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I am a crazy and proud Indian fan who grew up on a full diet of cricket.
I grew up worshipping Sachin Tendulkar. I would bite my nails for the first 30 minutes whenever Sachin came in to bat. I would warm my neck under a halogen bulb to fake a temperature and miss school so I could watch India play.
Hell, I’ve even finished school exams “early” so that I could get back home and watch cricket.
In case you’ve still not got the picture, I’m the stereotypical crazy and passionate Indian cricket fan.
I was watching live cricket on Kayo when Kerry O’Keefe made his railway canteen joke.
Guess what guys; I laughed. I laughed my guts out.
I knew exactly what Kerry meant. It was an impromptu joke directed at the fact that a team made of “Indian Railways” employees actually play first-class cricket.
This was a joke made on Australian TV, for an Australian audience and I can imagine it would be strange if Australia had a cricket team made of Metro staff!
It is irrelevant – even if it sort of questioned the quality of first-class cricket in India – because everyone has a right to their opinion!
I am sure Kerry did not question the quality of the Railways team, he simply blurted out a joke the moment he heard the word Railways!
In no way did I find it demeaning or racist and I loved the mention of railway canteen.
I love Kerry’s commentary. He is knowledgeable, very likeable, speaks well and is so funny he could be a stand-up comedian if he wanted to.
He also comes across as honest, sincere and a genuinely good person.
Hence, the serious overreaction from both those who didn’t get the joke really pained me.
I believe it all started by a tweet from an Australian journalist working for Cricinfo and it then got lapped up by very thin-skinned trolls.
Anyone who reads comment threads on Indian news sites will know that it is filled with tons of abusive and demeaning garbage thrown around by scores of idiots who have nothing better to do than rubbish other people’s opinions.
So my message to Kerry is; ignore the crap that got thrown your way.
Please continue to be funny and make us laugh – I swear it was your jokes that kept me awake during the boring Day 1 of the Boxing Day test.
By the way, I bet even the Railway canteen staff in India can out bat the Sheffield Shield teams of Australia at the moment!
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