Joy of watching TV-Cricket

The contents of this post is especially for those who know at least a little bit of the game of Cricket.  Other ignoramuses also can read it!  Observations in this are "in my personal  opinion". 

My own TV grab of a memorable moment

Watching a cricket match on TV is not just sitting back, with some junk food by the side, counting runs, overs and wickets.  Cricket is for enjoyment of both the player and the beholder.  I have seen many people while watching games on TV or following the game, take sides.  Taking sides is not a healthy habit, because it is a hindrance to enjoy the other plentiful intrinsic thrills of cricket.  It is beyond mathematical figures and statistics. 

Cricket is one of the most unpredictable games, which we all know.  This is due to varied combination of many factors that get involved in the process of a match.  Climatic conditions, nature of the pitch, location, size and shape of the ground, time of the day, humidity, sunlight, now the dew factor in ODIs [day-night], quality and brand of ball, players' form, fitness and frame of mind and so on!

Cricket would not have got so popular at all if it was without those unpredictable elements.  Tell me why Don Bradman or Sachin Tendulkar, could not score a century each time they walked out to bat or Shane Warne  took a wicket every few deliveries he bowled.  Tell me why blinders of catches are held or simple catches floored.  Tell me why direct throws at stumps from a short distance miss?  Tell me why batsmen sometimes get out to seemingly 'loose deliveries'.  Tell me why they can sometimes hit a seemingly 'good' delivery for a sixer.  Tell me why batsmen sometimes get out at their own score on 99. Tell me why a player is said to be 'out of form' or 'in fine form'.  Tell me why players prepare so much, practice a lot, work hard and yet perform poorly in the match?  Can these be explained?  The post mortem words like 'ifs, buts, should have, should not have...' have no meaning.  Because, things 'happen at that moment it happens'!  They just happen!  

There are two categories of people who watch cricket on TV.  One category has just cricket fans or followers or casual enthusiasts and the other has players who have actually played the game.  Relatively, the latter enjoy more because they know why and how certain things happen or do not happen during a game as the nuances of the game are better understood by them from experience.  The former lot may miss grasping them, probably also because their focus is on 'their own desired end results'!  We find more 'side takers' among the former lot.  All said and done, there are quite a few from the former category, even mothers-in-law, that are good at analyzing games! 

Siding a team makes one tense esp., if the favoured team does badly.  I know some friends who stay away from the TV when India is playing, because they cannot tolerate Team India losing!  They expect the opponents to lose every match!  Patriotism should not be taken too far while watching a cricket match from a comfortable sofa!   Of course who does not like to see our Team India win games?  There are better ways to savour 'watching victories' than to go out to the streets and shouting or bursting crackers in the dead of the night disturbing the neighbourhood!

[A local cricket match at Maharaja's College Ground, Mysore].  

Cricket is a hard-fought game played between two teams on the field and the winner is always the one who performs better than the other on that particular day.  Sometimes we also say that 'cricket is the winner' when a game ends in a thrilling draw after the two sides that played good exciting cricket throughout.  Some people get involved in the game they are watching and get very emotional, to the extent that they feel as if they are commanding the actions on far away grounds, when even players playing the game do not know what happens in the next minute or ball!  Shorter versions of the game have less cricketing thrills than the longest version, Test Cricket.

After all, what is cricket [in brief]?  Read and understand this beautiful description inscribed on stone at Kingsmead Oval's Centenary Museum in Durban, South Africa.  It is about Test Match Cricket:

You have two sides; one out in the field and one in.  Each man that's in the side that's in goes out when he is out.  He comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.  When they are all out, the side that's out comes in.  And the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.  Sometimes you get men still in and not out.  When both sides have been in and out including the not outs.  That's the end of the match.  That is Cricket!


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