Fanfare For The Common Man

Finally! Something to cheer about for the common man. After months and months of muck, scams by politicians, businessmen and the media the Indian victory in the Cricket world cup is a bright and spectacular achievement. One can anticipate the media will drool over this for days to come but what a relief not to see filthy politicians from different ends of the spectrum trading blows on your screen for at least a week or so.

There is a great change from the scenes on June 25, 1983. People were out all night then too in celebration. I particularly remember a shirtless spectator escorting Andy Roberts from the middle to the pavilion when he was out. This was played out on the streets by many fans celebrating through the night where I was. Back then the celebrating crowd was mostly made up of teenagers and above. In 2011 the crowd included juniors as young as 5 or 6. Such is the tremendous impact the exposure to cricket has had. In comparison there were also more cars honking this time.

Should there be changes in the future? Yes! We surely don’t need a world cup lasting 42 days. That is absolute nonsense. For a tournament comprising 14 teams (at least 6 of which are not really regular teams) this could be done within three weeks, or even less,  instead. The greatest things come in short bursts. For one, even the real world cup, the football world cup, used to be done in 15 days till the early 1990s till the full commercialisation started. The number of teams in the FIFA world cup went up from 24 to 32. Still for a game that is played across the globe the FIFA cup still finishes in a month or less. There is no sense in 42 days of cricket world cup.

The only thing I do feel bad about is our Indian team receiving the cup from someone like Sharad Pawar. I cannot speak for the team but surely they deserved to receive it from someone really great instead of a petty politician whose integrity has always been in question. Maybe even Clive Lloyd, who was present there, would have been a better presenter.

The flowers from the celebration have not yet withered. And today we are already back to the 2G hearings by the PAC. CBI being accused of a bad job and, of course, elections. And most of all there is some controversy on the Cup received by the Indian team being a replica. We are back in business already.

Life goes on!