Comment

Sports & pastime

They say that the trial of Saddam Hussein is just a trick to mask the real issue in Iraq: the turmoil that the presence of the US is causing in the area. So, is the apparent big fight between (former?) Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly and newly appointed coach Greg Chappell, just a front to hide the real issue: control of India's richest, most prestigious and yes, richest sporting body?

I say, who cares. Or rather, maybe some of us care about other things. Since that evil and life-threatening match-fixing scandal broke in the last century culminating in the revelations of 2000, Indian cricket has been on our front pages for all the wrong reasons.

No poetic descriptions of sweeping cover drives, no lyrical effusions about batsmen on song, no dynamic prose about bowlers and their wicket-taking records. No, it's goodbye Neville Cardus and hello Woodward and Bernstein; let's investigate the goings-on in the world of cricket and boy, are there goings-on.

But honestly, when was that last thrilling experience in cricket? Even the excitement of the Ashes has worn off now - that week was dominated by the gigantic battle between Roger Federer and Andre Agassi at the US Open. As far as India went, Sania Mirza's amazing achievements in tennis this year far outshone any other sportsperson's. The very fact that we argue about the nitty-gritty of her serve and the burden of her unforced errors means that even Sachin Tendulkar's form - fading at that time if reviving now - was of less interest than Mirza's dynamic courtside actions. And it's not just me. Take a look at the sports pages of any paper and for the first time in at least my life, you'll find that the space devoted to cricket has, gasp, shrunk.

Instead, there's football, formula one, golf, tennis, athletics. The fervour that greeted the mention of Pathans and Patels and Tendulkars and Dravids and Kaifs and Harbhajans is now slowly being re-distributed between the Mirzas and Karthikeyans, the Atwals and the Rathores, the Anju Bobby Georges and heck, even the discredited weight-lifters. Cricket pundits will have you believe that the Indian cricket fan is disillusioned and hurt. I'd say smell the coffee guys. The Indian cricket fan was disillusioned and hurt when the match-fixing scandal broke and our guys, their guys, everyone was implicated in it. Now, the Indian cricket fan is just bored.

Ask any young person today with access to television and the internet and chances are, he'll be better informed about America's NFL, Australian Rules football and rugby than the goings-on in cricket. The Champions League, the Tour de France, Vuelta, the travails of Beckham and Real Madrid, the PGA tour, the challenge to Schumacher, and the new christening of Alons even us sports-illiterate idiots know about those.

Don't believe me? Switch to any sports channel. You'll have this variety to choose from: beach volleyball, football, tennis, cycling, track and field, motocross, formula 1, BMX, golf, boxin! Sure you might say, that's because the serious cricket season is just starting. Maybe that's true. But the more variety you give us, the more variety we'll get used to. And suddenly, the solitary joy of the thwack of willow against leather gets replaced by the sweet, sweet sound of a furry yellow ball being elegantly sliced by a graphite racquet.

Of course there might be no point asking me, I'm a self-confessed, die-hard Roger Federer fan. My life is on hold till the Shanghai Masters. And for the first time in years, television is fulfilling my tennis interests. It even allowed us to watch an ebullient Rafael Nadal throw down a challenge to the great Federer in Madrid. And so, for the rest of the country.

Just look at the media's Sania mania, foolish and misguided though it often is. The death of Indian cricket might lead to the death of cricket in the subcontinent and the death of cricket overall. Is it going to happen soon? Should Neville Cardus be crying in his grave? Of course not. But this is notice being served. This is a wake-up call that the country has woken up. Substandard playing techniques, bad performances, off-field tantrums and pavilion politics are taking a serious toll on cricket in India.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying ourselves, learning about sport. And that's a good sign.

The writer is a freelance journalist