Cricket has enough ‘cool flavour’ for India

MUMBAI: Coolness is a slippery idea. It is never clear exactly what is cool at any time, or who it is that is making the decisions. In every part of the world, young people, with varying degrees of success, and middle aged people, with very little success, are trying desperately to be cool. The main difficulty is that coolness is a fleeting thing, and self-destructive, so that what was once cool, but is no longer, ranks much lower on the coolness gauge than something that was never cool.

Mumbai seems set to remain the coolest city in India for a long time, but within both of the city’s twin cool-industries of music and fashion the battle for supremacy continues, and kids evidently take much care in choosing what they wear and listen to.

There are, however, things that exist outside the rules of coolness. Rebellion will never stop being cool, neither will sex or beauty.

Another perennially cool global phenomenon is the Caribbean. The scenery, the beaches, the people and the reggae all play a supporting role to the chilled lifestyle. Images of the Caribbean are being piped into Mumbai’s homes throughout this tournament, and broadcasters can feel confident that colourful carnivals and relaxed Rastafarians will elicit positive responses.

Cricket is a difficult animal to define in terms of coolness. More so than other sports it carries a history that is far from cool. Both in the Caribbean and the Sub Continent it carries a legacy of colonial mastery; it bears the load of being the sport of the white, privileged minority. Cool things are often fast paced, whether cars, music or films. While cricket can be played at a fast pace, the length of matches can prevent it seeming cool. In England, a land dominated by football, it seems it would hold many more fans were it not for the length of time it takes, hence the invention of Twenty20 matches. The game in the West Indies is often reported to be suffering from youngsters preferring basketball to cricket, partly because of the money on offer from the States, but also because it is less traditional, and therefore speaks more for a young generation.

This does not have to be the case however. Much has already been written of the way in which former colonies playing cricket can recover their sovereignty through reinventing the sport: the West Indies’ period of dominance of the game was often seen entirely in this light.

India’s youth do not seem in any way troubled by a colonial hangover psychology in any case.  There is also little here in terms of temptation from other sports. Crucially, Indian cricket has the finances to fuel the dreams of many a young generation. Add to this the fact that in India, cool is hardly an appropriate word, because casual, languorous ambivalence loses out to heated hyperactivity. Watching cricket from a hammock is a cool image from a different place, but it must be left there. Jumping, shouting, singing and dancing are the flavours of Indian cool, and as long as cricket goes on providing reasons for these, in Indian eyes, it will never lose its cool.