India loves Cricket

But not All India loves All Cricket

    Whisper it, but it’s not completely true that India is ‘obsessed’ with cricket. There are hundreds of millions of its citizens who not only don’t care but who don’t even know what it is. You may believe that the country of India grinds to a halt when the national team is playing, but that is not true.

    Many of Mumbai’s residents in the region where I’m staying had more important things to worry about than the World Cup final. I won’t bore you with the details, but stuff like eating and not being run over on the roads they sleep on.

    It’s not just South Africa’s loss in the semi-final which leaves me perplexed, it’s the enormity of the game beyond the contest between bat and ball. It’s an industry which extends so far beyond mere ‘industry’ that it reaches into global, economic power.

    Narendra Modi is already one of the three most powerful men on earth which places his right-hand man, Amit Shah, amongst the top-ten. Ajah Shah, who runs Indian cricket through the BCCI, is Amit’s son. They are both unusually talented businessmen, but the query about coincidence and nepotism is an obvious one.

Cricket is a lovely game with plenty of nuance and character-building fibre, but it also generates billions of dollars which cannot easily be disassociated with political power and global influence. It’s all so far above my head and pay grade that the easy option is to wave it away and move on to the next job. But that happens to be India’s tour of South Africa. A tour that is intrinsic to the financial survival of the game in South Africa, as we know it, for the next four years. Until India tour again.

    Whether we acknowledge it, or even know it, we all live in hope (and need) that the dictator is a benevolent one, and remains so.

When Pat Cummins chose to bowl first in the World Cup final, the questions about his motives were not just sarcastic or facetious. India wanted to bat first and Australia have a better record batting first so it was an interesting choice. Fortunately, a brilliant performance from the Australians, and the result, nipped conspiracy theories in the bud. For now…

    Did you know that the construction price of a small hotel can be cut by up to 20% if it has no windows? This I discovered yesterday evening when I asked our proprietor, Ishan, whether I could change my room to one with some daylight. “No window rooms in this hotel, sir,” he replied with a cheeky smile. A Google article did the rest. Not many shortcuts are ignored in pursuit of revenue maximisation in India. Still, as Ishan explained, “Most people only stay one night” in an Airport hotel. I feel like my skin is turning translucent on my second night.  

    Ishan watched the cricket on his phone behind the reception desk, subtly. Pausing only to answer queries when there was an important DRS decision happening. I enquired about toilet paper at one such moment and was reminded ‘…there is hose in the bathroom.” Which there is, indeed. But no practical operating manual. I’ve given up on spraying my leftovers to the wrong parts of the bathroom.

    Some of the South African players are still here. They leave in dribs and drabs depending on Business Class availability. Some get to stay an extra three days in glorious Kolkata, waiting for their lie-flat bed. I took the calculated gamble to move my seat from 27g to 41g because there were two empty seats next to me. The meal might arrive a bit later but the half-chance of a half lie-down if nobody turns up in the middle seats.

    Modi and the Shas face a similar conundrum every time they fly. The 737, the 767, the A320 – they all have plusses and minuses, double beds with private en-suites and those with shared flushers and showers.

Cricket casts its net far and wide over its followers but the very vast majority are cast back into the ocean to fend for themselves. Depending on how much they actually wanted to be in Modi’s giant bowl today, they may have fended very well. Some tickets were being sold for 50 times their face value.