Sportive spirit

 While watching cricket matches, especially when it is between archrivals like Australia and England or India and Pakistan, I have noticed that the surrounding gets hot. Both the teams and their fans get engaged in the match so intensely that the fun of the game disappears. I always thought that the players must not be on talking terms.

Recently, when a famous reality show on Indian television channel featured former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar and Virendra Sehwag, an aggressive right-handed batsman, I thought that serious talks will start very soon and it would be pretty boring.

But once they started sharing their experiences, I was surprised to know that they share light moments with their rivals on and off the field.

Gavaskar recalled an incident when Javed Miandad, a former Pakistani captain and leading run scorer in Test matches, was facing one of India’s extraordinary bowlers. He knew that this bowler can be a hard one to face. He came up with an idea. After each ball he started asking the bowler his room number.

The bowler got nervous and asked Miandad why was he asking that.

He replied, “I want to hit a six to your hotel room.”

On another occasion, Kapil Dev, who won India the first World Cup, was the guest. Going by his persona, I always thought he must be very serious off-field too. But once he started narrating one incident after another, he made us laugh our heart out. Even the serious situation before his historic knock of 175 runs during the 1983 World Cup seemed amusing.

Recalling his early days, Kapil said he was terrified during his first tour to Australia as he was not at ease with their accent and he had seen an Australian bowler who was terrific and had sent many to hospital.

In the evening, when he boarded a taxi, the taxi driver asked, “You have come here to die?”

Kapil Dev replied, “No, I have come to live. I have come to play cricket and I am not scared of that bowler.”

He felt embarrassed when another teammate explained that the driver had asked, “You have come here today?”
(Published in The Gulf Today on May 31, 2014)