Cricket or no cricket...?
We should concede that the sports was one of the few good by- products of British colonization.
Mr. Farid Baskoro's portrayal of BBC's possible announcement in the midst of World War III was quite hilarious (Your Letters, June 12, 1997).
Recently, I saw an Indian TV series which depicted an old man -- a cricket-crazy fan -- suffering a stroke while watching the dramatic collapse of his favorite team on TV. This is probably not an exaggeration in cricket-loving nations, particularly on the Indian subcontinent.
It was Bernard Shaw who described cricket as a game played by eleven fools and witnessed by 11,000 fools. Since Shaw's time, the number of players has remained the same, but the number of fools viewing the game on satellite TV has grown into the millions.
Why do we call cricket a gentleman's game? The essence of cricket was once beautifully summed up this way: "You were desperate to score big just to stay on the team. A senior teammate makes a faulty call and is stranded in the middle. You now think of the team and run yourself out. That's cricket!"
Colloquially, "it's not cricket" would mean "infringing on a code of fair play" or "being unfair". Americans judged future history pretty well and wisely chose not to learn the game.
For India and Pakistan, the ever-friendly neighbors winning the ultimate "Cup" is never their real goal. When they play each other, it always becomes a battle, and beating the opponent is their determination. The winning team doesn't realize that winning the battle, but losing the war to Sri Lanka is no good. For the winner of the India vs Pakistan game, the contest is already over and they just don't have any more spirit to fight on. It's nice to see Sri Lanka cleverly playing on this psyche and merrily walking away with the coveted Cup.
By the way, did you know that cricket was once an Olympic sports? That was in the 1900 Games in Paris. The two teams that fought for the gold were Britain and France. Of course, Britain won by a sizable margin.
D. CHANDRAMOULI
Jakarta