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What do you call a disaster that runs through humanity and carries out mass annihilation? A cataclysm? Well, this is more than that. A devastation that’s gaining momentum each passing day, ruining religion, spreading blasphemy, disillusioning devotees, and demolishing the image of deities. An epidemic of the worst nature, this is, perhaps, the beginning of the end – the much-feared apocalypse.
I was four when the 2000-01 saga rocked the cricketing world. I had, at that point of time, as much sense as to understand not a single piece of the storm that ravaged nations. Precisely thirteen years later (notice the irony of the number), the storm has returned. The playwrights have changed, the theatre has altered, the drama is the same, and the spectators are same. And the theme is tragic once more – horror, shock, crisis, perplexity, punishment and then once again back to laissez faire.
Having grown up watching and admiring the Dravids, Laxmans, Sachins and Laras, I have remained curtained away from the austerity and malice that the once-sport-now-my-religion offers. The elegance of cover drives, the wit behind googlies, the delicate expertise behind surgical leg-glances and the accuracy of the yorkers enchanted me to believe in the goodness of the sport. The gentleman’s game presented itself as the highest echelon of honesty and integrity, and the conviction that nothing can be bad in cricket gradually established its roots inside me. Now, as my beloved faces the crisis of her life, I wonder, was it my ignorance or just plain stupidity that steered me into believing in the all-whiteness of the sport? Or was it simply the innocence of a believer?
An emotional world doesn’t accept practical reality. When the pain of betrayal sweeps your heart, it leaves you numb. The scars left are permanent, yet the soreness can be soothed. When something as dear as cricket mocks your devotion in the face, few things, words or actions can alleviate the wounds.
Today, the simple cricket fan’s belief in his religion has been shaken to its core. He has been left weeping by the appalling disclosures of deceit and treachery. In these grave hours of concern, I had been expecting eagerly to hear as much from the Indian skipper as from our God – Sachin Tendulkar.
Promoting yourself up the order in a World Cup final, gambling when the stakes had been incredibly high, taking the blame when the whole team had failed miserably – you’ve never been a coward, MSD. The calm disposition, the composed mind – you have always led from the front. Then why? Why did you stay mum when we needed your words the most? 1.2 billion pairs of eyes were focused on you when you took the seat in the press conference. Sure, you were gagged by your boss, but certainly a word or two wouldn’t have hurt. Your silence did, Mahi. You are our leader, the chief whom we shall fall back upon in such circumstances. We need a glint of optimism, Mahi, we need you to restore our faith. We need you, Sachin, to remind us that the game you’ve worshipped for two decades is still clean. We aren’t telling you to remove the stain, we are sure that’ll be done in due time (really?), we just require your assurance to re-establish the lost trust and confidence in our religion.
Forgive me, Mr. Srinivasan, I know I’m too unadorned to pass a remark at you. But your actions in the last couple of weeks have been extremely disappointing and unacceptable. You may have ‘blessed’ MSD with his position even after the 0-8 debacle, but does this sanction you absolute, manual control over his actions and speech? You have let down your followers (if ever there had been any), incensed your critics, and exasperated a billion cricket lovers. I do not posses the requisite qualifications to take a call on your stepping down, but I must mention one thing. Don’t you realize that your obstinacy is actually reflecting your self-interest and desperation to hold on to your post? “Retiring with the head held high” is an old adage in cricket, but then again, how much are you actually interested in cricket?
Morality is at its nadir now and calling cricket the “gentleman’s game” will be a direct disgrace to the meaning of the term. The sport has been humiliated, stripped naked and raped in public, its dignity has been shattered like fragile pieces of thin glass. Cricket has lost followers overnight; a few believers, like me, still continue to linger on. My religion has been insulted and I’m one of those ashamed, helpless witnesses of profanity. I am powerless, a simple common aficionado, who is too feeble to condemn those debauchers destroying the sport.
Like an arrow that tears through your heart, cricket has been ripped apart. Faith and credibility have been left staggered, yet cricket hasn’t been murdered. Cricket will live, as it always has. The foundation that had been laid in our hearts is too deep to uproot, cricket has long merged with our blood. We’ll be devotees, believers as before, fanatics till death. Because, after all, cricket is our religion.
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