One of the earliest memories that i recall is of my father holding the bat alongside me and enacting a perfect cover drive . He was good at cricket , but a natural left hander , I on the other hand was a right hander with occasional bouts of left handedness to reenact that charm of a square cut that Ganguly so effortlessly played . Cricket was never a topic of discussion at home but had seamlessly blended into the household through the family following every match that was telecast on Doordarshan .
I can't say when i started watching cricket but it was sometime before the '96 WC . I distinctly remember a towering six that Jayasuriya hit against England , one of his many at that World Cup ,as a bemused Jack Russell watched the ball scale heights and eventually land somewhere on the roof . But it was to be a WC of heartbreak as I discovered sometime later . I never watched the Semi Final to its conclusion , not that the ever sporting crowd of Eden Gardens didn't allow me to ,i had resigned to defeat a long time before people took matters in their own hands . Unfortunately i managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of Kambli , gloves , helmet in hands and tears in eyes , my heart was with him and my eyes reciprocated his own .
'96 did more for Tennis than perhaps it did for Cricket in India . I never knew such a game existed, before that lad called Paes brought a bronze medal home . And that was the time doordashan began to oblige us with savory treats of Grand Slam semi finals and Finals . I watched them all , Paes Bhupati , Woodbridge Woodford , and Rafter that ponytailed herculean fighting it out against Agassi and Sampras . Perhaps Hingis too though i don't recall . Tennis was enjoyable , but it was more of a upper class sport , the only court in the vicinity being at IITK and not worth the trouble . So i stuck to playing cricket in gullies , occasionally in parks and maybe once or twice in stadiums .
Although Kanpur has an international cricket stadium i had never watched a match there until 2002 when India hosted England . It was january and naturally the pitch was wet due to early morning dew . The match started late and was cut short to 39 overs . India made no heck in chasing a modest target of 219 that England had set with Sachin scoring 87 . But overall it was a dry affair , or so it looked from my seat in the student stands . Perhaps cricket is a sport meant for drawing rooms than stadiums , but i cannot really say for sure .
Though a taste of watching cricket from close quarters wasn't one to savour , i had complete faith in the ability of the idiot box to provide my cricket fix . I followed cricket assiduosly till 2007 ,but after that things were never quite the same any more . It was not completely downhill and i still enjoyed watching test matches and ODIs . But I could never stand 20-20 , and it was everywhere . The launch of IPL and then IPL 2 perhaps proved to be the final twist of the knife .
For most of my college life i have not followed the Indian Cricket team , except the occasional match and the World Cup , which left me teary eyed ( and perhaps Kambli too ) . But i hope to make up for the transgressions and follow cricket again , perhaps at a more comforting time and place , when my head and heart are at peace with each other
I can't say when i started watching cricket but it was sometime before the '96 WC . I distinctly remember a towering six that Jayasuriya hit against England , one of his many at that World Cup ,as a bemused Jack Russell watched the ball scale heights and eventually land somewhere on the roof . But it was to be a WC of heartbreak as I discovered sometime later . I never watched the Semi Final to its conclusion , not that the ever sporting crowd of Eden Gardens didn't allow me to ,i had resigned to defeat a long time before people took matters in their own hands . Unfortunately i managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of Kambli , gloves , helmet in hands and tears in eyes , my heart was with him and my eyes reciprocated his own .
'96 did more for Tennis than perhaps it did for Cricket in India . I never knew such a game existed, before that lad called Paes brought a bronze medal home . And that was the time doordashan began to oblige us with savory treats of Grand Slam semi finals and Finals . I watched them all , Paes Bhupati , Woodbridge Woodford , and Rafter that ponytailed herculean fighting it out against Agassi and Sampras . Perhaps Hingis too though i don't recall . Tennis was enjoyable , but it was more of a upper class sport , the only court in the vicinity being at IITK and not worth the trouble . So i stuck to playing cricket in gullies , occasionally in parks and maybe once or twice in stadiums .
Although Kanpur has an international cricket stadium i had never watched a match there until 2002 when India hosted England . It was january and naturally the pitch was wet due to early morning dew . The match started late and was cut short to 39 overs . India made no heck in chasing a modest target of 219 that England had set with Sachin scoring 87 . But overall it was a dry affair , or so it looked from my seat in the student stands . Perhaps cricket is a sport meant for drawing rooms than stadiums , but i cannot really say for sure .
Though a taste of watching cricket from close quarters wasn't one to savour , i had complete faith in the ability of the idiot box to provide my cricket fix . I followed cricket assiduosly till 2007 ,but after that things were never quite the same any more . It was not completely downhill and i still enjoyed watching test matches and ODIs . But I could never stand 20-20 , and it was everywhere . The launch of IPL and then IPL 2 perhaps proved to be the final twist of the knife .
For most of my college life i have not followed the Indian Cricket team , except the occasional match and the World Cup , which left me teary eyed ( and perhaps Kambli too ) . But i hope to make up for the transgressions and follow cricket again , perhaps at a more comforting time and place , when my head and heart are at peace with each other
