The Big and Small of it

It’s that time of the year again when you sprain your neck looking back and crane your neck peeking ahead. However cricket intellectuals have been working out this complicated routine the whole year through. ICC has reached its century and is now working on consolidating its innings. It has been the time to review and analyze the pulse of cricket. Should tests be put on ventilators? How to keep ODIs alive? Should we amputate a few overs? Is there an overdose of T20? These are just some of the big questions for the big people, or so they tell us.

We, the smaller people are busy with the toad of small things. We that is – me and Buffie – Candy’s frog prince. I introduced them to you in the previous post. I could’ve told you again but I am feeling lazy or assume that I just want to make sure that you didn’t miss reading it. If you are a TV audience then you wouldn’t mind this replay. Buffie doesn’t. He dedicatedly follows every ball and all its replays. His patience often irritates Candy who would rather have him watch EPL or a grand slam. She thinks it’s cool and classy unlike cricket which is very janta. Can’t blame her, she has a second hand link with cricket – through TV. But Buffie doesn’t miss an opportunity to be in the stadium. He wears team jersey and paints his cheeks in tricolour. TV cameras hunt for him. He lets his emotions rise and fall with the ball. Radio commentators speak for him.

Buffie is the rare die-hard breed. Not all fans have such immunity. Most of them have had their passion contaminated by various scandal viruses. They have developed cynical antibodies. When a settled player gives away his wicket they think that he has been bought. When a team loses a close match they say that it has been fixed. They were betrayed once. Innocence was lost and now they’ve learnt not to trust. I wonder if this disillusionment figures anywhere on the list of big challenges.

Perhaps it doesn’t. Otherwise the demigods would be careful about their image and their institution will open its lavishly carved halls to public. They would clarify the reasons that keep the wasim-zaffars from being selected. They would operate transparently. They would own up to their answerability to the billions. They would give back to the community. They would do the needful for increasing the quality of cricket. They would respect the people who visit the stadiums and not look at them as extra-actors gathered to create an exciting atmosphere for TV viewers.

Could any of these be New Year’s resolution for cricket administrators? Do we, the small people figure?

This post was published on my blog HOOKed! at Cricket Aakash