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Sports versus Cricket

Funny, isn't it? As if cricket isn't a sport. Frankly, at least in India, titling an article on cricket "sports versus cricket" is asking for trouble. Cricket is not only a sport, but for some the only sport. The game is no longer taken merely as a game. It has got so inextricably intertwined in the fabric of an average Indian's life that it has transcended all barriers of race, religion, caste, zone, state et al. In such a diverse nation as India, that is quite something! Cricket has traditionally been recognized as an English sport. But then that is true of large number of modern sports such as football, badminton, table tennis and tennis. None of these, however, have had such profound effects on the people of India as cricket has done. Considering the socio-economic factors, one would have expected football to be for the masses the, number one sport but it hasn't happened that way. To an extent, one has to agree with David Barnes when he says that " it remains one of the great mysteries of soccer that Britain, the land which spawned the game itself, failed so singularly to spread it to its empire. Cricket and rugby were exported but soccer stayed at home. Not one Commonwealth country calls it their national sport". It is a peculiar paradox that a poor nation like India has taken to cricket—an expensive, aristocratic and time-consuming sport. It is essentially within the enquiry of a social psychologist to analyse the reasons why this occurred; but it could be that the leisurely pace of the game suited the leisurely pace and lifestyle of the Indians, yet allowing them the liberty to demonstrate the lithe and artistic style which they possessed. It could also be that it allowed the commoner to mix with the aristocrat; and for the two to meet their masters, the Englishmen, as equals on the field of play. These factors, as I said, are perhaps only some of the reasons why this game took roots, budded, sprouted and flowered in as unlikely a terrain as India.