Cricket is my favourite game. In school at St. George's College, Mussoorie, I was as feared a left-arm demon bowler as Bedi has been on the international scene. I followed the doings of the great Bradman, Hutton, and Denis Compton with a diligence that few could match. We kept scrapbooks of the pictures of all the great ones of the time.
I have continued to watch and enjoy cricket, seeing the odd test match for a day or two whenever possible. I keep track of the scores in the main series being played around the world. In England in 1974-75, I made it a point to see a bit of the first World Cup cricket and the Australians at Lords.
All this notwithstanding, my mind tells me that there is much in Swami Agnivesh's arguments. It is not fair to dismiss the question raised by him in the summary manner that it has been. A sport is played for exercise, and for a pleasant diversion from the daily routine. An hour of hockey or football, a mere 20 minutes of squash, and perhaps 10 minutes of running, are more than enough. Even for the spectator, a World Cup football match of 90 minutes can produce enough delirious excitement to last one for weeks. It is only in cricket that the game goes on for a whole week, and at the end of it all there is one more, pointless and tame draw. Countries that have the money to afford such unlimited leisure can perhaps tolerate this game. Golf is another such luxury. It is interesting that these two games are played in a big way only in the West, and in countries like Australia and New Zealand. In Russia, for example, I saw no golf course.
Not many people play cricket in India, but when a test match comes around a hysteria grips the nation. All work comes to a standstill. Civil servants, Cabinet Ministers, Paan-walas and Rickshaw-pullers all sit glued to their transistors. I have seen a Union Cabinet Minister with a transistor to his ear, sitting solemnly in his office. On a visit to the Nicobar Islands, walking through a tribal village I was surprised to hear the familiar sing-song commentary of Jasdev Singh emanating from a hut built on bamboo stilts. As I peeped in, a young man grinned and shouted at me 'Redi has bowled him'. He had taken a week's holiday from fishing for the test!
Why does the country come to a stop when a test match is on? The fault, as Agnivesh says, lies with the Information Ministry. One may accept 50,000 people spending a week in idleness, watching a test match in the city where it is being played, but the commentary broadcast all through the day brings the whole country to a stop. It would be interesting to compute the number of man-hours' loss to the nation by the current West Indies tour. The return, even in terms of cricket, is precious little. In England, the home of cricket, the people take test matches in their stride. but most others carry on with their work. Some go to watch the match, There may be a comment or two on the day's scores in the pub over a glass of beer. That is about all. In any case, they show equal interest in all sports. But our people launch themselves into a nation-wide frenzy of idleness, the moment even the most mediocre of cricket teams lands in Bombay.
One more point. Because of the adulation and the publicity showered on cricket, the promotion of all other sports suffers. The gold-medal winners of Bangkok or those of Edmonton were given short shift on their return. A cup of tea with the Prime Minister was about all, whereas the likes of Gavaskar are like film stars. Even a hockey match finds few spectators, and practically nobody comes to watch athletics. Who then among our youngsters would want to take to these sports? Why should we crib about the poor standard in them, if we ourselves choose to ignore them and heap our affection on cricket only? After all, national adulation is perhaps the main motivation, along with money, for youngsters to take to a sport and to persevere in it.
This week the test match is on. At the same time, the Punjab Olympics were being held after a gap of 10 years at Sangrur. The results were published in the papers, but that was about all. The performances generally went unnoticed. There was little encouragement to budding youngsters though there were many. I would only mention Prem Singh, a youngster from a poor Sangrur family, who won all the long races, breaking a number of records.
In fact, I would term the sports page of our papers the cricket page. The main story starting from the front page – and this is never done for any other game – taking up most of the sports page, has been on the Kanpur Test. A couple of columns each to report extensively the Pakistan New Zealand test, the perpetual Packer series, the Pakistan-India colts test, and the Ranji's Trophy matches, leaves little or no space for other games.
Even if no one else agrees with Swami Agnivesh, he has support in George Bernard Shaw, but what causes concern is not the playing of cricket by 'twenty-two flannelled fools' but the behaviour of six-hundred million Dhoti and Pajama clad ones.
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