Cricket is not just another sport!

India is a true democracy - everyone voices their opinion. “Chapell should be fired”, “Dravid should be replaced”, “Sachin should retire”, “Shewag should be dropped” and the list goes on and on. Like I said, it’s a democracy and a big one at that and everybody has an opinion and so does yours truly. When a team loses, is a fan supposed to be disappointed or angry? Hmmm, that’s a no-brainer! That totally depends on how the team played. That said, how do the Indian fans feel – disappointed or angry? Neither – they feel cheated. Some people committed suicide after the recent loss in the World Cup. That begs the question WHY? Why are the Indian fans taking this personally? Why is this just not another sport? The answer is written all over the wall. This is not just another sport. In India cricket is not a sport it is a religion, we are fanatics and we worship our cricketers. It is a common sight to see people garland posters of stars and dance around it after a victory. Emotions run ‘high’ because people are drunk on cricket.

India as a nation maybe on the way to becoming an economic superpower but in the world of cricket India already is the US. For a nation that boasts of a 1 billion, in which other sport or game do we really fancy ourselves to win? Tennis? Soccer? Basketball? Let’s not even get started about track and field because that will just be a sad reminder of India’s repeated poor showing at the Olympics. And let’s not forget about how we lost the game of hockey to countries like Australia, England and Netherlands. It is evident that we have been quintessential underachievers in sports and games.

Ah! Right, did I forget Chess? Well, who really cares? The world already knows we are smart. We need to show them we are strong, aggressive and have a killer instinct. To win consistently, we should be able to draw blood ruthlessly and sometimes be the first to draw blood. History will tell us we are not aggressive and don’t really have a killer instinct in our genes. India has never made a conquest in the last known 5000 years. Hinduism, the religion practiced by the majority of the population is not aggressive like the other major religions of the world. It does not advocate spreading it and has evolved into a very tolerant religion to the point of being endangered now!

Therein lays our fundamental problem and the reasons for taking the loss personally. The nation has been nurtured to believe that we don’t have killer instinct, what with the policy of “no first strike” – Jeez. We as a people are reactive not proactive. But times have changed and we have a population wanting to stand up and be counted. And cricket is the only stage we fancy ourselves asserting our strength to the rest of the world. Reactive societies depend on heroics not efficiency. In the process we have come to view our cricket players as heroes. We bank on our heroes not the team. And when they don’t click we feel let down and cheated. In conclusion, given the changing times and the Indian psyche we are totally justified in our reaction – for us it is not just a sport it is our religion. For some people it is worth dying for.

PS: I do want to tell people who are asking for Sachin, Dravid and Sourav to retire to just Shut Up! They are champions of the sport and know what should be done. It is their decision and we should respect that.