Celebrity Column | Cricket, writes Ayushmann Khurrana

The last Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was a blockbuster. In the age of T20, young school students at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru were cheering every single ball bowled by the Indian bowlers on the last day.

But I feel they should ban the ‘East or West, India is the best’ chant. It’s so hackneyed and cliched now. Kuch naya bolo, yaar. Be innovative and fun. Like chant ‘Sachin! Sachin!’ Or ‘Sabse aage ladke kaun? Rajput Rajput!’ (from the film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar). It’s nostalgic, ironical and has a lot of coolth.

But some people may say it’s classist. But ‘East or West, India is the best’ is plain boring. My friend says it should be ‘East or West, India is the breast’, because most men in India are boob men, unlike most men in South America, who are butt men.

But globalisation has altered everything. Indians have become better fielders. In fact, better sportspersons in general. In a candid chat, Sunil Gavaskar, once revealed how he hated fielding and warm-up exercises, which have become a sacrosanct norm in this generation.

Very few people know that I’ve played district level cricket and my younger brother Aparshakti who’s also a sports anchor now, captained the Haryana Under-19 team. He was the opening batsmen and a terrific slip fielder. I, on the other hand, was the worst fielder, and in order to save myself from the brutalities of the leather ball, I decided to become a wicket-keeper (because you get to wear gloves) in the Under-14 team. Little did I realise that wicket-keepers are supposed to be the best fielders of the side.

When I was the wicket-keeper, the batsmen behaved like brats in front of a lenient invigilator in an examination hall. I used to give maximum byes and unlimited sighs to my coach watching the game from the outside.

One day, I was bowling to my captain in the nets since there were no spinners available. And our coach was having his tea break and watching it from a distance. He noticed that our aggressive opener captain was getting beaten quite frequently by my flight and turn. He couldn’t read my straighter one, also. From that nondescript net session, I was in the playing 11 as a genuine leg spinner and a middle-order batsman. So I played till Under-19 district level and was always a part of the school cricket team.

Cricket used to be different back in the day. It was just cricket. Lesser faff. Lesser flamboyance. The cricketers of the 90s were an eclectic bunch. It was a mix of too young and too old. People were waiting for Kapil, Shastri and Srikanth to retire and were waiting for Sachin, Kambli and Kumble to fire. There was a generation gap in the playing 11.

We frequently lost to Pakistan and were in awe of stadiums and facilities in England and Australia. Now we have everything.

BCCI can easily mouth that famous Bachchan dialogue from Deewar to other boards of world cricket, ‘Aaj mere paas bangla hai, gaadi hai, bank balance hai, tumhare paas kya hai?’ And other boards can revert and say, ‘Humaare pass maa... ki aankh.. kuch bhi nahi hai.’’

We have truly become a global superpower in cricket. What a great evolution in terms of moolah and stature!

We are Number 1 in all formats of the game. With a captain like Virat Kohli who’s averaging 50 in all formats of the game.

But has anybody written anything about the homegrown format? The makeshift cricket that we play when there’s paucity of space. We form rules in accordance with the time and space in hand. One tip, one hand out. Ball going straight out of the boundary would be out, not six. And underarm bowling.

Sigh. I wish life was like that. Like makeshift cricket, where we could make our own rules. Shane Warne, who I rate as my only competition in leg spin, once said, “To me, cricket is a simple game. Keep it simple, just go out and play.”

Hmmmmm.. Sach is life. Sach is life I say (Sach as in Sachin).