On Cricket, and being away from it

I don't think I am going to get any work done the next three weeks.

I have been sleeping at 6- 7 in the morning, missing morning lectures and reading the reaction of the press the first thing whenever I get up. Even a New York autumn cannot appease this quirk of mine, and get me moving around.

It's the cricket, stupid.

India won the last Test in Mohali the other day. Some have rushed to call it the tipping point, equivalent to the napoleonic Waterloo of the great Australian side of the late 90's and most of this decade.

Obviously still being haunted by that Ricky Ponting century in the 2003 Jo' Burg Word Cup final or Damien Martyn taking the test to a draw in Chennai in 2004/05 and the series with it, I would hesitate to give my verdict till the Tests at New Delhi and Nagpur happen. And ask the English about the wounded Aussie. That 5- 0 drubbing in Australia must still rankle hard.

But it's difficult to be in New York. Nobody just gets it here. My Los Angeles roommate struggles to understand how I can follow sport without live broadcast, but still sit through the entire night staring at the computer screen, the cursor always on the refresh button.

And worse, I am addicted to this over- by- over coverage. Reality can be sometimes ugly, but the written word is open for manipulation. Because unlike live broadcast nothing is shown to you, in your mind the ugly gets edited, and the beautiful reinforced. Sachin Tendulkar can be forever 24. And even though Harbhajan might have got someone bowled someone out with an uncharacteristically flat one, you can imagine his fingers ripping through a nice loopy delivery drifting in through the gate beating the batsman in his drive. For example:

21:13: The pitch is like a minefield at the moment. Well, the Indian bowlers are making it look like one. Mishra and Singh turning the ball prodigiously.

(My mind lets the imagination loose. A fourth day subcontinent track, complete with puffing dust and widening cracks. Harbhajan landing them right outside the off with a rookie Haddin. Vicious turn, ooh's and aah's from Dravid in the slip cordon..)

21:15: FOUR. At last, Haddin finds the middle of the bat and his cover drive finds the boundary. It's 5-81 at drinks.

(Fuck Harbhajan. Must have let one slip too straight and flat for his own damn good)

If staying up all night ain't enough, getting up the next afternoon only to find myself browsing through the morning press world over for the reaction to the days play can literally be a bit much. But why does it have to be the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and Hindustan Times telling me the same thing. Maybe a li'l much, but Cricket allows you that.

No, Cricket needs that. And I ain't even starting on Cricinfo.

One day we will grow up and be able to afford the Cricket beamed live to our TV sets in Manhattan, or wherever we might be. But nothing like to sit in a lecture when the Professor is talking about the Battle of Stalingrad for the sixth lecture in a row and the rest of your generation relegated to something as mundane as Facebook, knowing that you are far away, in fields afar, in that little world that is forever going to be yours.

If you make it to the lecture though.

Thank You, Darren Gough.

There are times in your life when you do look back. And as Darren Gough calls for the end of his professional cricketing career, this has to be one of those moments.

To my favorite cricketer, my idea of boyish charm and an absolute childhood hero, The Antifits raises a toast to the English and Yorkshire fast bowler, Darren Gough.



Rob Smyth writes in the Wisden Cricketer:

"Perhaps Gough is seen as too frivolous a character, or someone whose love of a beer and a good time might not set the best example. Perhaps Warne is seen as being of quintessentially Australian stock, whereas in this country Gough is seen as simple folk, somebody who excelled but was not always entirely sure why. Either way, it is nonsense. Like Warne, Gough is blessed with a quite brilliant game intelligence, one that England would be foolish to ignore in years to come. For now, however, we should raise a glass or 12 to the sort of bowler we won’t see it again in a hurry."

Also, read Rob Bagchi's tribute in today's Guardian here.

I dug up some 2003 archives for more Darren Gough material around the time when he retired from test cricket. On August 5, 2003 Andrew Miller in Cricinfo tracked the highs and lows of Darren Gough's Test career. Hear what the likes of Dickie Bird, Ray Illingworth and Bob Willis had to say about his test retirement. "They paid him the highest compliment possible when they said he played the game like an Australian." Read the Aussie perspective by David Wiseman here after Goughie's test retirement on August 11, 2003.

And for those of you who have no idea I am talking about, his wikipedia page would not be a bad idea.

Damn Gough, thank you for all those years when I was a kid, and you were everything I wanted to be.