, statistics and opinions. When a cricket match was on, ‘what’s the score’ became as common a question as ‘what’s the time’. And if both these questions are now being heard less, it is not because of any waning of interest. It is because the mobile phone readily answers both.

Juggling with the maths and stats of cricket is a delightful exercise. When Mahinder Singh Dhoni is chasing a target, he is not alone in negotiating the asking rate. Millions of Indians are doing so in their minds. And mind you there are no calculators. Now you know why our IITians have become a brand the world over. Besides, the stats make you “inquizitive” too as you try to remember the centuries of Tendulkar and the ducks of Agarkar.

Opinions on the game give you a platform for debate. Speculations are aplenty and may come in handy when you venture into the stock market. Disappointments are galore and teach you how to cope with life.

The conclusion: cricket power, go get it. Only stop short of becoming an addict.