The year was 1996. It was the 16th of February. I was introduced to the world of cricket, by my father and big brother. The Wills World Cup was going on in the subcontinent and South Africa was taking on the UAE, in Rawalpindi.
During the next three hours, while Gary Kirsten clobbered UAE to all corners of the ground, I was taught the various intricacies of ‘the’ game, the one now considered synonymous with religion in India.
By the time the match ended in a one-sided victory for the Proteas, cricket had got another ardent follower. I will always remember this as a red letter day in my life.
15 years have passed since then and a lot has changed, not only in my life but in the cricket fraternity.
But what has remained unaltered is the insatiable passion for the game, the sheer delight to see the ball meet the bat, the feeling of ecstasy when an excellent catch is taken or when a direct hit runs the batsman out inches outside his crease and most importantly, the inner insuppressible voice which provokes you to check the score every 10 minutes, even when the match is heading towards an undesired conclusion.
Despite being an effervescent spectator of a legion of fascinating matches during the past 15 years, there are games which have stood above the rest. Not because the quality was superior, but because they act as shining lights, illuminating significant phases of my childhood and adolescence.
Here I would like to recall certain memories of my past, incarnated in cricket’s form.
My first intimacy with cricket came soon after I became its devotee, in the semi-final of the same World Cup. The sight of a balding Vinod Kambli trudging off the field, crying, as the play was called off due to crowd trouble, is one which will always remain close to my heart, and I can still recall the entire episode as vividly as though it occurred yesterday.
At that moment, Vinod Kambli became my first hero of the game.
During the next couple of years, while Sanath Jayasuriya and the Sri Lankans were going berserk, I could watch matches few and far between, because of the absence of a cable network.
A monthly copy of Cricket Samrat used to be my most cherished possession in those days and along with a daily newspaper, it fulfilled my appetite for the sport.
I still remember cramming the exact scores of the players and the various other miscellaneous records given in the magazine, just to brag in front of my family and friends.
God works in strange ways. We finally had cable in our home in 1998, and now that I look back at it, it seems like there must have been some divine intervention behind it.
The night after the cable was installed, Sachin played the first of his two godlike innings in Sharjah against the Aussies. I still refuse to accept that as a mere coincidence.
Though I always liked Sachin, Ganguly was the one whom I adulated the most, maybe because he was also a southpaw. I remember always backing Ganguly, whenever there was a debate over India’s best batsman. I used to search all kinds of statistics, just to find some evidence to prove my belief that Saurav was better than Sachin.
Then at the beginning of the new millennium came the worst phase. India lost 3-0 down under and five Tests in a row. This was followed by the match fixing scandal, which implicated one player I truly admired, Hansie Cronje.
This, along with the sight of Kapil Dev crying, pleading not guilty in front of a news channel, was something which I had certainly never hoped for. From then on every match I saw, there used to be a lingering doubt in my mind over whether it was rigged.
Every soft dismissal, every missed run out, every close finish, played its part in heightening my suspicion. Watching cricket was no more fun. I had started to drift away from the game.
It took a gigantic effort from a big-hearted, champion cricketer to draw me back. Watching Anil Kumble come out to bowl with a broken jaw, against the counsel of his medical experts, just to see whether he could play any part in giving India its first series victory in the Caribbean in 30 years, was a sight to behold.
I felt gratified, my allegiance towards the game reassured with the knowledge that there were still individuals willing to put the sport over their petty selfish motives.
My romance with cricket reached its peak during the 2003 World Cup, when I finally took the plunge from Ganguly to Tendulkar as India’s best cricketer. The latter’s hooked six off Andrew Caddick is the best shot I have seen thus far, and his innings against Pakistan was another one to cherish.
Despite watching them umpteen times, I still can’t get enough of them.
Walking down memory lane, the Adelaide Test is another one which stands out distinctly. More than anything else, I remember the fourth day when Ajit Agarkar took 6-41.
I was in 8th standard and it was an optional day at school. The match used to take place during school hours, and after much deliberation with myself, I had decided to go.
When I heard that the Aussies were bowled out for 195, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anybody for the whole day. Till now I haven’t forgiven myself for going to school that day.
To avoid any more similar tragedy, I did bunk school the next month in order to watch an ODI between Asia X1 and World X1. However it turned out to be a 1-sided affair, again leaving me speechless.
Three others which come instantly to mind are: watching South Africa chase 434 against the Aussies the day before my Mathematics board exam; watching Yuvraj Singh hit six sixes off Stuart Broad in my termagant landlady’s house; and the funniest of them all, watching the Proteas’s inevitable choke against the Kiwis in this year’s World Cup semifinal.
15 years have gone by, and the World Cup has once again come back to the subcontinent. The passion which began with watching Vinod Kambli distraught against the Lankans at the Eden Gardens reached its crescendo when M.S.Dhoni bludgeoned Kulshekhra for a straight six at Wankhede to seal the cup.
I was with them then, when India was embarrassed out of the cup, and I am with them now, when they are the No. 1 side of ‘the’ game.
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