Last week, in a situation hitherto unknown to world cricket, the West Indies team touring India decided to leave mid- way through the tour with a few apologies. Something to do with not being paid enough (or at all). So, like 1980’s mill workers in a Bollywood movie (any Amitabh Bachchan father character), they said, hell with it, I’m not working.
It is quite brilliant (and very funny, although not to the players), that a labor union struggle has moved into a cricket stadium. It is logical. Factory workers express their rights in their place of work and stop fixing bolts in a car. Sportspeople can only revolt in their factory ‒ the field. That they didn’t hold up placards with photos of Mao and Che Guevara singing We Shall Overcome and go on strike mid-third over is, I suppose, a blessing. Not knowing the inner goings on of the West Indian cricket board, Indian fans could perhaps interpret it as, "Wow, they dislike Dhoni this much?"
It could set an odd precedent in world sport. Some Chelsea striker or Real Madrid center forward, could, in their respective club leagues, choose to freeze mid-attack on the goal, and say he’d only carry on if his contract was re-negotiated. Or an Olympic athlete could in the 100 meters dash, choose to run in the opposite direction to his competitors to express unhappiness over his incremental bonus. Or a Libyan gymnast could say, "Right, I am not getting down from these ropes unless I am given asylum in Europe." The can of worms now stands open.
Paying their own way
And in latest news, it appears the West Indies players will have to pay their own way back home. Which can be annoying if you are, say a West Indian off-spinner who didn’t particularly want to come to India mid-October and have to explain to your wife why your Hawaii vacation money was spent on flying home from a business trip. Not to mention having to probably pay for your own deuce ball to spin at Indians.
I grew up in a world where cricket meant only one thing. The West Indies. The greatest batting line up the world had ever seen/ will ever see (Haynes, Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Richie Richardson, the messiah Vivian Richards) and a bowling attack that led to a development of a new generation of helmets just to stop it (Marshall, Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding who was so quick that his delivery was called "the whisper of death").
Hard to imagine that team that invoked menace and respect for two decades having to see if their buy-one-get-one-free ticket offer will allow them to fly somewhere so they can be a touring ICC Test nation.
Let's football
Which is just as well that last week, a lot of Indian billionaires, sportspeople and movie stars (I should have just said "billionaires" because it is the same thing) got together, danced on TV and told us, "India, let’s football."
It was the start of the India Super League, a laudable effort that hopes to find us a World Cup-worthy football team for anyone who wonders, "This is the, um, World Cup. Where are India and China ‒ one-sixth of the world?" The answer of course is not there ‒ because they didn’t qualify. That's what the ISL hopes to change.
So now we have football league aims to rival the English Premier League or La Liga and remove the notion that football is only played by a bunch of Euro-centric Bob Dylan-listening sporting snobs while everybody in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh ponders, "What are the hell are those people doing running back and forth with that huge ball on such a big field taking it away from that person? Why don’t they just return it to whoever it belongs to."
Buying a team
And to that cause, anyone who can has bought a team. The actors John Abraham and Ranbir Kapoor have one each. The cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his friend Saurav Ganguly have one each. The Bachchans one. It seems so many people are involved in the cause of trying to get us to the World Cup that we aren’t far from a time when the South Kerala Carrom Association or the Retired Widows Bridge Society of Greater Udaipur crowd funds and buys a tea
Every other team has a crazy name. Delhi Dynamos, Kerala Blasters (sounds like a mining company), North East United (sounds like an army battalion) etc. Only Kolkata, with its passion for South American soccer, is called Atlético de Kolkata. It is the only place in the world where the relatively crazy Diego Maradona visited and said, "Get me out of here, this place is crazy" (when a naked fan started chasing his bus). I cannot wait to go watch a game at The Salt Lake D’ Stadium and grab a bocadillo (snack in Spanish) from the Lionel D’ Messi Bengali Roshogolla shop.
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It is quite brilliant (and very funny, although not to the players), that a labor union struggle has moved into a cricket stadium. It is logical. Factory workers express their rights in their place of work and stop fixing bolts in a car. Sportspeople can only revolt in their factory ‒ the field. That they didn’t hold up placards with photos of Mao and Che Guevara singing We Shall Overcome and go on strike mid-third over is, I suppose, a blessing. Not knowing the inner goings on of the West Indian cricket board, Indian fans could perhaps interpret it as, "Wow, they dislike Dhoni this much?"
It could set an odd precedent in world sport. Some Chelsea striker or Real Madrid center forward, could, in their respective club leagues, choose to freeze mid-attack on the goal, and say he’d only carry on if his contract was re-negotiated. Or an Olympic athlete could in the 100 meters dash, choose to run in the opposite direction to his competitors to express unhappiness over his incremental bonus. Or a Libyan gymnast could say, "Right, I am not getting down from these ropes unless I am given asylum in Europe." The can of worms now stands open.
Paying their own way
And in latest news, it appears the West Indies players will have to pay their own way back home. Which can be annoying if you are, say a West Indian off-spinner who didn’t particularly want to come to India mid-October and have to explain to your wife why your Hawaii vacation money was spent on flying home from a business trip. Not to mention having to probably pay for your own deuce ball to spin at Indians.
I grew up in a world where cricket meant only one thing. The West Indies. The greatest batting line up the world had ever seen/ will ever see (Haynes, Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Richie Richardson, the messiah Vivian Richards) and a bowling attack that led to a development of a new generation of helmets just to stop it (Marshall, Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding who was so quick that his delivery was called "the whisper of death").
Hard to imagine that team that invoked menace and respect for two decades having to see if their buy-one-get-one-free ticket offer will allow them to fly somewhere so they can be a touring ICC Test nation.
Let's football
Which is just as well that last week, a lot of Indian billionaires, sportspeople and movie stars (I should have just said "billionaires" because it is the same thing) got together, danced on TV and told us, "India, let’s football."
It was the start of the India Super League, a laudable effort that hopes to find us a World Cup-worthy football team for anyone who wonders, "This is the, um, World Cup. Where are India and China ‒ one-sixth of the world?" The answer of course is not there ‒ because they didn’t qualify. That's what the ISL hopes to change.
So now we have football league aims to rival the English Premier League or La Liga and remove the notion that football is only played by a bunch of Euro-centric Bob Dylan-listening sporting snobs while everybody in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh ponders, "What are the hell are those people doing running back and forth with that huge ball on such a big field taking it away from that person? Why don’t they just return it to whoever it belongs to."
Buying a team
And to that cause, anyone who can has bought a team. The actors John Abraham and Ranbir Kapoor have one each. The cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his friend Saurav Ganguly have one each. The Bachchans one. It seems so many people are involved in the cause of trying to get us to the World Cup that we aren’t far from a time when the South Kerala Carrom Association or the Retired Widows Bridge Society of Greater Udaipur crowd funds and buys a tea
Every other team has a crazy name. Delhi Dynamos, Kerala Blasters (sounds like a mining company), North East United (sounds like an army battalion) etc. Only Kolkata, with its passion for South American soccer, is called Atlético de Kolkata. It is the only place in the world where the relatively crazy Diego Maradona visited and said, "Get me out of here, this place is crazy" (when a naked fan started chasing his bus). I cannot wait to go watch a game at The Salt Lake D’ Stadium and grab a bocadillo (snack in Spanish) from the Lionel D’ Messi Bengali Roshogolla shop.