Cricket is in air, the same old game which I learnt on my Apartment ka terrace. We bunch of boys in our chaddis would play cricket every single evening, exam ho ya na ho. It used to be fun impersonating the cricketers of that era, we copied their stance or their bowling style and being a tamilian i had to copy Kris Srikanth, and i was as inconsistent as him, unpredicatable bowling, erratic batting and "pakda-tho-pakda" type fielder but used to be lots of fun. An occasional Viv Richards shot would take the ball down the building, and we had to coax some bhole-bhalle kaka to throw the ball up..."Kaka, ball dya na pleaaseee" (yes i can speak Tendulkar's Mother tongue). After few attempts, the ball would manage to reach the terrace which was on the 5th floor of our 4 floor building and we would cheer "Kaka" for his extraordinary effort. Kaka would stroke his godrej-dyed hair congratulating himself for a great job done. As we grew older the venue shifted to smaller grounds in our town, we lost most of our matches and yet had good fun. But gaye woh din, nappy main zyaada happy the yaar !! Now-a-days I get to play occasionally with the new chaddi gang (my son and his chillar pillar friends).
Apart from playing the game the best part was to watch a cricket match and the enthusiasm hasn't gone anywhere. Earlier it used to be Rasna, Bhajji's at home while watching these matches and these days we rest our bum in some swanky sports bar with liquor and Manchurians. All Indians are experts of this game, it is common to hear intelligent comments like Dhoni's backlift is not high enough and that is affecting his stroke play, Zaheer should bowl the 34th over considering that the there is 73% moisture, so that is the over when the ball will start reverse swinging. It is weird but so what ?? even the ICC chief Sharad pawar has never played professional cricket tho hum bhi kissi se kam nahin hai.
Last one month has been great fun, Indian cricket team is doing wonderful and 1 billion Indians are waiting for Dhoni and his boys to lift the world cup on 2nd April. I will be wearing the same jeans that I wore when India won against the Aussies and then Pakistan, I also plan to visit the same sports bar with the same group of 15 odd colleagues screaming and dancing with every wicket, every boundary, etc etc. You never know my jeans might be the real match winner ;-)
I was 4 years old when India won the world cup in 1983, my son is 4 yrs now ....I have heard many times that history repeats
