Entries Tagged 'cricket' ↓

This blog post comes terribly late after the incident. But it’s a thought that’s been swirling in my head for a while now.

A few months ago, the Australian cricket team got hammered in India. They lost 0-2.  Their opening batsman, Matthew Hayden was out of form and in his-classy-as-always tone, blamed it in part of on the bad pitches in India, which he said was typical of a “third-world country.” As you can imagine, this remark triggered a firestorm in India. Indian cricketers demanded that he apologize. The Indian public was in a tizzy.  Indian journalists and cricket fans alike slammed Hayden’s statement.

Hayden is no stranger to controversy related to Indian cricket. The previous summer, the Indian team nearly quit their tour of Australia after a fracas involving Hayden, Andrew Symonds, and Harbajan Singh.

So this latest incident shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.

Regardless of the all-round anger, there are some issues to consider:

1. Hayden was out of form and blowing off steam. I didn’t see him making a fuss on previous tours when he scored centuries.

2. Why do Indians care about what an Australian says about us? Here’s why. It has nothing to do with criticism;  Indians are more critical of India than anyone else. Yet the minute we hear someone with lower-melanin content than us say something critical, we fiercely defend the country. This is to be expected because we’re a newly successful player on the world scene, as well as only 60 years away from first becoming independent of the British.  Like any country still young in freedom, we’re secretly sensitive about what people say about us, under all our confidence and bravado.

3.  Hayden’s remarks are more a reflection on him than us, and it doesn’t harm us really: Hayden’s out of form, and a jerk. It makes sense he would say what he said. He’s also one of the most unpopular cricketers in the world.  His critiques of India are nothing new. His critiques won’t reduce tourism. He’s just another idiot sportsman blaming his inadequacies on circumstances rather than himself.

Anyway, Hayden has since retired. Good riddance.

Meanwhile– India– we need to get over ourselves. Stop falling over these silly cricketers and go back to reforming our economy, fixing our infrastructure and educating millions.

A lot of girls find their crushes at school, on TV shows and in the movies.

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Well, I went to an all-girl school. I did like the odd actor in the movies (*cough* Colin Firth *cough*), but that was about it.

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But I had another source for ultimate crushiness: international cricketers.

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I suppose a lot of girls like sportsmen, but only girls in the British Commonwealth would know who these cricketers are: South Africa’s Shaun Pollock and New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming. I mention them because both of them recently retired from international cricket.

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It represents an end of an era for their cricket teams, because they were influential cricketers.

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It represents an end of an era for me too, because it’s officially the end of that phase of my life when I could tell you pretty much everything about those two cricket teams. In a larger sense, it closes the door on that era of my India-based life, mindset and interests. My interests and inclinations are all US-based now. Seems about right, seeing as how I’ve live here for so long.

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When I moved here five years ago, I knew a fair bit about cricket teams, which players were picked, why, the future of those teams and so on. With each passing year I’ve been here, that interest and knowledge has waned, not just because I’m far away from the action, but also because the players I watched started retiring and new ones came on to the scene.

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Most of my friends in high school thought that Shaun Pollock was ugly as sin (ironic, because he’s a born-again Christian). In fact, Pollock is not considered particularly attractive by ANYONE; even one of South Africa’s best known sports reporters went so far as to call him “not sexy.”

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NZ’s Fleming has been called “Everybody’s Mum’s Favorite Black Cap.” I don’t know if my mother would like him, but I sure did. He was as good a tactician as he was (is?) good looking.

It’s interesting to see the footage of these guys’ retirements, see the wife and children in the background and think back to the time when they were still young, in their 20s with the world (and figuratively, women) at their feet. And now, it’s all over.

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Over for them, and in a much smaller way, over for me.

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Additional:

Pollock’s retirement speech.

Fleming’s retirement speech.