World Cup has truly arrived!

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

Who made this tie become real? Strauss? Piyush Chawla? Munaf Patel? Zaheer Khan? Sachin? The crowds at Chinnaswamy? Or was it a tweet by Shane Warne that gathered all the forces of the universe to conjure up a tie? Almost everyone all over the cricketing world starting conjecturing… and letting us all know through their FB status updates or 140 character tweets. There was a literal pandemonium of bytes on my computer screen for well over an hour… there were writers, journalists, actors, bloggers, players, politicians, quizzers, commentators, friends, enemies, strangers, and everybody who wanted to be somebody bent upon making his or her point on this tie. There were tardy comments, tacky views, grim warnings, resigned sighs, hilarious conclusions, dubious connections, witty remarks, sagacious words, calm thoughts, and nonsense as well as no-nonsense barbs that went on and on and on for quite a while until I finally decided to collect a few of these gems and convert them into an article for my blog.

It is now clear that the World cup has truly arrived!

‘Warne says he was being tongue-in-cheek predicting a tie. At least his tongue keeps to his own anatomy these days.’ The moment I read this tweet sent by a Abhijit Majumder, I mumbled to myself that cricket has once again overtaken all other forms of sensual titillations! With Shane attempting to sit on the throne left vacant by some dead football crazed octopus, Liz may well have to discover other ways of hurling herself on to the bat-n-pad of this mighty tentacle-growing cricketer from Australia. However, the point is that it isn’t just a tie but even a mere twitter of a prediction of a tie that has managed to get rouse and arouse emotions globally.

The World cup has truly arrived!

When the heart says: phew!
I wish I were new
The name
Of the game
Is cricket! Ah! You knew!

Though its good to let Mandira Bedi play with her newly found affinity for writing limericks, I was tempted to write this one to drive in the point that cricket is one game where the last few overs are potential ICU-buzzers! Vikram Chandra agrees with this when he tweets: “Wot a game! If there are going to be more like that, I better go buy BP medicine!!!” Barkha Dutt too daintily pulsates after this match ended in a tie: “phew. waiting to exhale #indiaengland” And my friend Abhijit Majumder is, as usual, hitting the bull’s eye with his tweet:”Cricket clearly is more dangerous for the heart than bungee-jumping.” Remember, this is one game that one never messes with. It is more ruthless than any character that even Mario Puzo may have created. I just happened to browse through a few of the FB updates after the match ended and they were all afire. Himi Ohri Sarin called this match a ‘cliff hanger’, Balkaran Singh Garcha found that ‘every one bit their nails to the cuticles for a tie…’ and Kaveri Ahuja hurrahed: ‘Paisa vasool!’

And this simply means that the World cup has truly arrived!

Fans in Chinnaswamy stadium

Wars and battles aren’t just for Libya anymore. Anybody who knows why a perfectly sane person gets padded up to stand in front of a trio of wickets trying to defend them from an onslaught of a bowling attack that even the mercenaries of Gaddafi can’t conjure up, would fully understand why Nikhil Chinapa tried to shout down all the self-proclaimed wise ones of cricket. And he did it all in well measured tweet grammar: “Whoever says “cricket is a winner today”, please just shut the f*** up and shove your head back up your yin-yang.” We wouldn’t really know if it was Gaurav Kapur’s tweet at the receiving end or not, though he did unwittingly remark: “Shit. Shastri was right. Only cricket won today :-/” Though Sachin Kalbag tweeting “In the end, Shastri is the winner” and Stephen Fry lauding the ODI format in his tweet “OMFG!! What. A. Match!! Kudos, glory, and honour to all. Especially the ODI format – reports of your death were exaggerated. #bbcworldcup” were equally vulnerable to Nikhil’s acerbic attack!

India vs England on 27 February 2011

Such battles aren’t for the weak-hearted and the mild mannered. I remember I was watching an India-Pakistan day-and-night friendly match in JLN stadium… the match which we won because of Kirti Azad’s fabulous sixes and fours… well, at a crucial and cuticle-biting moment I happened to shout: ‘I think we’ve lost.’ I was immediately hushed by a stranger by my side who hissed urgently: ‘Shut up. Such ominous words can get you lynched here. Thank your stars that no one really caught on to what you said.’ Cricket, in the sub-continent, isn’t just a craze. It’s a passion that is more powerful than the most deadly conflagration humanity has ever seen.

And for 2011, the scintilla has just hissed itself to frenzy with this tie. The World cup has truly arrived!

Statistics. This tie in this world cup has also awakened the statisticians and the factual reporters amongst us. Derek O’Brien informs us in his tweet that this is the “Fourth tie in a #worldcup match. 1999 SA versus Australia. 2003 SA versus Sri Lanka. 2007 Ireland versus Zimbabwe and 2011 Eng-Ind #cricket.” Patrix tweets an interesting statistical verity: “One day Zaheer Khan will tell his grandkids that he out-trended Beiber on Twitter for an hour.” Even Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted his concern: “dont forget, the indians ran one short on the last ball of their innings. cost them the match!” The actor Ranganathan Madhavan wrings his hands in mock distress when he talks about financial stats in his tweet: “Saala aise hi games hote rahe to meri film ki collection ki toe laag jaayegi.” Javed Akhtar has his own brand of information-soaked tweet for us all: “Sachin is unbelieveable his achievments are so mind-blowing they seem to be almost illogical.” Rajdeep Sardesai hit yet another tweet boundary when he said: “At least the world cup is alive and kicking. A few more games like this and we won’t need Sidhu for entertainment. gnight.”

Lets not forget that facts and stats are much more than being just information for intellectual titillation. They can create scandals, raise the RTI-activists from nowhere, and bring the sleuths sniffing hard. We have Faking News by kenghosh tweeting: “I demand a recounting of runs.” It’s fake and a joke, of-course. But how macabre, how black!!

However, the only fact that matters is that the World cup has truly arrived!

Tell me how many games are actively backed by celebrities? No, I don’t mean celebrities of the M S Gill sort; I mean those who have Minisha, Konkana, Riteish Vivek, Amitabh, Chetan, and Mahesh in their names. Thus we have a miserly tie prodding the beautiful Minissha Lamba to tweet: “Eng Vs Ind, has a full on Bollywood-style-nail-biting climax!! What a way to spend sunday…Though it wud have been GREAT if India won!” Konkona Sensharma creating melodrama without a single superfluous gesture or wave or flutter: “A TIE! After the whole day it’s a TIE?!!” Ranvir Shorey spicing up Konkana’s sedate appearance by tweeting: “Fuckatie. Goodbye!”

Chetan Bhagat too creates another pulp history by tweeting: “Great game and all is fine, but sorry, world champions don’t do a tie after making 338 against England bowlers. c’mon!” Well, anybody could’ve written that tweet. But then, many people say that anybody could’ve written any of his books!

So yes, a “dull World Cup has just come alive…” (Reitesh Deshmukh). Well, what else am I saying all this while? The World cup has truly arrived!

So, should we celebrate or mourn a tie? Who was gutted and who was relieved? Do triumphs happen because fans want them to be? Do moments unfold according to what has been willed through a mere tweet? Should a mere game be linked to mimicry of despair or the aggressive and rhythmic gyrations of victory expressions? Pablo Picasso wrote: “Everything you can imagine is real.” Well, in the case of cricket in India, we always like to imagine that we will win the world cup. Even Amitabh Bachchan lets us know through his tweet that he agrees: “T 292 -WHEEEEWWWW !! Can breathe now! What a game! A tie in a one day 50 over game ! But have to say… we let it go, should have won!”

The excitement is visible, audible, and discernible… the World cup has truly arrived!

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© Arvind Passey
28 February 2011